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Oh, I love it. Particularly the one you single out, Cameron, 'Wickerman' - I particularly love the very Tindersticks-like close, with the strings coming in and the pace building up and up - great stuff.
Other favourites: I like the two parts of 'Weeds' - I think it's a bit like a more mature, complicated, possibly less optimistic take on 'Mis-Shapes'... Jarvis has seen now the way that the haves feed off the culture of the have-nots, the way the mainstream recuperates the weirdos, and he writes about that in a way few songwriters can. Has possibly the best line of album: "Go on, do your funny... little... dance!"
I love the way that various themes are repeated, too - the idea of finding solace in nature, obviously, but also, there's a lot of death on the album ('Minnie Timperly', 'The Trees', 'Roadkill'), and yet it's juxtaposed with the idea of rebirth, the circle of life if you will (do I sound like a wanker yet?). 'The Trees' in particular, aside from being one of the best tunes on the album, ties together the idea of decay/growth and dead relationships really nicely... I also love it for that moment where Jarvis sings "You try to shape the world to what you want the world to be!" with some desperation, and the familiar Britpop-sounding electric guitar comes in... quite a lot of this album makes me feel nostalgic in a poignant way... sad I know. It's also quite telling that 'I Love Life', which should be the most outright happy song on the album, has the darkest, nastiest sound at the end...
This is definitely their "light at the end of the tunnel" record, after the bleak, slightly hollow last one (which was partly *about* being successful but miserable, but still sounded a bit too much like what it was describing, in a bad way, if that makes any sense). After hitting rock bottom, they've got out of the city and got some fresh air... I thinkj We Love Life is probably better than its predecessor, although whether anything will ever be better than Different Class, I don't know.
'Bob Lind' is interesting because it covers some of the same ideas, but could almost fit on This Is Hardcore - as could 'Bad Cover Version', which is kind of out-of-sync with the rest of the record, except that it's about breaking up again, but it's got some killer Cocker couplets (tm) at the end:
"It's like a late Tom and Jerry
When the two of them could talk
Like the Stones since the Eighties..." etc.
And 'Birds In Your Garden' may be my favourite - really atmospheric and actually quite rousing, almost anthemic... Plus nice play on idea of "doing what comes natural"... And it's just a great image, you know? Jarvis stumbles out into the back garden of his girlfriend's house for a fag at 6am, and then the birds tell him, in song, that he should go back in there and shag her. All right.
God, I love this band. |
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