Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Sweet and Sour in Sound

Those of you who've read my blog for a while know I'm not the type to post on pop songs. But just recently Follow Through by Gavin Degraw opened my ears while I was driving.



On the side of harmony it's your typical pop song, but in terms of lyrics the message is certainly something. It's not your typical choices of relationship-based music (I love you, I hate you, I'm gonna max all your credit cards - well, the last one is actually pretty good) and it's not your trying-to-be-different-but-failing-miserably ideas (think: "I'd do anything for you, but I won't do that" or that phone-call song about saying sorry for cheating).

What makes this particular one quite something is that there are two layers: hope, but underscored by a suspicion borne of a reality that not all dreams come true. It captures a suspended moment in time without telling you where or how it ends, and in doing so it puts the conflict of hope and uncertainty into music.
It's ambiguity works for it, and you don't know if it's shadows in the current, or past experience, which causes him to worry, to wonder.

Listen to it without the video, and see if you can imagine the eyes and the eyebrows - not of the singer, but of the voice.

It makes the listener hope for that voice, and it really is, to put it simply a rather sad song. It invites empathy and gives it at the same time, which is the only way that empathy truly functions.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Greetings Andrew!

Surprised you reached my website, just noticed when u signed my guestbook... practically that's how I found your blog too ehehe...

I must say that your passion in viola/violin (oops, i do not know the difference, sorry) reminds me back to the days in school when you introduced it to me in class...I'm glad you've reach such a great height, looking thru all the pictures of you so passionately playing the instrument.

Thanks for your warm wishes and do have a great time blogging here! You too have a very informative blog...

p/s: I noticed your link to the Thalassaemia... mind if I ask you're helping them in charity or you got anything to do with them?

Cheers and regards,
desmond

itinerant_musician said...

I Love Gavin Degraw precisely because he has great lyrics and nice music

I had forgotten about this particular song though. It really does make you think a lot...
:)

Wanster said...
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