Maybe you had to be there, in the 60s and 70s, USA, to remember verses like Simon & Garfunkel’s from “America”
Toss me a cigarette, I think there’s one in my raincoat
We smoked the last one an hour ago
So I looked at the scenery, she read her magazine
And the moon rose over an open field
Maybe those lyrics are tantalizing if you are 19-years old and stoned, but for me, today, just dealing with texting, appointments, traffic i.e. “real life” is so much more pressing than abstract, aimless, time-consuming laments.
HA! is the sensibility I bring to Manchester Orchestra’s “The Gold,” a song that’s charting top10 on the Album Alternative format, and performed by a group that a lot of other people think is great.
Here’s a verse:
I don’t wanna bark here anymore
Black hills, the colly
Wasn’t really dangerous for us
We just catch you coughing
What the hell are we gonna do?
A black mile to the surface
I don’t wanna be here anymore
It all tastes like poison
The whole song is like that; and how perfect is this: “The Gold” is 4 1/2 minutes long. It’s the 70s all over again.
I don’t mind being a club of one, and knowing that Boomer Music Update Curator Dave Sholin only selects the cream of the crop, if he suggests it, it’s quality, even if I don’t personally like his choice, which rarely happens.
Here are Dave’s exact words: “The Gold” demonstrates both brilliant musicianship and the ability to shape a sound and style that stands apart from most others in the rock genre. Driven by the lyric…
“I believed you were crazy” / You believed you loved me” (which I agree is brilliant)
…this Manchester Orchestra winner contains aural instrumental threads of the Simon & Garfunkel classic “America,” though each take very different directions when it comes to subject matter”.
Listen and decided for yourself.
Manchester Orchestra is from Atlanta.