A few more spins now. He played Honeybear when I saw him last. I wasn’t a big fan of it, but it’s much better on record thanks to some warm, lush instrumentation. I still don’t think it’s a great opener though. I’m not as big on Chateau Lobby as everyone else, but still a good tune. I really like the verse about staying in her bed, and the sunny horn break that follows.
True Affection remains easily my favourite song on the album. Josh Tillman said he was trying to tune a girl via text and email so the song had to be “synthetic and inorganic”
(this is a great read). It works so, so well. Smiling and Astride Me is another favourite. I am a huge fan of the oh oh ohs and the instrumentation underneath those, sort of like a darkly romantic take on The Beatles. A really satisfying song, it feels like there’s something at stake, which kind of belies the lyrics. Love the line “when you’re smiling and astride me / I can hardly believe I found you / and I’m terrified by that”, it taps well into that psuedo-fear of “what if I hadn’t found this?”
Thirsty Crow and Strange Encounter don’t do that much for me but the former gets by on its brilliantly acerbic lyrics and the latter has got some nice stuff going on musically, the drumming’s quite good. The Ideal Husband brings things right back though, it fucking rocks, particularly towards the end. Love it.
Bored in the USA I enjoy if I’m in the right mood. It doesn’t quite earn its run time, I find myself looking forward to the “useless education” line because I actually enjoy the laugh track.
Holy Shit is a really nice late-album tune, it’s quite light and sees Tillman sort of gets his Fitter Happier on. The last verse is beautiful. And I like Store One Day as well, it’s got a bit of a Nick Drake vibe to it. And I love that on a concept album that spends most of its time extolling how great his wife is, it finishes on this soft, slow, beautiful but ho-hum “seen you round / what’s your name”.
