I’m a big fan of Beulah, particularly their final album, Yoko. All this time (a year or so) that I’ve been listening to it, I never noticed anything amiss. Then I was at work and I didn’t have access to the hard drive with my Beulah MP3s on it, so I just downloaded Yoko again. Started listening… WTF is up with this mix? Is this some remix? Did some Googling and found out that nope… What I’ve been listening to lo these many months has been not “Yoko” but “The Yoko Demos” CD that Beulah sold on their last tour. Whoops! Anyway, the tracks are all the same (plus a couple new verses) and honestly there was nothing really “lacking” from the production of the demos. That being said, these new mixes that I have now are a little bit more multilayered and cool. Particularly some of my favorite songs which are kind of slower and more atmospheric. In honor of my disillusionment, here are a couple of my favorite Beulah songs:
Something about the metaphor and syntax in these tracks strikes me as being just about perfect. From “A Man Like Me”:
I’ve been waiting all night long,
I’ve been waiting to sing your song,
Tonight, if you help me,
Just help me find your key.
I run my hands down your neck,
Across your back to another fret,
I know you’re fragile, bound to self destruct…
And “Hovering”:
Watching the planes land over the bay
I wish they could hang in the air forever
holding the patterns for days
I hope they
Will be delayed forever
…
And when she lands
I race for the crashing ground
The oxygen from the mask
That only words I let pass
I never meant to clip your pretty wings
And while we’re busy posting lyrics (God, this should really go on Myspace or last.fm, right? =P) here is this one bit from a Saturday Looks Good to Me song that I also really like the meter of:
I hear your conversations with your boring friends; You know it doesn’t matter what you’re telling them And you’ll be sleeping over when the party ends And we’ll wake up tomorrow and we’ll start again And anything outside of that is just pretend And if you tell them different then you’re lyin’. The things that people say don’t make no difference Now we can talk it over or just go to bed Or we can go to all the places where the money’s spent And buy whatever new distractions that the suits invent. They know the demographic that we represent Because they heard all our secrets through the heating vent, So write another song about your discontent, Or wax nostalgic for a time less turbulent, With metaphors like closet doors that won’t open, And you can use your list of words that rhyme with opulent…But there isn’t any doctor or medicine That’s gonna make you feel less insignificant.