6.16.2005
Do you have this album yet?
The Decemberists present "Piacaresque"
No? Then stop reading right now and buy it. Honestly. I got it this weekend because I couldn’t get 16 Military Wives out of my head, and I couldn’t find a decent mp3 anywhere. So I need to say to all you bastards that uploaded shitty copies of this song—thank you! This is by far the best album I’ve purchased this year.
My favorite songwriters don’t just write three-minutes of rhymes, they weave tales of ordinary lives made important by the mere fact that we are listening. Jimmy Webb made me care about a county lineman, Johnny Cash made me laugh at the antics of a boy named Sue, and now Colin Meloy makes me cry about poor, heartbroken Eli, the barrow boy. Meloy nails it when proclaims himself “a writer, a writer of fictions" in The Engine Driver (which, incidentally, alludes to Webb’s Wichita Lineman)—these aren’t mere pop songs, they are mini-epics that would make Kurt Weill proud.
I'm serious, if you haven't already, check it out. Here are few songs to whet your appetite:
The Soldiering Life
The Engine Driver
annamaria at 3:27 PM
