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Song in Plaster: M. Ward “Hi-Fi”
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Your heart actually beats, something you might have forgotten after hearing it a thousand times in the songs. It does it by itself, most of the time for years and years. Put something on repeat and your beating heart strains to catch the rhythm and match it. It lifts, it falls, prepares every moment for that final fall and the last lift.
Sometimes two chords are enough. Sometimes you ought to settle. Sometimes two chords make just the right sort of swaying bed for the singer and the melody.
Remember the first time you felt a kick drum in your chest. I don’t want to tell you the name of the band. You might not want to tell me either. But that one great thud. I thought it might cancel my piddly ticking and that the beat might not go on.
You can sit like an animal, with hardly a thought, and ride and keep your tongue behind your teeth, if you feel like it. Just pass the song back and forth to yourself. Stand on one chord, then stand on the other. Slide from foot to foot. Don’t move forward or backward though. Don’t move at all.
In the end the ghost of the rhythm ticks on invisible and you can carry it, tucked into your pocket like the shck of your keys.
Posted by: Josh
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4 Responses to “Song in Plaster: M. Ward “Hi-Fi””
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Nice work, Josh.
right on. I listened to an interview of Josh Ritter not that long ago and he quoted Leonard Cohen as saying, ‘write a poem and then get out of the way.’ It made me think of a some songs as trains, and I think, like you’re saying, that a good song will have that deep, steady drive that carries you with it.
That’s a good truth of music writing. And it’s what I love about songs. Good songs. I love the M. Ward song.
I like listening to M. Ward, but I really like reading this.