FMS-Blog : The Wildly Whimsical, Mostly Musical WebLog
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Shins in Scrubs
Sometimes you hear a song that you can't help but be touched by. It might not have the most beautiful tune or the most amazing playing or even the most interesting lyrics but somehow it still manages to grab you.
I first heard New Slang by The Shins back in summer, in the movie Garden State, and experienced exactly this sensation: total awe in the sounds I heard coming from the television speakers in the house where my friend, Ed, lives. This music is just stunning; beautiful to the nth degree and yet I struggle to tell you why. Certainly, the opening is nothing special - a simple fade in of a relatively simple guitar riff (with percussion and vocal humming added as garnish). The lyrics, although carefully placed on and off the beats that you would normally expect each syllable to nestle in, are intriguing but they don't especially grab me:
Gold teeth and a curse for this town were all in my mouth.
Only, i don't know how they got out, dear.
Turn me back into the pet that i was when we met.
I was happier then with no mind-set.
And if you'd 'a took to me like
A gull takes to the wind.
Well, i'd 'a jumped from my tree
And i'd a danced like the king of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.
New slang when you notice the stripes, the dirt in your fries.
Hope it's right when you die, old and bony.
Dawn breaks like a bull through the hall,
Never should have called
But my head's to the wall and i'm lonely.
And if you'd 'a took to me like
A gull takes to the wind.
Well, i'd 'a jumped from my tree
And i'd a danced like the kind of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.
God speed all the bakers at dawn may they all cut their thumbs,
And bleed into their buns 'till they melt away.
I'm looking in on the good life i might be doomed never to find.
Without a trust or flaming fields am i too dumb to refine?
And if you'd 'a took to me like
Well i'd a danced like the queen of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.
The melody includes some nice glissando's that are common in the vocal style of James Mercer, the lead singer of The Shins, but is unremarkable if you discount this feature; Mercer has a really Morrissey-esque habit of understating the melodic line, which comes across well but wouldn't usually attract column inches in the musical press. The tempo is steady and nothing special happens with the tonality. There is a bit of a guitar solo but, again, this is very understated. So why did this song grab me with such potency? Perhaps it was its placement in the wonderful and moving film Garden State??
But, then, I heard it again this evening as it was used for the ending of an old episode of Scrubs. Now, any reader of this blog will know how much I also admire the genius of this programme, and particularly the way Zach Braff (John - J.D. - Dorian) and John McGinley (Doctor Perry Cox) weave their way through a brilliant script, but I didn't see most of this episode. What I experienced again could not have been my admiration for the programme's content projected onto a mildly soothing song. No, there is something about this tune that gets to me for reasons that I just can't explain by musical analysis.
These are exactly the stumbling blocks that pose a serious problem for those of us who believe that everything in this world can be explained through science... there are just two many things that pick holes in the argument, from the most heroic altruisms witnessed through history, to the way a moment in an otherwise plain song can rip a heart out.
I first heard New Slang by The Shins back in summer, in the movie Garden State, and experienced exactly this sensation: total awe in the sounds I heard coming from the television speakers in the house where my friend, Ed, lives. This music is just stunning; beautiful to the nth degree and yet I struggle to tell you why. Certainly, the opening is nothing special - a simple fade in of a relatively simple guitar riff (with percussion and vocal humming added as garnish). The lyrics, although carefully placed on and off the beats that you would normally expect each syllable to nestle in, are intriguing but they don't especially grab me:
Gold teeth and a curse for this town were all in my mouth.
Only, i don't know how they got out, dear.
Turn me back into the pet that i was when we met.
I was happier then with no mind-set.
And if you'd 'a took to me like
A gull takes to the wind.
Well, i'd 'a jumped from my tree
And i'd a danced like the king of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.
New slang when you notice the stripes, the dirt in your fries.
Hope it's right when you die, old and bony.
Dawn breaks like a bull through the hall,
Never should have called
But my head's to the wall and i'm lonely.
And if you'd 'a took to me like
A gull takes to the wind.
Well, i'd 'a jumped from my tree
And i'd a danced like the kind of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.
God speed all the bakers at dawn may they all cut their thumbs,
And bleed into their buns 'till they melt away.
I'm looking in on the good life i might be doomed never to find.
Without a trust or flaming fields am i too dumb to refine?
And if you'd 'a took to me like
Well i'd a danced like the queen of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.
The melody includes some nice glissando's that are common in the vocal style of James Mercer, the lead singer of The Shins, but is unremarkable if you discount this feature; Mercer has a really Morrissey-esque habit of understating the melodic line, which comes across well but wouldn't usually attract column inches in the musical press. The tempo is steady and nothing special happens with the tonality. There is a bit of a guitar solo but, again, this is very understated. So why did this song grab me with such potency? Perhaps it was its placement in the wonderful and moving film Garden State??
But, then, I heard it again this evening as it was used for the ending of an old episode of Scrubs. Now, any reader of this blog will know how much I also admire the genius of this programme, and particularly the way Zach Braff (John - J.D. - Dorian) and John McGinley (Doctor Perry Cox) weave their way through a brilliant script, but I didn't see most of this episode. What I experienced again could not have been my admiration for the programme's content projected onto a mildly soothing song. No, there is something about this tune that gets to me for reasons that I just can't explain by musical analysis.
These are exactly the stumbling blocks that pose a serious problem for those of us who believe that everything in this world can be explained through science... there are just two many things that pick holes in the argument, from the most heroic altruisms witnessed through history, to the way a moment in an otherwise plain song can rip a heart out.
