Scotch and penicillin
In celebration of I AM SEEING THE SILVER JEWS PLAY MUSIC TONIGHT, here is the song "Trains Across the Sea."
Trains Across the Sea (from Starlite Walker by Silver Jews, 1994)
What we have here is arguably the finest Silver Jews song, and inarguably their (insofar as the Jews are a "they") finest-sounding recording. Highlights (including but not limited to some of the ingredients that fuse together to so effectively evoke the "it's been evening all day long" mood of the track, which it retains after 10 years of regular listening):
Trains Across the Sea (from Starlite Walker by Silver Jews, 1994)
What we have here is arguably the finest Silver Jews song, and inarguably their (insofar as the Jews are a "they") finest-sounding recording. Highlights (including but not limited to some of the ingredients that fuse together to so effectively evoke the "it's been evening all day long" mood of the track, which it retains after 10 years of regular listening):
- "In 27 years, I've drunk 50,000 beers"
- How young David Berman sounds. His voice has has gotten deeper and more gruff with each subsequent album, but it seems especially youthful here. I guess typically his vocals suggest someone beyond his years, but on this song he sounds, well, 27.
- That relentless drum beat, with the snare hit that sounds like someone kicking a box of chains. Like an amplified version of the lightly jangling set of keys hanging from your ignition that makes percussing with your thumbs on the top of your steering wheel so fulfilling.
- The pedal steel, coming in at 1:43 to draw train tracks across a dusklit ocean.
- "Half-hours on Earth, what are they worth? I don't know."
- The piano, which can be separated into two parts: a single pervasive note on the lower end, deep and hollow as a darkening hallway, and the intermittent melodic high notes/chords. Taken together, there is a fullness that initially gives the impression of a more traditional piano-chord-type accompaniment.
- The chord progression, which is: C, Fmaj7. There are no real verses or choruses, and there isn't a discernible pattern in the number of bars for which each chord is held. If you are familiar with the song and know these two chords, you can play it intuitively. The logic is: if you are playing a C and feel it's time for a chord change, switch to Fmaj7; if you're on Fmaj7, switch to C.
- The weird, bright squink that appears at 2:24, behind the word "half." Is that the pedal steel? I don't know, but it sounds like a time traveler arriving in the song.