Courtesy of Burlington Hypnosis
It’s clichÌ©d for indie band songwriters to have low self-confidence. There is nary an album I’ve heard that doesn’t include at least one song about how they can’t talk to girls—or anyone for that matter. What is different, however, is the manner in which the narrators of the song go about dealing with the problem. This week, we’ll be looking at two songs that have similar subject matter, but different resolutions to the issue: Modern Baseball’s “Tears Over Beers” and Frightened Rabbit’s “The Twist.Û
Indie-emo band Modern Baseball’s “Tears Over Beers,” appearing on their 2012 debut record Sports, seems to have as stereotypical a subject matter as you’d expect from an indie emo band. The narrator meets a girl at the bar—depressed over her jock boyfriend leaving her:
That girl who’s next to me, she’s friendly and thoughtful
and quite awfully pretty
But all she has to say is a meat head-themed monologue on why Brad ran away
And then, with a shift to triple meter, and the closest thing the song has to a chorus: he goes on to give us details of the monologue:
She said:
“All I can hope for is for me to get better
Because all I can take is no more
I’ll win him back, we’ll be lovers, best friends,
He won’t need no other woman like the way he did back when
He was with me.Û
So this does throw an interesting twist on the age-old “awkward young man in a bar” story. Not only does the narrator feel inadequate and awkward, so does the girl. And in the awkward conclusion to the awkward scene, the narrator it’s best for him to leave—this girl is going to find the nearest jock and pounce on him anyway:
When I felt that I should leave,
We’ll call it midnight or so
I found myself annoyed by a syndrome of sorts in her bones
That girl who’s next to me, she don’t know her worth in this town
Because he face starts to shine as that meathead behind her
Is grinning as she’s checking her out.
I said:
“All I can hope for is for you to get better
Because all I can take is no more
I’ll hide where I can, away from you and your friends
Leaking tears over beers once again.Û
So, ultimately, no one is really happy, nothing is resolved, and listeners over the age of, say, 22, are surely either cringing nostalgically at how they used to be, or suffering from secondhand embarrassment for the narrator. (Don’t’ get me wrong—the song is incredible musically, but is the lyrical epitome of uncomfort.
A more mature way of looking at a nearly identical situation can be found in Scottish indie-folk band Frightened Rabbit’s “The Twist.” Coming off their 2008 album The Midnight Organ Fight, the track sets up a similar scene to “Tears Over Beers:Û
Let’s pretend I’m attractive and then
You won’t mind; we can twist for a while
It’s the night—I can be who you like
And then leave before it gets light.
On this track, the narrator is at a club attempting to gain some companionship in the most animalistic way possible—sex. Throughout the entire album, Scott Hutchinson—lyricist and singer—talks about sex in many different ways. Ranging from the blunt “fucking someone” on “Keep Yourself Warm” to the subtle “twisting” on this track, the album is nearly entirely about sex in some way, shape or form. The chorus is one of the most poetic ways I’ve heard someone ask for casual sex, and it’s actually somewhat endearing if you don’t spend too long thinking about it:
So twist and whisper the wrong name
I don’t care and nor do my ears
Twist yourself around me
I need company, I need human heat.
And after a bridge based on the last four words, the chorus comes back, but with subtle lyrical differences that show a mature approach to loneliness and lack of self-confidence:
Twist and whisper the right name
I’m David, please
The twist is that you’re just like me
You need company, you need human heat.
What Hutchinson is saying here is that the manner in which you should approach a need for companionship is not banal casual sex. It is true togetherness with another human being that we call crave and the sooner that is realized, the sooner more people will be ready to chase what they truly desire. Similar sentiments are found on the aforementioned “Keep Yourself WarmÛ—with the same “heat=companionship” metaphor.
As to which philosophy I subscribe to, (if I haven’t made it clear already)? Let’s just say I listen to a lot more Frightened Rabbit than I do Modern Baseball.