headlessparrot's Full Review: Colin Meloy Sings Live! [Slimline] by Colin Meloy
You can be forgiven for thinking that it all just comes a little too easy to Colin Meloy. A bookish intellectual, prodigious writer and self-proclaimed ne’er-do-well, the Decemberists front man is the brain trust behind four albums (and one EP) of magnificent indie rock – whimsical folk-rock served up with a helping of prog bombast; stunningly literary, and orchestral in scope – that ranks very favourably against the decade’s best. The Decemberists’ output, beginning with 2002’s Castaways and Cutouts, and continuing through to Her Majesty, Picaresque, and (most recently) The Crane Wife, may ultimately rank as one of the best four album streaks by any band since the Rolling Stones reeled off Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile On Main Street between 1968 and 1972. I think a compelling argument can be made for the inclusion of any one of the band’s albums on a best-of-the-decade list. That I can’t decide which one (though I lean toward their sublime debut, Castaways and Cutouts, the Vegas line probably favours Picaresque), is maybe the greatest testament to Meloy’s effortless elegance. So yes, you can be forgiven for thinking that it all just comes a little too easy to Colin Meloy.
But you shouldn’t think that – at least not completely. Because behind the grace, and behind the breezy nonchalance, is a lot more effort, and a lot more trial and error, than you’d expect. Nowhere is this more evident than in the work of Tarkio, Meloy’s pre-Decemberists college rock ensemble, the body of whose work is available on the 2006 compilation Omnibus. Omnibus reveals an incredibly self-assured Meloy, already in possession of an incredibly nuanced lyrical acumen (indeed, an infant version of the Decemberists fan-favourite “My Mother Was A Chinese Trapeze Artist” appears on Omnibus, lyrically verbatim). But it also reveals, at times, signs of being the college rock band that Tarkio was: a quartet whose modest musical talent sometimes failed to mesh with the orchestral dramatics of its lyrical aspirations. Meloy was lucky, in many respects, that he was able to hone his craft in relative obscurity before arriving on the main stage of indie rock ubiquity. Let it never be said, however, that he isn’t a quick learner – the Decemberists’ very existence feels, in many respects, like a self-administered correction to the limitations of his past endeavours. And since day one, the band has taken immediate action to correct the lack of musical ambition exhibited by its predecessors, pairing Meloy’s literary whimsy and quasi-Victorian fetishism with the kind of musical grandeur that it deserves. All while fostering the appearance of Meloy’s uncannily effortless prowess, as a writer, performer, and everyman kind of character.
Which is exactly what makes Colin Meloy Sings Live! – the band leader’s third solo outing, following two similarly titled limited-run releases paying tribute to Morrissey and Shirley Collins, respectively[1] – so interesting, in spite of the fact that it’s not especially interesting. Which isn’t to say that it’s bad (in fact, it’s very good; but then, I’m somewhat biased), or even that it’s actually uninteresting (are you still following me?), but that it’s exactly what you’d expect from an album titled Colin Meloy Sings Live!: wonderful performances of Decemberists favourites, paired with an occasional rarity, cover, or Tarkio throwback, as well as boatloads of bookish charm and smarmy self-deprecation. In other words, it is – I can safely report, actually having seen the Decemberists live – exactly what you would expect from a Decemberists concert or a (hypothetical) album titled The Decemberists Live!. Minus, of course, the backing band, and their assortment of instruments – it’s just Meloy onstage, his acoustic guitar, a skull, a ship, and a sheep (don’t ask). This, incidentally, is the biggest knock I have against Colin Meloy Sings Live!, because nothing is as intrinsically dramatic as the gorgeous strings and mature organ fills that usually pepper a Decemberists album. It should be noted in the same breath, however, that Colin Meloy Sings Live! – culled from a series of shows on Meloy’s 2006 solo tour – is less about that intrinsic drama than it is about the standalone excellence of Meloy’s songcraft and (as he suggests in one of several interludes) “evoking a campfire sing-along.” And in this respect, it’s quite successful, although certainly not of much interest to anyone who isn’t a fan of the Decemberists already.
Of course, I could be wrong. If you aren’t familiar with Meloy – or even if you are, and aren’t willing to put the possibility of any quirk past him – it’s a distinct possibility that the title Colin Meloy Sings Live!doesn’t conjure up the elaborate vision I’ve just shared, but rather (as it apparently did for Pitchfork Media) that of a Las Vegas lounge act. This returns me to my point (I think). Pitchfork wrote in their review of the album that “it’s funny to imagine Meloy as such a character [a lounge singer], because he’s essentially the opposite: self-conscious and bookish instead of blithe and effortlessly cool. The vocal interpreter sets love stories amid contemporary urban centers; Meloy orchestrates romantic tragedies in exotic period locales.”
But I think that in noting this amusing distinction, Pitchfork failed to really consider the deeper significance. By which I mean this: while Meloy bears no ostensible relationship to a Vegas lounge act –he is, most definitely self-conscious and bookish – the two aren’t so different. Meloy’s persona is as much of a construction as that of a lounge singer’s; it’s just geared toward a very different audience. Pitchfork failed to notice a problematic aspect of their review, by way of an observation in the next paragraph: “Meloy handles the material with a blend of irony and self-effacement that becomes its own kind of very modern charm.” Thus suggesting – though they sort of missed out on the paradoxical implication of their own words – that Meloy kind of is a lounge singer; if not for a new generation, than at least for a new subculture: a subculture that appreciates its bookishness, irony, and self-deprecation as much as typical Vegas audiences appreciate the effortless cool of an actual lounge singer.
The catch is that Meloy has his own kind of effortlessness; it’s just rooted in the mores of indie subculture (his near-constant self-deprecation, for example, wouldn’t be so genuinely funny if it wasn’t juxtaposed by his otherwise easygoing, remarkably commanding stage presence[2]). Indeed, many of the album’s most charming interludes – not just the banter, but strategically placed cover song snippets, and audience admonishments – are taken near-verbatim from what I experienced at a Decemberists concert (though it was a different Morrissey cover that was buried in a different Decemberists song). I’ve gathered from this that Meloy is trying a lot harder than he’d like to let on. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. Actually, an artefact which proves that Colin Meloy doesn’t just shit gold is actually a very nice addition to his catalogue. It also shows that he knows his audience well, but then we could have figured that out awhile ago: a) anyone who has actually written a whole book about the Replacements’ Let It Be knows exactly where their appeal lies, b) anyone who names their child Henry “Hank” Meloy gets an instant nerd seal of approval (unless – and this is entirely possible – I’m reading way too much into the resemblance between the child’s name and that of Henry “Hank” McCoy, “The Beast” of X-Men fame).
Totalling seventeen tracks and seventy-four minutes, Colin Meloy Sings Live! is a pretty sprawling affair for a live album made up of intimate singer-songwriter performances. It’s also pretty carefully constructed, borrowing almost equally from the Decemberists first three albums (The Crane Wife goes unrepresented; this is unsurprising, because the tour from which it was assembled pre-dates that particular album), although it skews more toward Meloy’s dramatic/romantic period pieces (“Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect,” “We Both Go Down Together,” “California One/Youth And Beauty Brigade”) than his more conventional compositions. This decision, likewise, is unsurprising; it focuses attention squarely on the strongest facet of Meloy’s songwriting – although the acoustic nature of the performance somewhat limits the epic tendencies of his more grandiose works.
On the whole, though, the songs hold up quite well in an acoustic setting. While Colin Meloy Sings Live! doesn’t offer definitive versions of any of its selections, it handles almost all of them quite well: the more extravagant moments are scaled back to tastefully accentuate the acoustic setting (Meloy’s performance of “The Gymnast, High Above The Ground,” for example, emphasizes the ethereal beauty of its wistful guitar part, something that’s easily overlooked in the taut drama of the studio version) and there’s no issue with the simpler fare, which was always pretty acoustically inclined anyway. Some renditions are better than others – “The Engine Driver” finds a new kind of beauty in its simplicity, but “California One/Youth And Beauty Brigade” suffers somewhat without the original’s orchestral grandeur – but Colin Meloy Sings Live! keeps a pretty even keel throughout. Sprinkled on top, too, are the requisite covers (or snippets of covers) – the Shirley Collins’ arrangement of the traditional “Barbara Allen,” Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams, and the Smiths’ “Ask” – rarities (Picaresqueties’ “Bandit Queen”), and an original (the ‘it’s-new-to-me’ “Wonder”).
Actually, there are two new songs if you want to count a version of “Dracula’s Daughter” – but maybe you shouldn’t, considering that it’s only Meloy’s self-effacing demonstration of “the worst song I ever wrote.” Over an effervescent guitar part and the audience’s hearty guffaws – not to mention his own interjections about the degree of its awfulness (“the terrifying thing that keeps me awake at night is that I didn’t just stop there”) – Meloy unleashes couplets like “Dracula’s daughter / Got it bad” and “You think you’ve got it bad / Try having Dracula for your dad.” What’s interesting is that despite how awful (albeit hilariously so) this song is, it may be the album’s most compelling moment, if only for its revelatory quality: demonstrating Meloy’s bookish charm and illustrating (with painful clarity) that maybe things don’t come as easy for him as they seem to. And this, to finally make my point five paragraphs later, is why Colin Meloy Sings Live! is maybe more interesting than it actually is.
The album opens, perhaps surprisingly, with a selection from Meloy’s Tarkio days (“Devil’s Elbow”), a heavily strummed narrative tour de force that sets the tone for most of the album’s running time. “Devil’s Elbow,” frankly, was never a Tarkio highlight for me, but this rendition illustrates Meloy’s artistic development, as he wrenches a heightened dynamic tension out of the song, even with the fewer tools that he has at his disposal. “We Both Go Down Together” lacks the dramatic flair of the studio version, but sets the tone for the other epic set pieces to come: “The Gymnast, High Above The Ground” and “Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect” follow, the former being one of the album’s sparkling highlights. The latter similarly lacks the sweeping orchestration of its studio version, though a gradual shift into a snippet of the aforementioned Fleetwood Mac number makes it notable. Meloy’s covers, for what it’s worth, are all of a similar sort: he brings more to them than the source material brings to him, thus transforming them into very Decemberist-esque compositions.
The new-ish “Wonder,” meanwhile, is a simply gorgeous story of human reproduction (“It’s weird, but mostly wonderful, dear”), though describing it is understandably difficult – Meloy’s vocals and his guitar playing are generally more emotionally responsive than they are cerebral, so his nasal twang and hearty strums are difficult to distil. “Wonder” has an intimate sensibility, and reflects an autobiographical sentiment that’s similar to “Red Right Ankle:” it’s written, no doubt, for Meloy’s long-time girlfriend Carson Ellis. The traditional “Barbara Allen” follows a spoken-word introduction to Shirley Collins, and evokes a kind of Celtic sensibility by way of its exaggerated lyrical accents. “A Cautionary Song” transcribes the accordion accompaniment of its studio counterpart to the guitar, maintaining a sea shanty tone while piling on the smirk. I’ve heard the forced -prostitution narrative of “A Cautionary Song” argued, alternately, as either ‘heartbreaking’ or ‘hilarious’ (I for one, have never been able to figure out where ‘heartbreaking’ comes from, given its coda: “…And the next time she tries to feed you collard greens / Remember what she does when you’re asleep”), but Meloy’s tongue-in-cheek performance here makes it abundantly clear that the whole narrative is to be taken as farce. And it’s exhilarating to hear the audience reel off the song’s punch line finale without missing a beat.
A year ago, I wrote this of the aforementioned “Red Right Ankle:”
“...It's short, sweet, and to the point, a softly-strummed acoustic ballad that teeters on the edge of country and western balladry without tipping over and falling off... “Red Right Ankle” is rendered in such perfectly intimate detail; Meloy's voice, though limited, is absolutely perfect, honest, and sweetly beautiful, almost ethereal – and the low-fidelity recording (some faint white noise seems to linger throughout most of the track) perfectly suits the song's tone, lending it a sort of smoky, isolated intimacy. The simply strummed, occasionally fret-buzzing acoustic guitar, the single piano overdub, the complete absence of drums, and Meloy's sheer earnestness make this – to me – one of the most beautiful love songs I've ever heard (“This is the story of the boys who loved you / Who love you now and loved you then”), and one of the best pure love songs I've ever heard, short of the Beach Boys' “God Only Knows”... I could gush, too, over the wordplay – not simply using ten-dollar words like 'sinews' and 'ventricles' for the sake of using them, but because they fit; and the wonderful near rhyming of 'key' with 'Pyrenees,' and 'me' with 'symmetry' – but this is simply peripheral detail for a song that I feel speaks clearly, completely, and totally for itself.”
I still feel exactly the same way now about “Red Right Ankle” as I did then. And while the version featured on Colin Meloy Sings Live! simply can’t live up to the transcendence of the original (I think the absence of that single piano overdub, so immaculately conceived, is why this version falls so slightly short), it goes a long way in notching up the tender sentiment of Meloy’s most immediate love song; capturing exactly why I love it so much. The collection closes, finally, with Picaresqueties’ “Bandit Queen,” a quirky story of love in the time of political insurrection (“She ain’t fancy, she ain’t fine / While her fingers number only nine / She’s the bell of the ball of the insurgency”) that begins with an extensive exercise in collective imagination (“...Close your eyes... Briefly visualize that you’re in Colorado... No, let’s say New Mexico... You prefer Colorado? OK, let’s go to Colorado.”). In spite of its obscurity, it’s an excellent choice for an album closer, I must admit, with its low key sweetness and lyrical imagination. It is also as close as a selection from Colin Meloy Sings Live! gets to surpassing its original, though this might be because the only other available versions of “Bandit Queen” were recorded live or for a radio station.
As seventeen songs (actually, fourteen songs, two excerpts of stage banter, and one example of how bad songwriting can get), Colin Meloy Sings Live! is pretty much beyond reproach. It’s fun, it’s funny, and it’s another reminder of Meloy’s considerable talents as a songwriter. My problem with it only arises when I try to figure out what the point of it all is. Colin Meloy Sings Live! isn’t a document that preserves the experience of a live Decemberists show: it doesn’t capture the excitement of great live records, like Live At Leeds, Band of Gypsies, or Alive (not to mention the fact that it is just Meloy and his guitar, and not the whole band). It doesn’t aim to capture a moment in history. It also isn’t an ideal introduction to the band: Meloy, for all his brilliance, can’t capture by himself the orchestral component that is such an important part of the Decemberists’ persona. It isn’t a fans-only collection of impossible-to-find tunes – only “Wonder” and “Dracula’s Daughter” don’t appear elsewhere in his catalogue (and the latter is easy to find on Youtube, in a much more elaborate staging that incorporates Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard – amongst others – and a bizarre spoken word interlude). It isn’t a new album that just so happens to have been recorded live. It isn’t an experiment in “going acoustic,” because the Decemberists were always pretty folksy to begin with. And it certainly isn’t a bandleader indulging his solo aspirations, given its reliance on Decemberists material, and the fact that the Decemberists’ sound is Meloy’s sound.
So what is it? Well, besides excellent, Colin Meloy Sings Live! is proof that a dedicated fan will espouse the brilliance of anything that bears the Meloy name. Even if it is kind of pointless. Sings Live! loses a star for not knowing where it fits into the Colin Meloy history book. But it keeps the other four for being pretty remarkable nonetheless.
_____________________ [1] – Another entry in the Colin Sings… series is expected in Spring 2008, this time paying tribute to Sam Cooke.
[2] – In fact, the Decemberists show that I witnessed is the only performance I have seen where, when the lead singer gives the crowd elaborate instructions – in this case, splitting itself down the middle, resulting in two sides of audience members, facing each other with angry snarls – they actually carry them out, and without a moment’s hesitation. Meloy, in this respect, would make a powerful cult leader.
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