Sunday, May 13, 2007

PAVEMENT – FATHER TO A SISTER OF THOUGHT (BIG CAT)


PAVEMENT – FATHER TO A SISTER OF THOUGHT (BIG CAT)

I once crashed my first car while listening to “Father To A Sister Of Thought” on the stereo. I mean totally smashed the fucking thing up. In the end it came within a cunt’s hair of being written off and for years I found myself unable to listen to “Wowee Zowee” in the/a car.

The accident occurred one week before Christmas as I sped up town to meet up with a girl called Jackie for some kind of feeble date. It had been a few months since I had last seen her and to be honest neither of us really wanted to see each other although times were desperate and as things quickly head to the festive season I couldn’t imagine anything better than to have snagged a girlfriend just in time to gain an “in” on various seasonal happenings.

Despite smashing my car to smithereens due to a lack of brake pads that I had been ensured would “see you through” I still headed into town to meet up with Jackie. Feeling stunned and scared, meeting up with her should/would hopefully serve to make things feel/sense better and put them into perspective. As I waited outside the dodgy nightclub on Colchester High Street she never arrived, never turned up. These were the days before mobile phones and I wasn’t able to call her up and ask her where she was. She had already blown me out the previous year for a date to go see Forrest Gump and once again history was repeating itself. As I sunk and fell low the only person I had to speak to was the guy at our local record store who in his distinct state of arrested development was only able to lend minimal input onto proceedings. From there I got into my wrecked car and carefully drove the death-trap home. For this in a way I had Pavement to blame.

“Father To A Sister Of Thought” is a beautiful song, the real centrepiece of a wickedly fantastic album (“Wowee Zowee”), which is easily the best in their catalogue. The lyrics are so immediate and I swear after a couple of listens they are imprinted on your mind and soul making it an infinitely simple song to sing along to and fall in love with. Who needs girls to blow you out when there are songs such as this in your life?

This is the pinnacle of the country tinged Pavement songs. A real departure from the fuzzy Fall-esqe noise fests of their initial output it remains a mystery to me as to why other bands aping the country genre just cannot pull songs of this standard off. Perhaps they are too earnest, especially when considering the incoherent lack of concern that is apparent in these words. Also despite being country (tinged) it remains slacker to the end.

By the end of the song things begin to get philosophical as thoughts battle against a slide guitar it adds a real melancholic sense of nostalgia to the climax.

Backing the main track comes “Kris Kraft” and “Muscle Rock (Is A Horse In Transition)” two more (dare I say) generic Pavement recordings high on noodles and heavy on the plod with a playful air to proceedings. Even though they are b-sides and throwaways they are so indicative of a time and place for a specific moment of music when it felt like you could triumph without necessarily trying.

Thesaurus moment: concrete.

Pavement
Big Cat

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