Pedestrian At Best – Courtney Barnett

Courtney B made it into the first ten posts on SFTD. The track Avant Gardener if I recall (I don’t need to recall, I looked it up). Technically it should have been this. This track was the first thing I ever heard her play. It was a radio session. A live in the studio type affair. I was driving and I had to pull the car over and give the song my full attention so enamored was I with the fuzzy riffed racket and hollered word play of this song.

“I love you I hate you, I’m on the fence it all depends whether I’m up I’m down, I’m on the mend transcending all reality, I like you despise you admire you what are we gonna do when everything all falls through?”

Fuck me! That’s a good opening lyric. Coupled with that fever driven guitar it felt like a panic attack but exciting. I wanted to know more. I did not want to miss out on hearing who this amazing song was by.

“I must confess I’ve made a mess of what should be a small success, but I digress at least I’ve tried my very best I guess, This that the other why even bother? It won’t be with me on my death bed, but I’ll still be in your head”

Alright. I was laughing at the lyrics as they came out now. This whole ‘over whelmed sometimes, on the go all the time’ 21st century condition had never sounded more punk rock that it did right now.

“Put me on a pedestal and I’ll only disappoint you! Tell me I’m exceptional I promise to exploit you, Give me all your money and I’ll make some origami, Honey! I think you’re a joke but I don’t find you very funny”

Is that the chorus? Folding up money for origami might be the best thing for all of us. Imagine how many others out there are feeling the same way. This is unifying stuff.

“My internal monologue is saturated analogue, It’s scratched and drifting, I’ve become attached to the idea it’s all a shifting dream bitter sweet philosophy, I’ve got no idea how I even got here. I’m resentful I’m having an existential time crisis, what bliss, daylight savings won’t fix this mess. Underworked and oversexed I must express my disinterest, the rats are back inside my head what would Freud have said?”

OK. I’m going to need to play this song a few dozen times to take all that on board. It’s like We Didn’t Start The Fire if it were written by Kim Deal.

“I wanna wash out my head with turpentine and cyanide, I dislike this internal diatribe when I try to catch your eye I hate seeing you crying in the kitchen I don’t know why it affects me like this when you’re not even mine to consider. Erroneous. Harmonious. I’m hardly sanctimonious. Dirty clothes, I suppose, we all outgrow ourselves”

Ever see that VH-1 Stroytellers where Bruce Springsteen talks about how he wrote Blinded By The Light? “By now the rhyming dictionary is in flames” That one? We may have the new Bruce Springsteen on our hands. This single knocked me on my arse I was so impressed with it.

“I’m a fake, I’m a phoney, I’m awake, I’m alone, I’m homely, I’m a Scorpio”

Yep, I’m all those things.