Today's song is...
Letterbox
Ooo, one of my favorites. This is definitely in my top 25. This song as a whole has some of my favorite lyrics in the whole catalog. So much so that it is hard for me to pick out my favs. Oddly, I think my favorite line might be "'Cause a little bird never tells me anything I want to know, she's my best friend, she's a sparrow" and that has everything to do with the way the line sounds and very little to do with the meaning. I'm also quite fond of the bridge. This song is pretty much everything I love about Linnell's writing. The way the words flow together is just brilliant and it has a beautiful melody.
And going way, way back to one of my very first non-recap entries on this blog, the beat of silence in Letterbox is one of my most favorite things ever. When executed well it gives me chills. And when executed poorly it just makes me laugh. I have this great memory of them playing it at one of the Flood shows and getting into that silent moment and Dan Miller accidently twanging his guitar too soon. I am still laughing about it. He looked so sheepish.
I'll let some of the Flans fans out there gush about him harmonizing in falsetto.
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One point of interest to me about Letterbox is how long ago it was written, i.e. around 1980 according to my calculations based on the dialog in the 1988-09-28 show. For some reason, a fact like this is weirdly fascinating to me - just trying to imagine an oh-so-young Linnell in the process of penning this song.
ReplyDelete:D I love this one. (I know I say that a lot, but I'm completely sincere in my claim every time.) Definitely one of my very favorites as well. And you pretty much summed up its greatness already, so I'll leave it at that.
ReplyDeleteOh golly, I just listened to it again (it's been way too long since I've listened to Flood -- ironically, I don't think I have since I received a FLOOD of wonderful "new" TMBG music to become acquainted with. :P har.) and it's such a wonderful song. So much for "leav[ing] it at that". It's splendid in every way. Thank you, John Linnell. I can't think of anything to say about it without repeating myself or what you've said, so I guess I'll stop now.
Oh, and shout out to Flansburgh for falsetto. :}
Though Flood has never been one of my favorite albums, Letterbox was probably my favorite song from the album when it first came out. It may still be my favorite (though I've become partial to Your Racist Friend recently). Letterbox has a great get-you-in-the-gut melody. I think you described it really well. In fact, I think I'll listen to it today... wouldn't that just be fine?
ReplyDeleteThere's something about Letterbox that I've always been fascinated with. I think it's the same fascination I have with Stormy Pinkness; both songs are very short, and yet they are coherent, actual, and well-written pieces.
ReplyDeleteI thought I had a live version of Letterbox in iTunes. Guess not. But there's that lovely live version from 1988 that's on YouTube.
I think I should give Flood another listen soon.