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User
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Last Active 10-23-20 2:50 pm
Joined 06-09-09
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| Music Snapshots Vol. 2
Music Snapshots is a series that focuses on specific moments/snippets in songs that I love, highlighting what makes them so special for me. Feel free to share your own favorite moments from songs you enjoy. | | 1 |  | First Aid Kit
The Lion's Roar
"Emmylou" (3:18-3:37 mark)
The chorus for "Emmylou" has always clung close to my heart because of the romanticism I feel towards the lyrics about a man and a woman singing a duet together, something I’ve secretly always wanted to do myself, so it’s always spoken to me for that alone. But as much as I love when the Söderberg sisters sing together, the most striking portion of the song, for me, comes right after the bridge, where Klara Söderberg performs a solo rendition of the chorus. The instrumentation turns into just the finger-picking of a guitar and there’s this tenderness, meekness and innocence within Klara’s voice that melts my heart every time I hear it. | | 2 |  | The Wedding Present
Bizarro
"Brassneck" (4:01 mark)
It’s very rare that I hear this happen, but sometimes one small word in a given lyric seems to convey so much and for me a great example comes towards the end of The Wedding Present’s opening song on Bizarro, “Brassneck,” when David Gedge sings “Please go whenever you prefer to.” I feel there’s so much conveyed in just one simple word, the “go” in that line. From a vocal inflection standpoint alone, it’s this almost breathless gasp, lacking any sort of conviction behind it, a subtle way of showing that he’s struggling with telling this person to leave. There’s this sense of dejection, this sort of defeatist attitude that’s being projected as the two former lovers within the song are clearly on different paths, one who is looking to move forward and the other trying to cling on to the past. It’s a moment you can easily gloss over within a great song like “Brassneck,” but for me it’s such an important point within the track. | | 3 |  | St. Paul and The Broken Bones
Half The City
"Call Me" (1:37 - 1:41 mark)
I was relistening to “Call Me” the other day and was kicking myself for not going to see St. Paul and the Broken Bones a few years ago when they came to Connecticut. I’m especially kicking myself because this song apparently closed the setlist for that night. The entire song is completely electric. The band gives a great, tight performance and Paul Janeway gives arguably one of my favorite vocal performances of the entire 2010s. I’ve always enjoyed when he adds a powerful rasp to his voice when he’s really going for certain notes and none come more emphatically during the bridge of “Call Me” when he screams “Let me, let me, let me hear you again!” after essentially pleading for his person of interest to call him, wanting to hear their voice again. There’s a certain fervor and passion displayed within this particular delivery that always induces chills for me. | | 4 |  | Father John Misty
Mahashmashana
“Mahashmashana" (7:29 - 7:35 and 8:01 - 8:16 marks)
My adoration for the title track off Father John Misty’s latest caught me off guard given how long the song is (over nine minutes) combined with the fact that I’ve never considered myself a fan of his music up to this point. I’ve met critical darlings like I Love You, Honeybear and Pure Comedy with tepid reception, finding them either trite or too pretentious for their own good. However, there’s no denying that “Mahashmashana” is a lovely epic whose true magic reveals itself in the final leg of the song. Even though you can hear the surrounding instrumentation become increasingly louder with each passing chorus throughout the song, this does little to prepare you for the blaring of the saxophone and the accompanying strings on the outro that are downright glorious to the ears. It feels like the skies open up and you’re momentarily levitating to a higher plane. | | 5 |  | Burial
Untrue
"In McDonald’s" (1:02 - 1:22 mark)
“In McDonalds” is essentially devoid of any beat whatsoever compared to the cacophonous sound of a song like "Archangel," opting for a more expansive, spacey tone that worms its way into your psyche with what almost sounds like a ghostly moan that mutates into this more archaic, icy piano line. There are only two lines (well really three, but one line is repeated) of lyrics in here, the first one being “’Cause at once upon a time it was you who I adored.” I love everything about this entire passage of the song: the innocence and the heartbreak conveyed within the vocal snippet, that faint sound of a train door opening, the warble of the reverb allows the weight of this lyric to hang out in the open and makes the weight of this line all the more palpable. It feels like an entire story told in one line. | | 6 |  | Tame Impala
Currents
"The Less I Know the Better" (2:37 - 3:10 mark)
If I had had control of the DJ booth back when I went out on weekends with friends after I graduated from college, this is the type of song I would’ve played during that time of the night where people started dancing instead of the hodgepodge of commercial radio stuff that was normally blasting through the speakers. It’s hard not to be hooked in by the groovy bassline and the danceable yet psychedelic feel of it. I personally find the bridge of “The Less I Know the Better” to be the grooviest part of the song and even though it has this lyrical content that I would say I’ve identified with during my life, this portion of the song always seems to elevate my mood. I can really feel the endorphins kicking in when the song gets to this part and I can feel myself getting lost in the music. | | 7 |  | Tigers on Trains
Grandfather
"The Grammarian" (0:12 - 0:24 mark)
The strange thing about “The Grammarian” is that it makes me think of a time in my life when this song wasn’t even in existence yet. There’s something about that opening guitar that just makes me think of this sun-room my family had in the first house I grew up in that led to the outside deck. It makes me think of how the sunlight lit up the room when it came through the windows, the various toys my sister and I had scattered all over the carpeted floor, the little kitchenette we had, the backyard with the large tree-line at the back end. It awakens this bizarre nostalgia in me that I can’t explain, but it also brings a peacefulness to my temperament any time I listen to it because it transports me back to that more innocent time. | | 8 |  | IDLES
Ultra Mono
"War" (1:25 - 1:45 mark)
It’s fitting how militant the opener of IDLES’ Ultra Mono sounds given the song title. “War” is an impressively violent song overall, but towards the middle of the track it warps into this madness that is unrelenting in its viciousness. The drums sound like gunfire, the guitars shriek in such a way that it sounds like the strings are brushing against sheet metal and the primal nature of the screams coming from lead vocalist Joe Talbot course through my veins like hot iron. This is one of those times where I feel like I could run through a brick wall listening to a piece of music. Sometimes you feel like you need to let some anger and aggression out by screaming. “War” scratches that rare itch for me. | | 9 |  | Audioslave
Audioslave
"Cochise" (0:11 - 0:23 mark)
I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a bass as foreboding as the one that comes in the first 11 seconds of “Cochise,” the first song of Audioslave’s self-titled debut. When that bass comes in behind the drums and Tom Morello’s skittish guitar scraping, you get the sense that danger is upon you. You can almost smell violence in the air. It feels like a fight is imminent. Whenever I listen to these opening moments, I always picture the rumble from The Outsiders and the brawl between SAMCRO and A.J. Weston’s crew in the second season of Sons of Anarchy (although the actual song used for that fight, "Hands in the Sky (Big Shot)," from Straylight Run is excellent in its own right). Tim Commerford’s bassline personifies the tension within the build-up and the anticipation within those fleeting moments before these altercations reach their explosive spark. | | 10 |  | Queen
A Kind of Magic
“Who Wants to Live Forever” (3:13 - 3:26 mark)
One of the most momentous, grandiose moments in all the music I've ever heard comes towards the back end of "Who Wants to Live Forever" Yes, there’s the swell of strings, Brian May’s guitar work, the emphatic drums and the intensity rising within Freddie Mercury’s performance so you can feel that something bombastic is on the horizon. But then there’s this pause that leads into those group vocals that are anchored by Mercury…it really is a “HOLY SHIT!” listening experience. It feels like the skies open up in such a dramatic way as you’re faced with this question of mortality. It’s virtually impossible to not feel compelled to sing along. This one is an out-of-body experience for me. | |
RVAHC13
02.01.26 | I remember the first time I heard the last minute of Shell of Light off 5, I was pretty floored |
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