A Modest Nomination of "Freeze the Saints" as THE BEST SONG EVER - or at the Very Least the Best Stephen Malkmus Song...on Side A of Face the Truth.
I've always loved the way that some songs' lyrical muddle can imbue new weight to simple words and phrases. Taking ideas and unburdening them of their context and structure to make a living document strikes me as the best way to write lyrics. I think it's the best way even when it ends up sounding like the songwriter is feebly stringing together words solely to fit the melody. Because it shifts the attention to the listener, where it should always have been. Music should be interactive enough to survive endless listenings in endless settings.
That's what my latest weeklong love affair with Malkmus' "Freeze the Saints" has taught me.
Read, the lyrics - with their references to cauterized tears and zodiac ballets - don't offer much by way of narrative flow or even basic sentence structure (although I would argue that they are still hugely impressive just read aloud). Sung, however, to that beautiful beautiful melody they drip with meaning. And, after you come to terms with how the tinkling of the piano and the punctuation of the guitar build the melody, you arrive at the lyrics.
With the lyrics, everything seems in its right place. The tug of Malkmus' insistent reminder that "you are, yes you are so much like me" and the pull of his plea to "languish here" in the end create a neat stasis. In between these opposing forces, he inserts half-formed lyrical vignettes that punch in different weight classes. Some espouse cozy wisdom, others concoct magnetic poetry. All exist between the bookends of a demand and a plea.
So I agree wholeheartedly with Malkmus - done is good, but done well is so much fucking better.
Stephen Malkmus: Freeze the Saints
from Face the Truth, an essential album for me.
