Reply To: Artificial Heart discussion
Heretofore, I think arguably JoCo’s saddest song has been When You Go. I saw a transition in his explanation of this song. He wrote it as a breakup song, people told him they thought it was about death and eventually I hear him simply say, “This is a song about leaving”. I think Today with Your Wife is probably the same kind of song.
That brings me to this point; I’ve heard other musicians that are asked, “What’s this song about” respond simply by saying, “what do YOU think it’s about?”. On the one hand I get that, an artists job is not just to show you a picture of a tree but to cause you bring up feelings and perhaps to create your own narrative about a tree. A picture paints a thousand words they say.
I notice that a lot of TMBG music has this quality in song form. Bits and pieces of a story that we put together ourselves to make a story. JoCo said himself in the podcast with Paul and Storm that he is attracted to this kind of music, using Famous Blue Raincoat as an example. So it’s no surprise that the new songs follow this same idea.
But
While I can listen to that and appreciate it. One thing I liked about JoCo’s music was the narrative. His songs were little stories with a beginning, middle and end. That is what made it possible for @spiff to make movies off of. It’s what makes it easy to come into the middle of his oeuvre and easily figure out what he’s about and I think it is at least in part one of the secrets of his success. So secret he might not even realize it.
I like the new album but I’d be disappointed if he never went back to his narrative form of writing.