Sunday, 12 December 2010

PAVEMENT – SHADY LANE (DOMINO)


PAVEMENT – SHADY LANE (DOMINO)

Riding a fine line between the country rock of “Range Life” and the laidback summer gestures of Wowee Zowee, “Shady Lane” is Pavement in post-whimsical mode.  It feels like the music equivalent of rowing a boat, the early licks inhabit gestures close to steering oars while Stephen Malkmus’ vocal assertions are akin to looking around and breathing in one’s surroundings ahead of expressing gratitude for the world around him.

“We went Dutch Dutch Dutch”.

While not being the most dynamic and exuberant of Pavement songs it does house some of my favourite Malkmus lines in: “you’re so beautiful to look at when you cry” and “you’ve been chosen as an extra in the movie adaptation of the sequence to your life”.  The latter line is quite the tongue twister for him to deliver while maintaining quite the flow.

I know exactly what is meant by saying there is beauty in crying.  Many years ago when I dated Bella, the first true loved of my life, I actually told her “I like it when you cry”.  Eleven years later a boss would give me the advice “never trust the tears of a woman” but in the meantime I would like to interpret/decode it as being a moment when she genuinely cared.

The seven inch was the version of the record to purchase because it came with “Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence” on the other side and their tribute/ode to REM, which originally/previously appeared on the No Alternative compilation that secretly housed a Nirvana track.  It’s a majestic fawn.

A casual stroll.

Thesaurus moment: perambulation.

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