It’s April 1st (2nd) and simultaneously my hope for spring feels renewed and diminished. But three (four if you count the Bad Books song) stellar quality new Kevin Devine videos beat this winter’s last strike, so I’m going to hang onto the renewal.
Those who have been fortunate to catch Kevin on the road this past winter will likely be familiar with this song. I am lucky to have seen it performed a few times, once during a soundcheck at The Space in Hamden, CT, which was just as lulling as the delivery on the new Nervous Engines video.
I am pretty instantly sold by “Between the Concrete and Clouds” because it features a variety of some of my favorite songwriting techniques: a time-line/parallelism, forward puns (Casper, you holy ghost), and an “evolving chorus” (I just made that term up). When I view this song in the context of some of KD’s earlier material, it gets my heart a little. Something that I have noticed in a lot of seasoned songwriters’ catalogs is this kind of transition that occurs in perspectives of their narratives. If you listen to earlier Kevin Devine, stuff like “Noose Dressed Like a Necklace” or “Me and My Friends,” it feels more confessional, it feels like the speaker is asking for guidance more than providing it—at least directly. With “Between the Concrete and Clouds,” I really hear Kevin Devine making the shift to the other side of the things. He’s still asking questions, but there’s something more seasoned about it than a lot of the material he’s put out before. I always find Kevin Devine songs inspiring, but here I feel like the inspiration is coming from something more separate from myself, from a place I haven’t seen yet, when quite often I find inspiration in being assured that someone else feels like this too so it must be okay somehow—stuff that comes from places I’ve been to before.
God in the wood, the words, the coffee pot
It wasn’t adding up
At war with yourself, afraid of everyone
You said, “Enough’s enough.”
The writing is also more structured than a lot of Devine’s other songs. He performs the chorus something like four times and without counting, I’d say most KD songs don’t even have one chorus. Kevin has indicated that this album is more compact (I am taking liberty with this wording) than his previous releases, and I can already hear that on this song. Without looking (read: listening) I’m also trying to recall some landmark KD tracks that are in minor keys, and I can’t think of a ton. I think it’s often harder to make the minor work (because the major works so well) and it’s not a surprise that Kevin is able to nail it (what helps make it work is a lot of interesting chord choices that are not in the key, and the chorus uses typical major chords, and the contrast makes both the chorus and the verses feel fresher).
Now every single time that you open your mouth
Give yourself a breath while you’re working it out
The answer’s in between all the concrete and clouds
It’s anywhere you want
Yeah, it’s next to you now
Each derivation of the chorus becomes a little more hopeful, and at the end the approach is pedagogical, and I’m inspired because someone who I know has been in my shoes, or near them, at least, is telling me I can take a breath.
“Luxembourg” more closely follows KD’s stylistic norm: lyrics that could be poetry and verse after verse after verse, but somehow just as captivating as a song with more than one chord progression.
I have weaknesses like all my brothers do
An objectifying eye and hands that follow suit
Some ugly allergy to the true love on my plate
Wrong wiring, connections I can’t make
I feel like there’s more packed into every verse of this song than there is on most records; the lyrical craft in this song is simply phenomenal. I’ve personally found that it is a struggle to experience as opposed to collect experience. To me, the speaker of this song is someone who’s become too caught up in the collecting; stocking life’s staples, things like love, up on a shelf or mantle to display because we know they’re supposed to be important somehow.
She seemed satisfied in the corner of the frame
Until she turned to me, said “I need to walk away
Speak no argument, you’re nowhere close to sure;
I’m sorry, but, I don’t have time for sorry anymore.”
Objectification remains a theme throughout the whole song. It’s always interesting to note how artists use similar images in different ways; I’m reminded of another Devine song with a reference to a picture: We could be a snapshot, framed and hung like a portrait / What if that’s true and I’m the only one who knows it? from “Tap Dance.” I guess I’ll go even more poetry on you guys—like the picture he covets, the speaker too is frozen in his life, unable to really move with the love that is moving on.
I felt I was in debt
Each night spent in your bed
A dream I let drop dead
And never had again
Almost immediately “11.17.10″ reminds me of Brand New, something in the way of the demos for “Sowing Season.” I think it’s the power chords at the beginning, and the way this track builds from the muffled guitar and whisper to the full chords and exclamations. Out of the three, this is the one I’m most excited to hear (and see) the full-band version of. And structurally, this falls somewhere in between the first two; the running verses like in “Luxembourg,” but (based on these performances) there’s a greater dynamic range and so a lot more contrast throughout this song.
Sour grapes when the joke goes bad
Same smirk, same bullshit laugh
It’s the egg on my face when I can’t go back
I didn’t plan for that
This last verse contains some of my favorite imagery in the song. That might be because when I read into it literally I really relate; I’m frequently facing that empty silence of going too far when I really didn’t mean to and not knowing how to take it back. Also, it’s because this is just good writing.
So I think whatever he planned for, everyone who’s paying attention is more than excited for Kevin Devine’s sixth full-length release.
What can you do now? While you’re waiting, you should order Part of the Whole and Luxembourg while you still can. AND GO TO THE SHOWS.
Thank you. This was great.