I'm In Love With That Song : "Even Tho" - Joseph Arthur
1. This song is the perfect auditory complement to that moment in Cameron Crowe movies where the male lead, convinced he's lost the girl forever, wanders around in a montage of heart-rending mopiness, causing our collective hearts to scream, "Noooo! Don't be sad, John Cusack! I will hold you and love you and appreciate your appealingly quirky worldview!"
2. If his press photos are to be believed, in addition to being pouty and disheveled, Joseph Arthur is also a Caucasian. While this state of pigmental deprivation is nothing to write home about, dude don't SING like a honky. Throughout the course of "Even Tho", he engages in the kind of laryngeal acrobatics usually reserved for guys like Percy Sledge and Prince. It is quite cheering to hear such vocal passion in a paleface. One hopes this trend of racially uncharacteristic singing migrates to Presbyterian choir groups, who usually plow through hymns with the grim determinism of one de-gibleting a turkey.
3. Like a diamond, a Philadelphia parking violation or a shoddy tattoo, it's forever. There's probably no conclusive way to tell from the start which songs/movies/ice-cream flavors you'll enjoy for years to come, but occasionally you get a hunch. "Yes," you say to yourself, wiping away tears and snot at the conclusion of "Say Anything" or taking a big ol' chomp of Breyer's mint-chip, "I am going to be doing this for the rest of my life." "Even Tho" feels like that.
It's not a GREAT song (for god's sake, I'm pretty sure the drums came straight off of Casio's sample track), but it's a song which will hold up, and I love that. Comfort and durability are consistently undervalued in our culture, passed over in favor of brief, flaming brilliance. Call me a philistine, but I'll take the flawed and long-haul every time (not that you should heed pearls of wisdom dispensed by someone who has been listening to the same 80% of "Nevermind" for the past eleven years IN A ROW, and would still be wearing her " R.I.P. Kurt" t-shirt had it not been torn in a tragic bleacher-jumping accident in '96).
2. If his press photos are to be believed, in addition to being pouty and disheveled, Joseph Arthur is also a Caucasian. While this state of pigmental deprivation is nothing to write home about, dude don't SING like a honky. Throughout the course of "Even Tho", he engages in the kind of laryngeal acrobatics usually reserved for guys like Percy Sledge and Prince. It is quite cheering to hear such vocal passion in a paleface. One hopes this trend of racially uncharacteristic singing migrates to Presbyterian choir groups, who usually plow through hymns with the grim determinism of one de-gibleting a turkey.
3. Like a diamond, a Philadelphia parking violation or a shoddy tattoo, it's forever. There's probably no conclusive way to tell from the start which songs/movies/ice-cream flavors you'll enjoy for years to come, but occasionally you get a hunch. "Yes," you say to yourself, wiping away tears and snot at the conclusion of "Say Anything" or taking a big ol' chomp of Breyer's mint-chip, "I am going to be doing this for the rest of my life." "Even Tho" feels like that.
It's not a GREAT song (for god's sake, I'm pretty sure the drums came straight off of Casio's sample track), but it's a song which will hold up, and I love that. Comfort and durability are consistently undervalued in our culture, passed over in favor of brief, flaming brilliance. Call me a philistine, but I'll take the flawed and long-haul every time (not that you should heed pearls of wisdom dispensed by someone who has been listening to the same 80% of "Nevermind" for the past eleven years IN A ROW, and would still be wearing her " R.I.P. Kurt" t-shirt had it not been torn in a tragic bleacher-jumping accident in '96).
Labels: La Musica, The Compleat Thumbscrew
posted by thumbscre.ws at
11/15/2005
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