Song of the Day - Day 579

Today's song is...


Protagonist


This song took a while to grow on me. I never disliked it, just passed over it a bit (though not much due to its presence on an album I have listened to obsessively). What won me over first was the rhythm. I gradually grew to love the casual rolling rhythm that is especially present in the guitar and the drums (Oh no! She has started gushing about the drums on Join Ud again! Hide!). It's got a little bit of a jazz quality to it, but mostly it has an old fashioned texture that I don't find in a lot of songs anymore.

Then I got interested in the lyrics. I still haven't figured out whether the woman in the song is an actual woman who left the writer for another man, or if she is a story stolen from him by another writer. I find either scenario equally possible. And the addition of the blurbs of script, which initially perplexed me, now fit very well into the whole of the song of a writer, wrapped in his work so much so that it weaves in and out of reality. I've said, it countless times before, but I'll say it again. I was so impressed by the strength of Flansburgh's writing on this album. He appears to have dug deep and discovered a whole new level of songwriting.