7. Courtney Barnett – ‘Sometimes I sit and think, and sometimes I just sit’

Number 7!

Here’s the album I’m listening to:

This is Courtney Barnett’s new album called “Sometimes I sit and think, and sometimes I just sit.” Which is such an awesome title!
I’m listening to it because Fern did a review of it. Her first review in fact. She loved it so much and said I should listen to it and saw an opportunity to write a review!

I also really like the artwork – it’s a lot like something I’ve done in the past, draw out an idea for the artwork, and find the drawing looks pretty cool and just using that instead!

I think it speaks for itself to be honest….it’s simple, straight to the point, and relaxed.

The music however…

Starting off the album is ‘Elevator Operator’. Straight away I can tell how this album will sound. The music is brilliantly produced, and the vocals are very punky. She’s pretty much just talking with a bit of melody and the right timing to stay with the music. It’s very chilled out. It’s like she’s a rebellious teenage. She doesn’t care what you think – she’s just here to rock out! But I can imagine seeing her live would be quite awkward. I can just see her standing in the middle of the stage, barely moving, and just talking into the mic. If someone shouts out at her she very calmly tells them to F-off.

He voice reminds me of a much punkier Laura Marling. The lyrics are brilliant, and she’s very different to anyone else out at the moment, but she isn’t really singing. Not that I have a problem with that! It sounds great!

“Oliver Paul, twenty years old. Thick head of hair, worries he’s going bald. Wakes up at quarter past nine, fair evades his way down the 96 tame line. Breakfast on the run again, he’s well aware he’s dropping soy linseed Vegemite crumbs everywhere.”

I could literally copy all of her lyrics, they’re so good! She rhymes words which shouldn’t, and thinks of lines no-one else would have done in a million years. “Her heels are high and her bag is snakeskin. Hair pulled so tight you can see her skeleton.” I mean, seriously – who else could’ve thought of that line??

I can admit now, I reckon I’ll use that line a lot throughout this review.

The music is very simple. Mostly just thumping drums with a bit of organ and bass.

Next song – ‘Pedestrian at Best’

This is an awesome song! It’s so punk.
It’s very Cage the Elephant, who I absolutely love, so this scores high in my list of songs and artists that I like a lot. Like, it’s not at the very top, but it’s definitely up there!

“Put me on a pedestal and I’ll only disappoint you. Tell me I’m exceptional and I promise to exploit you. Give me all your money and I’ll make some origami, honey. I think you’re a joke but I don’t find you very funny.”

No matter who you are, you have to agree that this song is punk. It’s got the fast spoken lyrics, wailing guitar, great drums, bass and the line: “I’m a fake, I’m a phony, I’m awake, I’m alone, I’m homely, I’m a Scorpio!”
If that’s not punk then I don’t know what is.

To me this song seems a bit like a political protest. It’s very aggressive towards people who put themselves in front of people. The song puts the listener into their head, and goes through what they’re thinking. Although, as we all know, politicians are full of themselves so wouldn’t even think about not being the best.

Don’t know how many of them know origami though….and they definitely wouldn’t make it using money, considering they sniff it out like blood hounds.

‘An Illustration of Loneliness (Sleepless in New York)’ is next.

I don’t think she could decide on a title…

I know this song for a very important reason. My girlfriend covered it on her Youtube channel!
Go listen to her version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmYB60IPwm4

It’s a great laid back song! Mostly just bass and drums doing a nice little riff with the odd little shplang (technical term) from the guitar. This is then joined by what sounds like a Theremin in the middle eight. It’s like the Klangers joined the party.

Meanwhile, throughout the song is Courtney Barnetts voice, melodically speaking the lyrics.

“Wondering what you’re doing, what you’re listening to. Which quarter of the moon you’re viewing from your bedroom. Watching all the movies, drinking all the smoothies. Swimming at the pool, I’m thinking of you too!”

She’s a lyrical genius – coming up with lines I’ve never heard before – “I lay awake at three, staring at the ceiling. It’s a kind of off-white, maybe it’s a cream. There’s oily residue seeping from the kitchen. It’s art-deco necromantic chic, all the dinner plates are kitsch with Irish wolf hounds, French baguettes wrapped loose around their necks, I think I’m hungry, I’m thinking of you too.”

Like….how does someone think of that?! It must be just an unconscious thing. Where she’s lying in bed thinking of situations and then adds extra detail that other people wouldn’t have done.
She also sings/speaks fairly quickly, so can fit a lot in to a line.

I also have a feeling that I’ll be quoting a lot of her lyrics throughout this review.

The next song is – ‘Small Poppies’

Oooo yeaaaaaah. Blues!

This is such a lazy song. (I’ve used that to describe a couple of songs in previous reviews, and I don’t mean the song’s written lazily, I mean it’s the kind of song you listen to, play or write while lying in a hammock on a summer evening (hurry up summer! – I miss laying in my hammock!). It’s just the chords and speed of the song that make it feel that way).

“I stare at the lawn, it’s Wednesday morning, it needs a cut but I leave it growing all different sizes and all shades of green. Slashing it down just seems kind of mean.”

The song starts off with drum and bass and even more shplangs from the guitar, but it’s about half the speed of the last song. It sounds like at some point it’ll just explode into noise with Barnett screaming her head off, and eventually it does! I mean, the song’s 7 minutes long, so it takes it’s time to get to that point, and then has a lot of instrumentals and guitar solos before it ends.

But it still manages to sound lazy – the guitar solos aren’t perfect. They’re in fact quite Jack White in their delivery, but not quite as aggressive, yet still a bit of a challenge to listen to the whole thing. But then what would I know? I’m no guitarist. Not yet at least! ;)

Song no.5 is ‘Depreston’

This is a nice little change going from the punky and bluesy previous songs into this. It’s very singer-songwriter-y – acoustic guitar and vocals, later joined by drums and bass….and a guitar that sounds like it’s being played in a submarine.

My guess is this song is about moving to Preston, but it’s pretty de-pres(ton)-ing! Ba dum tss! (Yes I stole that from the song title. Just making a point.)

“It’s got a lovely garden, a garage for two cars to park in, or a lot of room for storage if you’ve just got one. And it’s going pretty cheap you say? Well It’s a decreased estate. Aren’t the pressed metal ceilings great?”

Barnett has such a quirky writing style, and she still manages to make it all rhyme! It’s certainly a skill that many people would want – I just thought, what if she wrote a book? That would be an amazing book! It wouldn’t just be “the sky was blue and the grass was green” it’d be something like “the sky is like my dads old truck, with it’s endless mileage and bright blue seats. Sitting alongside the lively green grass that he used to get me to cut, I could oil the mower with my own elbow grease running down my sleeves.”

Now, I’m not saying I’m a lyrical genius or anything – that’s for you to judge.

Half way! – ‘Aqua Profonda!’

That means ‘Deep water!’ in English. That’s because the song is about her meeting a man at a swimming pool.

“I saw you in the lane next to me, you were doing freestyle, then you switched it around to a little bit of backstroke.”

It’s such a strange song story concept. But it works so well! It would only work for her, which is lucky. Because she’s her, and she wrote the song.

It’s going back to the punky sound. But it mixes with a bit of a swing vibe. It’s the same as all the other songs, just drums, guitar and bass throughout. It’s a nice simple sound. The kind of thing a band could cover quite easily and pull off really well. Although if you listen to the song on repeat, it does get quite repetitive quite quickly, with the same guitar part over and over.

Apart from that, it’s a great little song with a very cute story!

Coming in at number 7 is – ‘Dead Fox’

Lovely.

The chorus of this song sounds like it’s aimed at cyclists – “If you can’t see me, I can’t see you.”

But funnily enough, I actually do believe it’s about lorry drivers – or at least about a journey she had through Australia which involved a lorry. I can image her seeing a sign on the back of an articulated lorry which wrote “If you can’t see my mirrors then I can’t see you!” and wanting to write a song including those lines.

There’s more brilliant lines throughout the song, including “More people die on the road than they do in the ocean. Maybe we should mull over culling cars instead of sharks. Or just lock them up in parks where we can go and view them.”

I just love the idea of putting cars in zoo’s and everyone riding sharks to work. That would be a beautiful world!

The music that goes along to these great lyrics is just as good! It’s very feel good, and features even more Klangers alongside the standard set up. I don’t know what genre it would class as, so time to use my patent pending genre explainer.
Close your eyes and imagine being in an open top car with a bunch of friends and you’re having a laugh while driving round the Australian outback while the suns going down. Bliss!

‘Nobody really cares if you don’t go to the party’…

Well Courtney, I don’t care either!

Although, I think this is more ‘Nobody really cares if I don’t go to the party’ because she says “I wanna go out but I wanna stay home”.

I completely relate to this song – I always want to go out and do stuff – I’ll even stretch to being social. But then I realise I don’t really want to go out – that’s what Facebook’s for after all. But fortunately, my job choice means I’m out nearly every night of the week gigging or practicing so I have no choice in the matter!

I used to just sit at home playing video games all day. But now I can only sometimes play them all day – it sucks! (Not really – I’m a much better person now, if a bit more tired).

“You’re saying definitely maybe, I’m saying probably no. You say “you sleep when you’re dead”, I’m scared I’ll die in my sleep, I guess that’s not a bad way to go.”

The music to this is still very punky, and still the same 3 instruments. It doesn’t change much per song – just the genre adjusts a little bit and the tempo goes up or down.

‘Debbie Downer’ is the next.

For a song about someone who’s sad, this is a very happy sounding song!

“”Envy is thin because it bites but never eats”, that’s what a nice old Spanish lady once told me. “Hey Debbie-Downer turn that frown upside down and just be happy!””

It’s really upbeat, and even has an organ playing scales really quickly as well as guitar, drums and bass.

The same lines repeat over and over at the end of the song – “Don’t stop listening, I’m not finished yet. I’m not fishing for your compliments.”

I don’t know what this song is actually about. It seems like it’s as if she’s someone trying to explain their life and everything that’s gone wrong, and the person she’s talking to is losing interest or feeling sorry for her and just focusing on one problem.

It feels a lot shorter than it is – coming in at just over 3 minutes – it just comes and goes while listening to it!

Next up – ‘Kim’s Caravan’

This is a really creepy and harrowing song, but also has powerful messages.

“I see a dead seal on the beach. The old man says he’s already saved it three times this week. Guess is just wants to die. I would wanna die too, with people putting oil in my air.”

“There’s a paper on the ground, it makes my headache quite profound as I read it out aloud. It said “The Great Barrier Reef, it ain’t so great anymore. It’s been raped beyond belief, the dredgers treat it like a whore.””

The lyrics all together sound like she’s writing about herself and her songs.

As you can see from this, and all my other blogs, I like to try and work out what songs are about (as I’m doing right now), and sometimes people (myself included probably!) can get song meanings wildly wrong.
I know people who write about love lost when they’re in a happy relationship or about depression when they’re among the happiest people in the world. But the audience doesn’t know any of that, and will try to comfort them for no reason.

I can imagine it gets annoying, because you then can’t write about the things you want/can write about without someone getting the wrong end of the stick.

“Don’t ask me what I really mean, I am just a reflection of what you really wanna see. So take what you want from me.“

That line is repeated again and again at the end of the song, with guitar building behind it. I just wish she got louder and louder until she was screaming it. That would’ve made this song for me!

“So take what you want from me. So take what you want from me. SO TAKE WHAT YOU WANT FROM ME. SO TAKE WHAT YOU WANT FROM MEEEEE!!! TAKE WHAT YOU WANT FROM MEEEEEEEE!!!”

Last but no means least, ‘Boxing Day Blues’.

Starting with guitar and a nice angelic whale, then joined by vocals. It’s definitely blues. But not sure what Boxing Day has to do with it, the only thing I can think is she wrote it on Boxing Day.
Which would make this the closest to a Christmas song that she has! I’d vote for it as Christmas Number One no problem. It’s so chill!

It just sticks with guitar and very subtle synth / slide guitar in the background (and possibly a bit of bass) throughout the whole song, which is a great end to a brilliant album.

“I love all of your ideas. You love the idea of me”

That’s one of less than a dozen lines – it’s still a standard length song, and vocals go throughout, but they’re sung really slowly! This is the only song on the album without drums or a books worth of lyrics spoken really quickly. She’s singing in this!

It’s like the Dead Weather album I reviewed. The last song didn’t match the album at all, and it was a really pleasant surprise! So is this.

Done!

Now I think I will sit AND think about listening to the album again before moving on to the next one.

Actually…I don’t even need to think about it! It’s a great album with unique and clever lyrics and a standout voice all backed by a great band which can play blues, punk, rock and ‘driving through the outback at sunset’ music!

Ok, now go away and let me listen to the album again.

*Presses play*

Do you agree/disagree with anything I said? Like / dislike the review? Any constructive criticisms? Please leave a comment below! Would love to hear from you. Also, if you have any recommendations of albums I should listen to and review (as long as the artwork is awesome), let me know.

Thanks for reading, keep tuned for the next blog.

I will be reviewing ‘Smoke & Mirrors’ by Imagine Dragons

Don’t forget to check out my website, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube below.

I’m doing these blogs alongside my better half; Fern Teather – she is listening to a new albums (doesn’t matter about the artwork, she’s trying to expand her musical knowledge and listen to new artists!). She’s also keeping a blog, and it’s nowhere near as long as this one, so go give it a read!!
Check it out here: 52-albums.blogspot.com

See you on the flip side!

Sam

www.bongoboy.co.uk
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