Digging In To Dig Out

Last week was another no bus week, so less writing time. Yesterday, the pattern-spotters among you may have noticed that there was no playlist post. Partly because it’s not clear that there’s any benefit in making them, and partly because I want to absorb some new music before returning to it.

I am trying to figure out how to synthesise a life in music, because it’s clear to me that the things which energise my spirit are music, writing, and care for others. Makes for a pretty grim CV, though, innit?

Instead of a proper independent, like, post, I am going to regurgitate an analysis I did the other day of Slender, Sad, and Sentimental by Josienne Clarke. This is representative of the kind of thing I might like to do more of. And in republishing here, I can fix at least one typo.

You can hear the song whilst watching a killer video by Alec Bowman here, then come back: https://youtu.be/3IeL5fuaeek

The song deviates from standard form and doesn’t follow the normal teleology of a pop+ song. Listening to it, you never have a chance to lull into that sweet spot of mindless head bobbing and wrong word singing along, and I wanted to see what’s going on to disrupt that.

Ala Three Ways of Reading a Detective Story or a Brahms Intermezzo, on first hearing, you don’t have any way of contextualising what you hear, so you have no choice but to accept it all on good faith. The song opens with a bouncy, rhythmic vocal line, creating our 1st expectation.

It enters as if a pickup on beat 3 of what we’re programmed to assume is a bar of 4. The first full bar, however, subverts that, as it’s 5/4. So, the first part of the form is like an offhand remark and a broken promise, lasting only 3 bars (5,4,4) (labelled Ø)

Then, we are met with the lyrical setting of the title, with the time remaining a stable 4/4 for 4 bars. Back on solid, programmed ground! Until we're not. (labelled A)

What I have labelled B should really be B¹ and B². It hits with more verve than the title line, and the percussive alliteration (poise, poetry, and pride) has more sonic oomph than its slithery counterpart, so it supports the feeling.

But yet again, what we are expecting to be a safe and steady ground is stripped away. There is a strong accent on beat 2 of the 2nd bar, which recalls the disorientation of the opening 5/4 bar, though here the time signature feels unchanged. Yet again, however, this is a temporary sense of understanding. At the third bar, we either have 4/4/4 or 4/2/6. Over the last 6 beats, there is a crescendo into B².

This is the next bait and switch, as it again seems to be initiating a forward drive, but disrupts it by shifting time signatures again (whether as a group of 6 or 4+2) before we come back to A.

At this point, we have literally no idea what is coming next, only that we are headed to a new section, because we've safely completed the Slender, Sad, and Sentimental section.

What follows (labelled C) is the most stable section thus far. The accompaniment changes, and the energy is lower than at Ø, which seems weird, as it’s like unwinding the pop song. At the end of the section, we get a the return of the large crescendo that joined B¹ to B², and it is supported by the genre-familiar building of a dominant-esque harmony with an ascending vocal arpeggiation, but something feels...off. I would need my headphones and a guitar/keyboard to figure out exactly what.

The good news is that our expectation is rewarded, as the build leads to the return of the B and A sections unchanged. So, we've finally cracked it!

WRONG.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG!

Because what follows doesn’t correlate with either of the options we know exist. (Ø, C). Not only that, but it abandons time and pulse, and adopts a different harmonic language. A brief reverie that ends with a slight pause before B and A return, unprepared. We don’t have the same customary transitional markers (the crescendo or a 2-beat suspension of pulse) that have guided us through the song to this point. Consequently, the arrival of the B section - remember, the punchier one? - is a bit jarring, especially on the first hearing.

This effect is intensified by the continued process of reducing energy in what would ostensibly be the verse sections. C was lower than Ø, and D lower than C. The effect of having the most forceful moment of the song follow the most placid is unsettling, and this is not helped by the fact that the song ends so abruptly thereafter. Because the A section was introduced in the manner that it was, it’s difficult to hear it as being final, so when the song ends, you’re left with a bit of WTF just happened?! to sift through.

Which is why I did this. It's an amazingly compact adventure, and it's practically experimental. At a minimum, it's hugely ambitious, because this entire thing transpires in an economical 2 minutes 30 seconds.

(I'm done now.)