You’d think that people would have had enough of silly love songs. Courtney Barnett sees it isn’t so.
“I think my stance in the past was like, ‘There’s so many love songs and they don’t mean anything,’ but there’s something really special about zooming in on a moment and capturing it,” Barnett says. “‘If I Don’t Hear From You Tonight’ comes from the state of where my head was at — trying to communicate honestly instead of keeping [my feelings] guarded.”
What’s wrong with that?
And it’s so quiet outside
With this curfew lullaby
Is now an okay time to
Tell you that I like you?
Wow, this is the most poppy song Courtney Barnett has released in a while! I love her tossed-off slacker drawl, but it’s fun to hear her do something more upbeat. And who doesn’t love twin-guitar harmonies?
Of course the lyrics are still dark, but that’s okay.
Sit beside me, watch the world burn,
We’ll never learn we don’t deserve nice things.
And we’ll scream, self-righteously,
We did our best but what does that even mean?
I wonder if this video will inspire anybody to send some mail to a friend. Hope so.
Barnett says, “I found a deeper communication with people in my life – deeper conversations. And a new level of gratitude for friendships that had been there for so long that I had maybe taken for granted.”
Don’t take your friendships for granted, people. Send your friends some mail!
Does anybody else do post-millennial slacker style better than Courtney Barnett? She’s so laid back, she might tip over. And yet she’s still groovy. And clever. It’s a combination that works great: Calming and hypnotic without being boring.
Don’t you know I’m not your enemy, maybe let’s cut out caffeine.
Tomorrow’s too late to reminisce, call me when you get this.
Barnett says, “This video was filmed in Titirangi, Tatarata, Taiorahi and Waitakere in Tamaki Makaurau, Aotearoa (New Zealand) and at various locations on the beautiful lands of the Wathaurong/Wadawurrung, Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin nation around Victoria, Australia. I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands and pay respect to Elders past and present.”
How did you spend your pandemic? Get anything productive done? Courtney Barnett spent hers writing and recording a new album.
She told Rolling Stone all about it. Instead of calling up her live bandmates to the studio, she and producer Stella Mozgawa played everything themselves utilizing the same lo-fi drum machines that Barnett had used on her demos: “It’s pretty much just us. It feels so alive to me, like it’s all happening at once.”
Barnett told Rolling Stone that lead single “Rae Street” started off as a writing exercise. “One day I made a list of all the phrases that I could remember my parents saying.” If that’s the case, her parents were pretty intense.
Shine those shoes and mow those lawns
Let’s get back to normal.
Lay it all on the table, you seem so stable
But you’re just hanging on.
Courtney Barnett is great. Leonard Cohen is great. What’s not to love?
Like many of Cohen’s best songs, “So Long, Marianne” makes longing feel palpable. And Barnett gets to the heart of that.
Your letters they all say that you’re beside me now
Then why do I feel alone?
I’m standing on a ledge and your fine spider web
Is fastening my ankle to a stone.
Marianne, of course, was a real person. Cohen met her on the Greek island of Hydra in 1960 after her husband had abandoned her and her infant son. She and Cohen stayed together throughout much of the decade and she inspired many of his songs.
On her deathbed in 2016 Cohen sent her a note that went viral after he died a few months later. “I’m just a little behind you, close enough to take your hand,” he wrote. “I’ve never forgotten your love and your beauty. But you know that.”
It’s kinda fun to hear S-K go full New Wave, but I think it works. And the sentiment is certainly irrefutable.
Everyone I know is tired
And everyone I know is wired
To machines, it’s obscene
I’ll just scream ’til it don’t hurt no more
I dig the lead guitar tone; sounds like the producer is loaning them her effects pedals, ha ha. Love the “oo ooo-wooo” background vocals too, embracing and twisting the classic girl group vibe.
Normally lyric videos are pretty lame, but this one is great. It has a story!
And how about the song? It’s been almost six months since we found out Sleater-Kinney was back in the studio and being produced by St. Vincent, and “Hurry On Home” was the worth the wait. It’s everything you could have hoped for in a collaboration like that.
And that’s not the only development in S-K news. Filthy Friends, Corin Tucker’s supergroup with Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey, has a new video as well. “Break Me” is a jangle pop classic with Tucker’s super dry vocals right up front in the mix. It’s fascinating (for nerds like me) to compare the way different collaborators bring out different elements in the sound.
Directed by Danny Cohen. Single out now on Milk! Records, Marathon Artists and Mom+Pop.
It’s been five or six years since I first heard “History Eraser” on satellite radio. That song immediately won me over and I’ve been following Courtney Barnett ever since. Her sardonic wit has grown darker over the years, which makes sense when you consider what the world looks like today compared to 2012 when she started releasing solo material.
I go to Loving Hut, I get my hair cut, I feel the same
I feel putrid, I’m getting used to it these days
No word on whether this is a standalone single or a preview of an upcoming album but Barnett will be touring nonstop through the summer, including a visit to Ann Arbor’s famed Hill Auditorium, hailed as a monument to perfect acoustics. She’s there on a Tuesday night so I probably won’t make it, but you should go! I saw Bruce Springsteen there on the Tom Joad Solo Acoustic tour, and it was a magical experience, even deep in the cheap seats.
Don’t want to bury the lede here so I’ll just point out that Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist has cut his hair since the last time I saw his hippie locks at Riot Fest in 2016. Phew!
But back to the new song…
Good old Zac Carper is back with another tale about his misspent youth and fragile psyche.
Well I’m cracking one open with the boys by myself
And everybody thinks that I need professional help
But I don’t wanna think about that anymore
And just because I woke up on someone’s floor
And asked, Who the fuck am I?
I didn’t know it felt good to cry
But before you get too nervous for him he asks, “Why does getting sober make you feel like a loner?”
The video features cameos of various punk rock celebrities imbibing their favorite beverages, inclding feat. No Parents, Criminal Hygiene, Danny Bengston (Together Pangea), Kelsey Reckling (and Bocky), Cadien (Twin Peaks), The Side Eyes, Benjamin Booker, Sunny War, Matthew Zuk, Brian Rodriguez, The Frights, No Win, John Doe and DJ Bonebrake (X), Tropa Magica, Zachary “Penske” Cox, Misses Joseph Herzog, Shelly Schimek, Nate Mercereau, Culture Abuse, Barbara (@poserfeel), Alice Baxley, SWMRS, The McGinnis Family, NOBRO, Dicky Presto, Jimmy Russo, Ronald Ray-Gun, FIDIOTS, Dune Rats, Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist (The Hives), Matt Caughthran (The Bronx), Dave Catching (Eagles of Death Metal), Jonah Ray and Taran Killam.
