Judging by the amount of effort it took for me to sort out the top seven songs on my list, I would say that this point marks the transition to the very top of my list. Much like the pairings from the first posts in this countdown, these songs share a major trait: Neither of the bands sing a single lyric (although there is a voiceover in one of the songs). It is perhaps ironic then (or is it coincidental) that this post took be forever to put to words.
#7: Dead Flag Blues - Godspeed You! Black Emperor
#6: Memorial - Explosions in the Sky
Because we live within 12 hours of most of the people and places we know, the wife and I find ourselves on a lot of long car rides together. Even though we are married and (presumably) like each other, we often run out of things to say within the first hour of the trip. Thus, I have taken to coming up with hopefully interesting topics of discussion beforehand.* One of my best ideas was to create a giant playlist of songs from my library, and then get feedback from Adrienne. I knew very well that she loved some of the more mainstream bands that I play, such as Wilco or Arcade Fire, but I wasn't really sure about some of the more obscure acts, like Secret Chiefs 3 or Pelican.
*I know I'll be a natural father one day, because this is such a dad thing to do.
Overall, this exercise went about as I thought it would go. Ad liked most of the songs I thought she would like, and didn't like the ones I thought she wouldn't. Even though there weren't many surprises, I still learned one thing about her taste in music that I didn't know before: She didn't really care for songs without lyrics. Now, this isn't to say that she hates pieces like the above songs, but she did tell me that she can't bring herself to care about them as much as other works.
If you've been reading this series, then you'll know that I feel pretty much the opposite way. Many of my favorite bands employ few or no lyrics, and I often think that one of the main failures of popular music is an over-reliance on catchy vocals to make up for a lack of creative musical composition. Judging by what I hear on the radio, it's clear that not everyone would agree with me. Because Adrienne was one of those who would disagree, and since she was trapped in a car with me for several more hours, I figured I would get to the bottom of our difference of opinions. After a brief back and forth about the merits of such music, I found the two key aspects of wordless music that Adrienne didn't prefer. I summarized these arguments into two premises, which I will now refute in print, because that's what marriage is about.
1. Music without singing feels less human
This is probably the harder of the two points to refute. There is little doubt that a powerful voice can resonate with the listener, perhaps to a larger degree than any other aspect of music. The best example that comes to mind is Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You," but given time, I could probably list another thousand songs where the particulars of a singer's voice lends itself well to the message and feeling of a song. I agree wholeheartedly that a strong and well-used voice can be critical to the success of a piece of music.
What I don't necessarily agree with is the converse of this: that the absence of singing makes something feel more mechanical and cold. What I think we lose when we listen to the majority of our music in non-live situations is the connection between the player and his or her instrument. When listening to the radio, I imagine that we often subconsciously think of guitars and drums as autonomous beings that play the notes we hear. As someone with roughly 10 years of music lessons on multiple instruments, I know the amount of talent it takes to play music professionally.* I also know how hard it can be to go from simply playing the notes in a song to really making them come alive. Vocals may be the aspect of music that is most obviously human, but I would conclude that every other instrument can be just as expressive of the artist's intent. A well played guitar line can accomplish just as much as great vocals, even if we're sort of taking it for granted.
*Meaning that those who taught me were orders of magnitude better than me. And I wasn't bad. It was really something to watch my instructors play.
2. It is harder to tell what the song is about, and thus harder to connect with the themes
This point brings up a larger point: How much does (or should) the meaning of the song (or the meaning the artist intended) matter to the experience of the listener? However, that is a much larger debate than I care for taking on in this post, so I will skip over it...for now.
Lyrics can be both amazingly expressive and rather imposing. Great lyrics can weave beautifully compact tales, but they can also restrict the listener to think about a single theme when the music behind the song could actually be more meaningful on its own. Some of my favorite bands (such as Radiohead and the Deftones) do a great job existing halfway in between these two extremes by using vague lyrics that focus more on imagery and scenery than specific action.* This allows the listener more freedom to imagine the place in which the song exists and then make their own connections between the words and their experiences and associations with them. This way of thinking is not unlike the "show, don't tell" mantra used in writing books and movies. To borrow from John Cage, music is "a way of waking up to the very life we're living," and what better way to enable this than to allow the listener to engage the work and fill in the blanks themselves.
*Using one of those bands as an example, the lyric "Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon" sells the feeling of regret and confusion better than a more direct approach.
Songs without lyrics take this idea one step further, by relying only on the non-vocal music to communicate their message. I would argue that when this is done right, it can be just as expressive (if not more expressive) than music with lyrics. In the case of "The Dead Flag Blues", we are treated to an apocalyptic narration which certainly helps create the mood. However, by the time GYBE begins the section of the piece called "The Cowboy,"* the wistful sadness of the vaguely western-sounding guitar lines invokes a feeling of emptiness that I don't think lyrics could do justice. The cowboy in the title has come to round up his herd, but his herd (or perhaps society, depending on your reading of the gloomy beginning) have broken away, leaving him with nothing.
*For their first couple of albums, GYBE would do us fans the favor of splitting their behemoth compositions into movements. For me at least, this helped clarify their intentions.
Similarly, Explosions in the Sky were able to take a particular feeling (remembrance of things or people that are gone), and turn it into their most focused and powerful work. Unlike with GYBE, we don't get any words, nor detailed titles for the sections of the piece. The song is so well executed though, that we don't need our hand held to understand their message. In the context of the album, "Memorial" completes the arc that begins with "First Breath After Coma" with maximum affect. The tone of their guitars perfectly encapsulate the nostalgia of looking back, while the loud-soft dynamic near the end is as bombastic and full of life as it should be. For me at least, it's hard to listen to those final notes and not feel what they want the listener to feel. At the same time thought, there is nothing in the song that prevents you from tying the feelings that stem from this song to one's own feelings. I think this makes for a richer and more personal experience, when it's done as well as these two songs.
Runners-up:
I could probably carry on for a while about my other favorite GYBE songs, so I will. "East Hastings" accompanies "Dead Flag Blues" on F#A#∞ and is often considered to be their best song because of the amazing crescendo to the climax. If you're familar with the Danny Boyle film 28 Days Later, then you might recognize it from the opening sequence. Boyle always knows how to use modern music well ("Paper Planes" in Slumdog Millionaire, Sigur Ros' "Festival" at the end of 127 Hours), but this is probably my favorite of his choices. Nothing screams "apocalyptic wasteland" better than GYBE's early work.
GYBE's massive two-disc effort Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven is probably a little overstuffed, but it is also their most uplifting and dynamic record. "Storm" is the best example of this, but my favorite track from the album is "Sleep," which transitions from the sad monologue of an old man, to a wailing middle to a celebratory climax. I wrote a short story based on this song in college that actually got published in the English department's student publication, so I guess I have a bit of a special connection to this one.
Finally, last year's Alleluia! Don't Bend, Ascend! featured an amazing opening song in "Mladic." In particular, the first five minutes are an amazing combination of droning guitars, high-pitched screeches, and samples that communicate a sense of dread that turns into unbridled anger.
Explosions in the Sky on the other hand doesn't have quite as deep of a bench of truly great songs. The only other one I would mention in the same breath as "Memorial" is "Yasmin the Light," mainly because it is able to capture the feeling of falling in love unlike any other song I have ever heard. I guess that's a pretty good accomplishment.
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