The Kinks – The Bookish Mutant

Sunday Songs: 11/30/25

Posted on November 30, 2025 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

I’ve got at least one more post here before I inevitably have to crawl back into the finals burrow. Since I’ve been out of the office lately, here are my graphics from the past few weeks:

11/9/25:

11/16/25:

11/23/25:

This week: What half of Britpop’s Big Four frontmen are up to these days, peak goth drama, and I finally find out why Joe Talbot was hiding out in that Gorillaz exhibit like Where’s Waldo.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 11/30/25

“Something Changed” – Pulp

Pulp recently put on an absolutely showstopping performance at NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert. I still have only a handful of Pulp songs that I really know, but even as a budding fan that initially knew only 1/4 songs in their setlist (that one being “This Is Hardcore,” yet another shoutout to my amazing dad for showing me that one!), their performance was an absolute joy. Even in the confines of said Tiny Desk, Jarvis Cocker has the most enigmatic, fluid stage presence that defies being simply Britpop and has transformed into a timeless charm. And now I have three more Pulp songs on my rotation!

“Something Changed” hooked me more than the rest, and it reminded me that I really just need to get over myself and listen to Different Class already. Themes of social and sexual frustration aside (see: “Live Bed Show”), Pulp seemed to have an uncanny ability to create such pure, resonant anthems without making them cloying or insincere. I never got around to talking about “Disco 2000” last year, but that song feels like the platonic ideal of a pure, passionate love song—it’s a small wonder that nobody’s used it in the end credits of a rom-com yet. (Maybe that’s for the best? It’d need a really good rom-com.) “Something Changed” has that same quality in softer shades, with Cocker crooning about the nature of chance against a backdrop of swelling, sunlit strings: “Do you believe there’s someone up above/And does he have a timetable directing acts of love?” For someone with a sense of humor as sardonic and often cynical as Cocker, it’s a display of sincerity that feels anything but inauthentic—you can tell that, to some degree, there’s a genuine feeling of being wonderstruck by the chances that led him to this point in time—and this whirlwind romance.

“Something Changed” starts at 8:05. While you’re here, though, the 7+ minute rendition of “This Is Hardcore” stopped me dead in my tracks. One of the best Tiny Desk Concerts this year, for sure.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Time and Time Again – Chatham Greenfield – “Oh, I could have stayed at home and gone to bed/I could have gone to see a film instead/You might have changed your mind and seen your friend/Life could have been very different but then/Something changed…”

“Any Guy” – Melanie

I never find Melanie songs organically, I just leech them off of TV shows about once a year (see: “Look What They’ve Done to My Song, Ma” thanks to We Are Lady Parts). This one in particular came from the season 1 finale of Bad Sisters, and without spoiling anything, it rang out as a bitterly triumphant anthem for the culmination of a season’s worth of work to try and eliminate a man equivalent to Satan incarnate from the face of the earth. Season 1 has been out for a few years, but I’ll still refrain from spoilers.

But some needle drops get better and better the more that you think about them. Melanie fit along with the musical feel of Bad Sisters, primarily featuring needle drops from great women-fronted bands and musicians (Bikini Kill, Nancy Sinatra, Wet Leg, and of course, the theme song and score composed by the iconic PJ Harvey). Many of them feel more atmospheric other than a handful of very purposeful ones, but “Any Guy” relates so much to the character of Grace to me. A lot of Melanie’s earlier fame centered around how childish she looked—this was pre-“Brand New Key” and people derailing childhood innocence into Freudian nonsense, but there was a clear correlation between what people saw as an unassuming young woman and the talent that resided inside of her. That image remains after her death, but for me, Melanie’s her best when she lets loose—think of the righteous fury at the end of “Look What They’ve Done to My Song, Ma!” That final belt at the end! Reckoning! “Any Guy” has that same explosive moment at the end; beneath the veneer of placid strings, Melanie stews about getting involved with a two-timing guy and feeling disposable, until her waver breaks into an impassioned howl of “Is she as pretty as me, huh?” Nothing’s better than when Melanie snaps and lets the full force of her voice free, and what better song to soundtrack a similarly unassuming, underestimated woman finally breaking free. Even when she’s singing of breaking away, there’s a waver in her voice, and that’s more Grace than anything—and there’s no shame in having a waver in your voice when you’ve finally mustered the courage to speak your mind.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Heartbreak Bakery – A.R. Capetta – breakups, miscommunication, and one very fateful batch of magic brownies…

“The God of Lying” (feat. IDLES) – Gorillaz

Guess who’s getting tickets to L.A. the minute that they announce when the House of Kong exhibit is coming?? Prepare for me to be INSUFFERABLE and IN CALIFORNIA

Back when they did the story on the London House of Kong exhibit over the summer, they showed the collage on the wall of all of Gorillaz’s collaborators over the years. There were tons of familiar faces: De La Soul, Yasiin Bey, Shaun Ryder, St. Vincent, et cetera…but I swore that I could see Joe Talbot peeking out from between the faces. And it got me thinking…had I missed something? Mind you, this was before The Mountain was announced, so I had no idea what was a head. But now that it’s here, I’m so excited for this pairing! As is the ritual with most modern Gorillaz rollouts, the singles are hit or miss. “The Happy Dictator” was loads of fun, but “The Manifesto” is somehow two different songs, and none of them are particularly good. And here we see the post-Humanz Gorillaz “where’s Damon?” problem—it’s all the collaborators and barely him.

Thankfully, “The God of Lying” fixed this issue swiftly, with Albarn trading off verses with Joe Talbot of IDLES. Gorillaz have been mining the state of dystopian discontent that we’re in for quite some time now, but if there’s anyone more fit for an antidote, it’s Talbot. As he coolly assesses the sorry state of the world (“Are you deafened by the headlines?/Or does your head not hear at all?/Are you pacified by passion/Are you armed to the teeth?”), Albarn’s distorted voice professes that we’ve all reached for some comfort beyond the bad news, but that it’s so overwhelming that we can’t even comprehend that hope is still possible; we’re actively “running to the exit” because we somehow fear the notion of hope existing even while trapped in an endless cycle of doomscrolling and horrific news. Albarn said this to BBC Radio 1: “I suppose I’ve kind of got in my head what happened a few days ago with Mamdani in New York. And one of the things he said that really kind of stuck out for me is that ‘Hope is alive’. And in this track, Joe and I are kind of we’ve been chased by hope. And I thought, Oh, that’s nice.” First off, since I was hunkered down doing homework when it happened…THAT’S MY MAYOR! (I’ve been to NYC a grand total of one time in my life…anyways.) Second, what a poetic assessment—we haven’t just abandoned hope, we’re being pushed away from it, pacifying the weight of carrying every bad thing in the world with fleeting pleasures and addiction. It’s a poignant statement for both Albarn and IDLES, enduring proof that love remains to be the fing.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

No Gods, No Monsters – Caldwell Turnbull – “Are you pacified by passion?/Are you armed to the teeth?/Are you bubbling at the surface of what’s cooking underneath?/Are you dying for an answer for what they call good grief?”

“A Night Like This” – The Cure

Another album that I need to listen to: The Head on the Door, apparently! As the result of being brought up by gothy parents who went to high school in the ’80s, I’ve practically listened to the whole thing. The same can be said for a fair amount of their albums. (From The Head on the Door in particular, I have a specific memory of my parents showing me the “Close to Me” video and thinking that the puppets were really funny.)

How perfect it was that I remembered “A Night Like This” right after Halloween. Frankly, every season is The Cure season if you can get with the drama 24/7, but you can’t deny that it’s the ideal fall or winter soundtrack. This track in particular represents the peak of what I love about The Cure—oh my god, the drama. I mean that without any irony, because there’s such an art to throwing yourself into it fully without looking insincere. You have to make a bit of a fool of yourself to sell it, but Robert Smith never looked the part to me—it was so intentional, and so clearly from a place of love. Lyrically, that’s what sells the glut of the song for me, but musically, what pulled it back from my memory was that guitar tone—so incredibly rich and full, and yet cavernous in a way that it couldn’t be considered goth without. It’s the closest I feel a guitar can sound to a cello without Jonny Greenwooding it with an actual cello—there’s a depth to the sound that feels like it could only come from an instrument with a hollow body. It’s all an undeniable spectacle of romantic (capital R Romantic and the usual sense) passion.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Red City – Marie Lu – “It goes dark, it goes darker still/Please stay/But I watch you like I’m made of stone/As you walk away…”

“Where the Road Goes Down from Two Lanes to One” – Julie Doiron, Michael Feuerstack, Land of Talk, & Dany Placard

I just put Julie Doiron on the graphic since she’s the main artist on this song, but I wanted to credit the rest here. I just don’t think I could fit everybody else in the tiny text in that tiny little rectangle, and I’m not about to give anybody eyestrain.

I found out about this soothing song through Black Belt Eagle Scout, who played several shows with Julie Doiron earlier this month. (Happy to see that they’re well enough to play music again!!) Either way, I was immediately charmed by the nostalgic calmness of this song; it’s a six-minute, lazy stroll down memory lane, buoyed by a series of multilayered harmonies. As Doiron strings together a series of vignettes about crushes on boys and late-night driving, she gives them the feeling of blurry, sun-bleached photos with the edges curled up from wear. Towards the end, as all four of their voices fall artfully out of sync, repeating “Can you say it how I remember/Will you say it how I remember/Can you sing it how I remember/Will you sing it how I remember?”, it brings into sound the feeling of memories tangling together in your mind, timelines hazy and blurred, but just as pleasant as they were in the moment.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Amelia, If Only – Becky Albertalli – “Get in the van, we’re late for a show/Still got four more hours to go/Road maps, glovebox, no phone/I need to pull over, I wanna call home…”

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 6/8/25

Posted on June 8, 2025 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

This week: getting emotional about Björk, queerness in the ’70s, and a delightful little critter living in the sewers somewhere in England.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 6/8/25

“drains” – mary in the junkyard

THEY’RE BACK!! Well, mary in the junkyard haven’t been gone for long, but nonetheless, I’m always excited about whatever new music they’ve got going. In fact, they’ve already had a fruitful year: a great feature on Richard Russell is Temporary, a shoutout on 2D’s Gorillaz G Mix 22, and a spot as one of the opening acts on Wet Leg’s UK and North American tours. I can only hope that their debut album is in the near future, but for now, they finally seem to be on the way to getting the attention they deserve!

“drains” continues the trajectory of their debut EP, this old house, which contained four songs full of ghosts, flies, rot, and angst dug out of the graveyard, living up to the description in their Instagram bio as “angry weepy chaos rock.” This time, the grime and goop they’re examining comes from the sewer; in the great music video, it’s personified as a tiny little clay creature that really does look quite innocent, but ends up wreaking some accidental havoc. With electric guitars that ring in a strangely plaintive way, “drains” stumbles about, written in a frustrated daze as the narrator struggles to put names to feelings—and to how her lover makes her feel. Not good, if the lyrics are any indication, and yet “drains” gets scratchier and more jagged as the truth becomes ever more apparent that they’re trapped in this cycle with them: “But if you bury yourself, I will dig you out again/That’s what lovers do/If you hurt yourself, I will take you under my wing/I’m your lover and I’m loving you.” Culminating in an exorcism of a scream, the chaos of the frustration is finally let loose and given form, like the clay critter clambering through the grime-coated pipes.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

I Am the Ghost in Your House – Mar Romasco-Moore – “But I only came here to feel my body/I am a ghost, where are my bones?/How can you blame me for not being sorry?”

“Oceania” – Björk

Damn…Medúlla has me feeling all kinds of things. It was next in line in my scattered Björk deep-dive and I was highly anticipating it after Björk’s episode about it on Sonic Symbolism. I listened to it while knitting a scarf, and I thought of everything she described about the album, about prehistory and family and sitting around the fire and braids and ropes and weaving…and that hit me while I was knitting, doing the same activities that my ancestors, namely women, have done for thousands of years before me, and, and, and…yeah. Medúlla is very nearly a no-skip album (“Submarine” wasn’t my favorite). It’s one of those albums where you feel a pit opening in your stomach, but it seems to be opening up room for the energy to integrate itself into you. A good Björk album does that to a gal. And so many people think this is her worst album because it’s inaccessible? Sure, maybe her first three albums are more accessible (relatively), but do you really listen to Björk for accessible music?

I kind of agonized over which song I’d pick for this week (because you will be hearing more), but between this, “Who Is It (Carry My Joy on the Left, Carry My Pain on the Right)”, and “Desired Constellation,” this was the winner. Originally composed on pianos before Björk realized the sound she envisioned weren’t possible on pianos, “Oceania” imagines the all-encompassing consciousness of the ocean. Connecting the ocean to the album’s larger theme of motherhood is a no-brainer, because who was the mother of every life-form on the planet? Taking the nurturing spirit to the personal to the universal, Björk embodies an ocean full of love, but namely full of pride: “You have done good for yourselves/Since you left my wet embrace/And crawled ashore.” Despite her all-encompassing knowledge and reach (“You count centuries/I blink my eyes”), she retains an eye on every organism that has emerged from her waters, nurturing all of them and reminding them of where they came from; as the vocals temporarily drop out, she reminds us of the connection we all have: “Your sweat is salty/I am why.” AAAAUGH, excuse me for a moment…sorry, I just get overexcited about the wonder about how everything on Earth is intimately connected and that denying it is the root of pretty much every problem we have today…but what a song. Composed entirely of the human voice, a choir creates a rising chorus that seems to bubble to the surface like the trails made by dolphins as they race through the water. The ethereal clicks and hums compose a melody that really does feel primal, glittering as light dappling across the surface of the sea. Leave it to Björk to get so close to how water feels, in both the calmness of it enveloping your body and the delicate movements of invertebrates as they drift through the waves. I can hear both plankton and megafauna, all cradled in the arms of Mother Oceania.

It is a kind of primal universalism, but it came out of trying to write a song for the 2004 Olympics: they reportedly asked her “to do a kind of ‘Ebony and Ivory’ or ‘We Are the World’ type song…those are smashing tunes and all that, but I thought, ‘Maybe there’s another angle to this.'” And what’s more unifying than how we all come from the ocean? In the end, even technical difficulties couldn’t dull Björk’s stirring performance of Oceania at the 2004 Olympics in Athens:

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Mountain in the Sea – Ray Nayler – unexpected connections between the most intelligent creatures on land and the most intelligent creatures in the sea.

“CPR” – Wet Leg

The last time I talked about Wet Leg, I mentioned that, as much as I like them, they’ve only written about two, three songs tops. I was expecting about the same from “CPR,” and…they delivered. I say this with affection, because I mostly like this song, but they pretty much have every lyrical cliche in the book. Usually, they’ve got at least one little quirk that’s wryly funny against the normalcy of the other lyrics. This one has [checks notes] calling 911—sorry, 999, forgot that I’m in the colonies—because you’re in love. I feel a little mean saying that, but they’ve usually got something more. But for the most part, Wet Leg aren’t necessarily about the lyrics for me. The reason that “CPR” succeeds is all in the delivery—Rhian Teasdale’s sultry spoken word and the growling guitars in the background, mixed with siren-like synths make it worth listening to over and over. There’s a Britpop callback to their whole sound on this song (it feels both ’90s and a bit “St. Charles Square” to me), and listen, if there’s anything I’m always here for, it’s Graham Coxon-sounding guitars. Along with the creeping bassline, “CPR” is a hooky song on its own, but as the opening to moisturizer, I’m interested to see the direction it goes in, a trajectory that Teasdale speak-sings of, propelling herself off a cliff and into the unknown.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

A Tempest of Tea – Hafsah Faizal – “Try to run/Head for the hills/If you’re a ghost, then oh my God/How can you give me the chills?”

“Two Legs” (Snail Mail Version) – This Is Lorelei

It feels so strange that I’ve only sparingly talked about Snail Mail on these posts since she’s played such a critical part in my musical lineage. I discovered her at the tail end of 8th grade, and through that weird summer before high school where I was questioning my sexuality, I listened to Lush, it became a favorite of mine, and I even met Lindsey Jordan after a show at the tiniest little club. She thought I was in college, somehow…I was 14. I left that show with the guitar pick she’d given me, a desire to pick up the guitar, and a bit more starstruck courage to come out. I followed her on another tour in my sophomore year of college, and caught her touring for Valentine a few years after.

I guess the part she plays in my life now is diminished since she hasn’t done a whole lot album-wise in almost four years. Other than that, though, she has technically done a lot: an EP of Valentine demos, an acting role in I Saw the TV Glow (that I still haven’t seen…oops), a Smashing Pumpkins cover, and a gig singing with Weezer back in 2023. One of the more recent singles she’s done is another cover—this time, a reworked version of This Is Lorelei (the solo project of Nate Amos from Water From Your Eyes)’s “Two Legs.” She’s switched up the key and added a sprinkling of Lush-sounding guitar flourishes. Since her vocal surgery several years ago, Jordan’s seemed to struggle with fitting her older catalogue into a reasonable range for her. But the easygoing tones of “Two Legs,” with its gentle twang and tenderly spoken lyrics are a sweetly comfortable fit for her. I doubt this is indicative of whatever new direction she’s taking, but this reworking was almost made for her.

Gwen & Art Are Not in Love – Lex Croucher – “If you said you wanted two weeks/You know I’d give you nine/And they’d be yours and mine/Ain’t nothing gonna make us cry, we will not cry, love/If it made life easy for you, I would say goodbye/And love, if you said you needed two legs/I’d give you mine…”

“Lola” – The Kinks

I didn’t line this song up for pride month, but I might as well talk about it since it came back to me, in the way that a classic always does.

“Girls will be boys and boys will be girls/It’s a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world/Except for Lola.”

It still blows me away that this was a hit song all the way back in 1970. Of course, it wasn’t without controversy, but to have a band put out something so blatantly queer on the airwaves that long ago never ceases to amaze me. I can only imagine the reaction of some uptight conservatives listening to the radio when “Well I’m not the world’s most masculine man/But I know what I am in the bed, I’m a man/And so was Lola” came on. Pearl-clutching ensues. “Lola” wasn’t the first queer song of its kind, but what stands out to me is that Ray Davies never once makes a joke out of Lola; there’s been some speculation over the years about whether Lola is/was inspired by a drag queen or a transgender woman (Davies later confirmed the latter), but either way, it details the protagonist falling in love with a woman, getting confused about why she “walk[s] like a woman and talk[s] like a man,” and realizing the truth about her identity. Although the protagonist does express a great deal of shock, he doesn’t outright disrespect Lola or make her the butt of a joke—he just accepts that the world is weird and variable, and that it’s fine for Lola to be who she is.

Perhaps it was because The Kinks were a relatively popular, mainstream, and notably heterosexual band that they were able to get a queer message on the air easier than other artists. For me, that doesn’t diminish the effect that “Lola” has and continues to have, given how maligned queer people—especially trans people—were at the time, and continue to be today. They could’ve just as easily made a fool out of Lola, but in this situation, it’s the sheltered, inexperienced protagonist that gets a laugh out of the audience. Lola’s not overly fetishized, either—she’s described as being attractive and sensual, but she’s not an outright sex object. Sure, some of the language is outdated (namely that Lola is still referred to as a “man” even though she’s likely a trans woman), but this is 1970 we’re talking about, of course the language isn’t going to be completely analogous to 2025. None of it comes off maliciously—it was just the language they had to work with at the time, and all of it was just to say that Lola, a trans woman at the margins of society, was deserving of love. Radical concept, eh?

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Last Night at the Telegraph Club – Malinda Lo – not an exact match, but it’s a similar story of queer love against the odds of an oppressive era.

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 1/21/24

Posted on January 21, 2024 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

The fact that all of January’s color schemes have been somewhat dreary is a complete coincidence, but it fits with all the dead foliage, snow, and misery outside. One of the suckiest months, without a doubt. But this week is more fun, at least: throwbacks of all kinds, British Invasion remnants, and my 6th grade hyperfixations coming back to haunt me.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 1/21/24

“Rattlesnake” – St. Vincent

Last week, I was overcome by the urge to re-listen to several of my favorite albums. The urge was mostly just me going through Hunky Dory and part of Aladdin Sane on David Bowie’s birthday (happy 77th, wherever you are on Mars), but I decided to put off the first new-to-me album until I got back to school. (More on that next week.) So, for the first time since…oh, probably middle school, I listened to St. Vincent’s self-titled album in full—my third favorite album of all time, only beaten out by OK Computer and Hunky Dory in my book. I have no doubt that I’d give it the same praise had it not been this way, but St. Vincent is just one of those albums that’s been such an unmistakable part of my life that it’s practically embedded in my genetic material. I played this album into oblivion back in middle school, and it’s impossible to pull out a single memory I have tied to it, since it’s painted the landscape of the time when I was 11 to when I was about 13 so distinctly. Car rides, plane trips, afternoons clutching my iPod—Annie Clark was always there. Somehow, I also used to be able to listen to music while playing minecraft, and that album (along with Hunky Dory) was the soundtrack to many a sloppy house dug into the side of a hill. But now, after so many years of growth, this album remains as truly glorious as my younger self thought it was. Not a single hair out of place, and not a single note that isn’t pumped with energy and fervor. Every soaring, jerking guitar solo still sends me into the stratosphere, and every bloody-lipped turn of phrase never fails to light up my brain. There’s just a sheer power that shakes the earth with every song; even in the quieter moments, you can’t help but be hypnotized by the chrome world that Clark created. The robed, silver-haired persona that Clark took on during this era was self-described as a “near-future cult leader,” and I’ve always liked that aspect, but I can’t help but fully understand now. I usually think I’m a levelheaded person, but I’d join that cult, no questions asked. This brand of exhilarating power puts me under a spell every single time. It’s still crazy to me that there were a whopping five bonus tracks beyond the initial 11. They must’ve had to physically restrain her from creating the most masterful pieces of music and throwing them all on the album on the first go. We weren’t ready.

Way back in 2014, “Rattlesnake” was the first song off of this album that captured me. (“Birth in Reverse” came soon after, and for some reason, it took me longer to grow on “Digital Witness,” but now I adore it to death as much as the others.) At this point, I’d gone all the way into clinging onto St. Vincent’s music like a leech. For this song in particular, it was in no small part due to the fact that it clicked into my middle school WondLa hyperfixation perfectly (see below), and at age 12, there was no higher praise that I could give a song, however abysmally I misinterpreted it. There have been many such songs over the years, but for once, my analysis of this one wasn’t all bad—the comparison still works. “Rattlesnake,” like its namesake, is prickly all over; from the opening synths to the burning, angular guitar riff towards the end, which was apparently so intense that she sliced her finger while recording it in the studio. It’s jagged like lightning—if you could touch this song, it would snap back at you with a jolt of electricity. And as Annie Clark recounts an autobiographical experience of a “commune with nature” in the middle of the desert, her breathless verses brim with beads of sweat and uncertainty as she turns tail: “Running, running, running, rattle behind me/Running, running, running, no one will find me.” In between the heatstroked repetitions, Clark hides one of the many golden lines on this album: “I see the snake holes dotted in the sand/As if Seurat painted the Rio Grande.” God, if that isn’t a stellar image. Like a feral cat, “Rattlesnake” brims with fear and flexing claws, skittish and ready to bolt at the slightest wrong move. It’s a song that palpably crackles with unbridled energy, unleashed from desperation and the desert heat.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Search for WondLa – Tony DiTerlizzi – low-hanging fruit here (for me, at least), but for once, 6th grade me was onto something. It’s hard to find a song that fits this book better than the progression from “Am I the only one/In the only world?” to “I’m not the only one/In the only world.” (Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah, ah.) Healing my inner middle schooler.

“You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away” – The Beatles

I’ve always wondered what the Help! album cover is supposed to mean—if I squinted, I thought they were spelling out the letters to “help” (Paul’s pose does look a bit like an L, but none of the others look like the right letters…); as it turns out, Robert Freeman, the photographer for the album cover, originally intended for them make the positions for spelling out “H-E-L-P” in flag semaphore, but he scrapped the idea since he thought that the Fab Four were distinctive enough no matter what pose they were striking, so he just had them…spell out gibberish in flag semaphore. The more you know.

Everything written about the versatility of the Beatles can’t be understated, but the more I listen to some of their earlier music, it’s clear that the kind of wild creativity that defined them was already gestating before they started getting into their more experimental period. Even if this is more of a tribute to Bob Dylan’s highly influential style than anything, they’ve still managed to make it so unmistakable Beatles. It’s one thing to be able to create a nice, downtempo folk tune with some scattered flutes and tambourine here and there, but even in such early days, the rhythm of “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away” is so salient that you can’t help but be bobbed by it like a bottle floating over the sea. The whole song has the sway of a flimsy wooden boat on the ocean, gently pitched up and down by the waves with every strum of the guitar. John Lennon’s wavering, raspy inflections are jutting and precise in all the strangest places, but that’s part of what makes this so memorable—it’d be easy to record a cover of this with a flat voice inflected with enough melancholy to sell it, but there’s an enchanting storyteller’s waver in every word. It’s the kind of song that could draw a crowd through the woods—added with the image of the four Beatles standing shoulder, I imagine a slowly expanding crowd circling around them as Lennon sings “Gather ’round, all you clowns/Let me hear you say/Hey! You’ve got to hide your love away…”

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Into the Heartless Wood – Joanna Ruth Meyer – “you’ve got to hide your love away” takes it pretty literally, but the both the melancholy folk sway and the uncertain, forbidden romance match this gorgeous modern fairytale.

“Come Lie Down With Me (And Sing My Song)” – Elf Power

We regret to inform you that I’m still riding the Elephant 6 high, even though I haven’t even seen the documentary yet. I’ll get to it eventually.

Unlike bands like the Apples in Stereo and the Olivia Tremor Control, Elf Power’s music usually doesn’t grab me instantaneously; there’s no denying their creativity, but it doesn’t often click with me the way that the other Elephant 6 bands do. Typically, I’ll just like the song, listen to it two or three times, and forget about it. Next to the raucous energy and whimsy of their compatriots, they seem more reserved. Reserved isn’t always a bad thing for me, but with the company they’re in, it seemed like they would have had something brighter to offer. “Come Lie Down With Me (And Sing My Song)” is similarly reserved, but it has an atmosphere that most of the other Elf Power songs I’ve listened to lack. Even if there wasn’t a mention of “rain on the sea,” this song is one of the rainier songs I’ve ever heard, practically the distorted gray of a windowpane streaked with falling rain. The acoustic, folksier approach is steeped in a strange, distant melancholy; the lyrics feel innocent enough—invitations of love in hidden spaces—but I can’t help but feel a sense of unease lurking in the background. It has the same eery air that a lot of age-old folk standards have, like something passed along during the Great Depression and whispered on the biting wind. It gives me the same lingering unease of a Syd Barrett song, like it wanted to be whimsical and innocent, but couldn’t deny some hidden darkness. And even if I’m not fully on the Elf Power bandwagon, there’s no denying that this feeling is a difficult one to replicate and successfully pull off.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Depths – Nicole Lesperance – rain on the sea, vague discomfort looming large.

“All Nerve” – The Breeders

It’s always fascinating to see the exact ways that a talented singer’s voice changes as they age. The inevitable deepening, and often thickening, that comes for everybody, but just like how each of our voices are unique, each voice changes uniquely. There’s David Bowie’s voice expanding its horizons, deepening like an incomprehensible chasm until it began to quiver at the edges, the soft, sonorous rumble that’s slowly crept into Damon Albarn’s voice as he’s reached middle age, and the whispering rasp that laces the edge of Kate Bush’s voice in her most recent recordings.

For Kim Deal, it’s like some sort of invisible bottom has opened up, making her voice thicken like firm cake batter after a good round of stirring with a spatula. It feels strangely compressed, like most of the airiness has been squeezed out, leaving the back of the throat emotion to clamber through the crawlspace that’s been left behind. But what age never left behind for any of the Breeders was the youthful, reckless spirit that seems to have defined them. This could’ve easily been written back in the ’90s and been an alternative hit, but it works just as well as it worked six years ago. Age has not dulled the spitfire sensibilities of their songwriting—”All Nerve,” as both the title and the album suggest, is just as sparking and feral as much of their other catalogue. The stripped down instrumentation, mostly just bass, sparingly plucked guitar, and faint drums that linger at the corners of your eardrums, make the lust and desperation all the more lusty and desperate. The bare-bones feel of it all, for the first minute or so, at least, add to the feeling of gathering up all you have left—be it physical belongings or strength—to race across whatever wasteland lies ahead to see “you/Especially you.” And it’s just like the Breeders to add the song’s repeated sucker-punch of “I won’t stop” just as the guitars come crashing down like rocks on the highway.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Skyhunter – Marie Lu – desperate love in wartime, the feral kind with bloodied steel wings.

“Sunny Afternoon” – The Kinks

Not to bring it back to Britpop, but I’m bringing it back to Britpop. The oft-quoted difference between Blur and Oasis was that Oasis aimed to be the next Beatles (which…even if their music was any good, that would still be presumptuous), but Blur was more interested in delving into the quirkier side of the British Invasion era, namely the Kinks. And even though I’ve been hearing The Kinks in the car from a young age, the more I listen to them, the more I realize just how much Blur gleaned from their lyrical style. The minute I heard “Sunny Afternoon,” I just realized that this was “Country House” before “Country House” was a thing. Chronologically, I guess it’d be the “Country House” sequel after the character’s dissatisfaction blows up and he loses everything. Also fits with “Charmless Man” quite well.

Setting aside my recent habit of listening to music with even the briefest mention of sunshine to get myself through the January doldrums, there’s such a unique texture to “Sunny Afternoon” that pervades in so many of the artists that they influenced, Blur included. There’s a lingering taste of the hottest days of the year, squinting your eyes through the sunlight as the warmth bakes your skin. Maybe a lingering taste of lemonade, something sweet…I guess an ice cold beer, in this case, but overshadowing the summer sweetness is the knowledge that this is all that the narrator has left, now that “The taxman’s taken all my dough/and left me in my stately home.” It’s not full melancholy, but a sarcastic imitation of it that’s only there to humor the narrator—enough to hammer in the point that…yeah, whoever this dude is, he probably had it coming, even if he did lose everything. Yeah, “All I’ve got’s this sunny afternoon,” but I suspect that whatever your (ex) girlfriend told her parents about that “drunkenness and cruelty” wasn’t entirely baseless. The whole song is just “awww, you poor baby, you can’t sail your yacht? Go cry about it.” “Sunny Afternoon” has a sly sort of playfulness, the kind that makes you imagine the narrator imagined as a cartoon character, moping onscreen as you pass The Kinks themselves. (The camera would pan over to Ray Davies, who’d do some kind of silly, exaggerated frown as this rich dude slips on a banana peel, or something.) And amidst all this, you’ve got some of the prettiest harmonies I’ve heard on a Kinks song in the chorus—”Lazing on a sunny afternoon” sounds like it’s misting away like droplets of water coming out of a sprinkler, gently dissolving in the heat.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Chosen and the Beautiful – Nghi Vo – usually, most of the books here are ones that I’ve enjoyed, but sometimes, there’s no denying the way a book and a song pair, even if you didn’t enjoy the book. This one wasn’t my favorite, but it’s a retelling of The Great Gatsby, so you can see where the “dissatisfied rich people losing everything” thread comes in.

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (5/24/22) – A Magic Steeped in Poison

Posted on May 24, 2022 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I saw A Magic Steeped in Poison pop up on several blogs I follow whenever it first came out, and I figured I’d give it a go; I’ve become slightly jaded with a lot of YA fantasy by this point, but I was intrigued by the unique concept of tea magic that this novel promised. I bought it the other day, and I just recently finished it—lush and immersive, with a world that I loved getting lost in.

Enjoy this week’s review!

A Magic Steeped in Poison (The Book of Tea, #1) – Judy I. Lin

In Ning’s world, tea is everything. The shennong-shi—masters of the art of tea-making—are revered in her society, known for conjuring magic and omens through their tea.

After an incident with poisoned tea kills Ning’s mother and incapacitates her sister, she turns to the only option to save her family. In the imperial city, there is a competition to find the most worthy shennong-shi in the kingdom; the winner earns the favor of the princess. Knowing that it may be the only way to save her sister, Ning ventures into the city, but what waits for her there may be more than she bargained for.

TW/CW: poisoning, loss of loved ones, violence, murder, animal cruelty

my brain can’t decide between “Tea” by Jim Noir or “Have a Cuppa Tea” by The Kinks as my internal soundtrack for this…a little help here?

As a reader, I’ve started to grow tired of some many of the beats that most YA fantasies follow—chosen ones, love triangles, and not much “fantasy” other than a basic magic system. I’m glad to say that A Magic Steeped in Poison was a breath of fresh air in that department, filled with lush prose and steeped (no pun intended) in Chinese culture and mythology!

First off, can we all take a moment to appreciate how beautiful this cover is? WOW. Seriously still in awe of how gorgeous it is. DANG. That is ART right there.

now, back to our scheduled program…

What immediately stands out about A Magic Steeped in Poison is Judy I. Lin’s prose. Like the brewing tea that shows up in so much of the book, it’s lush and immersive, filled with all sorts of sensory details that make the world feel all the more fleshed out. Lin’s writing makes it easy to picture the world that she’s created, from Ning’s rural home province to the luxury of the Imperial City. I could smell the tea, feel rain on my skin, and sense the tension that hung in the air during the shennong-shi competition.

I didn’t get overly attached to any of the characters, but Ning worked as the perfect kind of protagonist for A Magic Steeped in Poison; her determination, her hard-working spirit, and her devotion to her craft and family made her just the kind of protagonist to root for. For me, most of the other secondary characters weren’t as fleshed out, but I did like Lian as a secondary character, and the budding romance between Ning and Kang was totally sweet 🥺 (more of that!!! please!!!) I wanted more from these characters, but as a baseline, they were still good to work with.

However, I will say that the plot felt disorganized at worst. Amidst the main plot of the shennong-shi competition, there were a lot of secondary threads that only lasted a few chapters. Their resolutions were often very rushed, and I found myself wondering whether or not they were really relevant to the plot in the end. It felt a bit like an unfinished tapestry; the main picture was all there, but all of the loose, fraying threads at the edges made it almost look sloppy.

All in all, a refreshing fantasy that engaged all of my senses with ease. 3.75 stars, rounded up to 4!

A Magic Steeped in Poison is Judy I. Lin’s debut, and the first book in the Book of Tea duology. Its sequel, A Venom Dark and Sweet, is slated for release this August.

Today’s song:

GOOD GOD this is SUCH A FANTASTIC ALBUM UGH

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Books, Weekly Updates

Weekly Update: April 13-19, 2020

Posted on April 19, 2020April 19, 2020 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

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Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! As always, I hope you’re all safe, sane, and healthy. And please, STAY HOME. FOR ALL OF OUR SAKES, STAY HOME. 💗

This week began fairly normally; it had its ups and downs until about Thursday afternoon or Friday, and from there, things started to really pick up. I read a whole score of great books, watched Darjeeling Limited (Wes Anderson is always a win), there’s new Car Seat Headrest, goofed around on my guitar, and did a lot of drawing! And on this leg of Camp NaNoWriMo, I finally got to 100,000+ WORDS! WOOOOHOOO!

Happy Jennifer Aniston GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

Also, my dad and I finally completed that 1,000 piece Hellboy puzzle! Here’s the final result:

Oh, and Jay Kristoff recently confirmed via Instagram that the use of the sound effect BAMF for the disruptors in Aurora Rising was, in fact, a reference to Nightcrawler’s teleporting sound effect. REJOICE!

THE INCREDIBLE NIGHTCRAWLER!.gif