This song always makes me think of that poster in...

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This song always makes me think of that poster in Berlin, your kind eyes and “muh crane wife”.

“The Crane Wife 3” – The Decemberists
(Words/music: Colin Meloy, available on The Crane Wife, Capitol 2006)

I’ve realized that loving songs shares a lot with romantic love. This probably says more about my own relationship with music than it does about love itself (that sound you’re hearing is the simultaneous nodding of every woman with whom I’ve been involved), but it makes sense given I spent the bulk of my teenage dating years devouring records. My point is that just like meeting someone, songs have their initial obvious charms. In this case, it might be a memorable lyric or a particularly exciting bridge or even just a really catchy melody. However, there are lots of clever lines, stunning bridges, and catchy melodies out there; the songs I end up loving reveal different aspects of itself over time. What was once a catchy song ends up being one with an offbeat chord progression or interesting instrument deep in the mix.

Tonight I was in the right mood to hear one of these tiny discoveries. While “The Crane Wife 3,” a song I love on an album I rarely listen to, played, something nondescript caught my attention right before the third verse. I paused it, grabbed my headphones(which are still on even though I’m not playing any music), and backed up the track. Sure enough, right after the little glockenspiel melody at 2:07, there’s this odd bent guitar note right before Colin Meloy starts singing again. I always loved the way that this song gathered steam, building from that solitary acoustic guitar to a fully augmented band by the end, but never noticed this little tic before. To the best of my knowledge, there isn’t any slide guitar in the rest of the song. Perhaps it’s not played with a slide and just a bent note, but it’s an anomaly in a song I thought I otherwise knew completely well. It’s not the purest form of love deepening itself (more on that another time, I suppose), but it’s the type of serendipitous discovery that makes me wish I had more time to listen to older records on a more frequent basis.

More on The Decemberists: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

Posted 2 years ago 32 notes 340 plays