Sunday, March 29, 2009

The Weakerthans-A Brilliant Band

I've been meaning to post a Weakerthans song for some while now, but they keep slipping out of my mind when I post. No longer. The Weakerthans are a Canadian indie rock band, who combine brilliant lyrics with usually great melodies. (Sometimes I think they get a bit far from their best stuff, but I listen anyway to hear the words, which are incredibly written.) I could post a bunch of their songs which I love a bunch, but I'll have to choose just one. Which will be Civil Twilight. Listen carefully...if you don't catch the words from the song, then you can read the lyrics. This is probably their most popular song to date, as it reached number 1 on the Canadian charts for a long time. Listen for alliteration. They're incredible alliteration writers. (If that makes sense...)



The lyrics:
My confusion corner commuters are cursing the cold away
As December tries to dissemble the length of their working day
And they bite their mitts off to show me transfers, deposit change
and I can't stop finding your face in their faces, all rearranged
and angry like you never were;

And I ease us back into traffic
dusk comes on and I wonder why
I'm always remembering you
in civil twilight

for the most part I think about golfing and constantly calculate
all the seconds left in the minutes, and so on, etcetera
Or recite the names of provinces and Hollywood actors;
Oh, Ontario! Oh, Jennifer Jason Leigh!
This part of the day bewilders me

Streets slow down and ice over,
Dusk comes on and I struggle to stop,
To stop to stop thinking of you
In civil twilight

Hey, every other hour I pass that house,
Where you told me that you had to go
I wonder if the landlord has fixed the crack,
That I stared at, instead of staring back at you;

My chance to say something seemed so brief
It wasn't. Now I know I had plenty of time
Between the sunset and certified darkness
Dusk comes on and I follow the exhaust from memory up to the end

The civil twilight
The civil twilight
The civil twilight
The civil twilight

2 comments:

  1. Agreed, they are brilliant! Did I give you anything from Left & Leaving?

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  2. I have most of Left & Leaving, including the two you gave me, which are Left and Leaving and My Favourite Chords. I think the only ones I don't have from that album are The Pamphleteer, History To The Defeated, and Exiles Among You. Anyway, I look forward the next music compilation from you...Jon Foreman has been very good, as well as most of the other songs from the last one.

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