Song Exploder, The Commander Thinks Aloud & How to Make an Ohioan Cry
2:52 PM
I have successfully found an enclave of young people ("young" being subjective) who have a shared love of NPR and podcasts. Because this is a music blog, I won’t delve into a 30 minute breakdown of my take on Serial and the probability of Adnan’s guilt versus innocence, and you will be spared from any offensive Diane Rehm impressions. I want to talk about a particular music-related podcast and a song that I discovered because of it.
The podcast in question is called Song Exploder. I LOVE Song Exploder. I feel like someone saw into my brain and made it just for me. If you know anything about me (nobody knows this) I enjoy re-listening to songs that I love as many times as there are layered tracks. I start by plopping on my trusty ol' Bose headphones1 and I give the song a listen focusing on each layer (bass, vocal harmonies, melody, percussion, harpsichord, horn section, and what-have-you) and then when I’ve listened as many times as necessary, I pat myself on the back and say “no one is as cultured as you are.”’
Song Exploder is amazing because Hrishikesh Hirway, the host and producer does all the work and breaks down the song into pieces for you. He then interviews the artist in question who explains their creative process for each sound and decision. He covers everything: from the Bob’s Burger’s theme song to the sexy evil that is War Paint’s Love Is To Die.Sometime last year I made my way down the episode queue for the first time and randomly selected this song: The Commander Thinks Aloud by The Long Winters. To be honest, I had never heard of this band, and I’m pretty sure that if I heard this song playing at Starbucks I wouldn’t even bother to dig my iPhone out of my behemoth purse to Shazaam2 it. The song only has 3 chords. There’s no guitar. It is pretty much the antithesis of all the music that I love.
At this point you’re probably like “Wow, I’m sold! I’m going to look this up right now!”
But wait, there’s more! Before I really delve into the song itself, I want to give some context. i.e. a peek into my glamorous life. I want to try and write about songs and connect them to an anecdote. I do this not because it’s super-relevant, but because I am an unforgivable narcissist. I promise that what I’m about to say is mostly relevant3.
Anyone that is a true Ohioan is a lover of all things space-related. And I don’t mean an “I am obsessed with a good Cab-Sauv!” type of love. I mean that if you’re from Ohio, there’s a good chance you have a Mexican prayer candle of Neil Armstrong on your nightstand.
Here are some personal examples of this bond:
- I once went to an Obama rally because John Glenn was speaking at it. He is as old as the hills, and I could barely understand him, but I wept sweet tears of pure Ohio corn syrup at the very sight of him. (Also, I love Obama too. If this is upsetting to you, I don't care.)
- My number one fear of dying is being ejected into the vacuum of space and spinning off into oblivion like George Clooney in Gravity4. However, since I actually live in Cincinnati and not on the I.S.S. I will probably just croak in my mid-forties due to pollutant exposure from the Ohio River.
- One time when I was playing apples to apples with a fellow Ohioan, he cried because someone jokingly played the card “the Challenger Explosion” when the green card was "hot" (It was my boyfriend).
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| The hotly contested issue of the decade. John Kasich couldn't handle a pink driver's license, so he definitely can't handle the presidency. That's right, I just got divisively political twice. |
Despite our shameful landscape, we have produced a TON of astronauts. 24 to be exact. These people are our pride and joy, and the internet still manages to turn our only asset into a depressing meme.
If you are like Patrick Star and literally grew up under a rock and don't know what an astronaut is, go marathon The Right Stuff and Apollo 13 back to back right now. Ed Harris is in both of those movies! ED HARRIS.
THE PART WHERE I ACTUALLY TALK ABOUT THE SONG
Since this is not a film blog, I will move on. If you don’t have 7 hours to marathon 2 movies about mankind’s many attempts to understand the majestic wonder that is the unexplored universe, but you still want to experience that emotional pit of fear of the unknown in your chest, listen to this song. It’s about the Columbia Disaster in 2003 and the artist’s initial reaction to what it must have felt like to have been one of the 7 crew members aboard.
This song is about perspective, and is completely carried by the artist's emotion.
This is what makes the song both amazing and still an enigma to me. Musically speaking, it’s not complex or layered. John Roderick’s singing skills are nothing to write home about. Lyrically, there are only 15 lines of verse. There isn’t really even a chorus. And on a scale from 1 to Gilbert and Sullivan we’re dealing with pretty average vocabulary. I think the phrase “The Tropic of Capricorn” is as flowery as it gets.
Now, don’t misunderstand what I’m saying here about emotion and songwriting. I am not saying that if you can make me weep, your song is good. To see a counter-example, please refer to the Christmas Shoes song that plays roughly 12 times per hour during the holidays. Or don’t, because that song is probably one of the worst songs ever penned, green-lighted, recorded, performed and consumed. It is worse than chronic tinnitus5.
The Commander Thinks Aloud is subtle sadness. It builds. It is acceptance of the unknown. It is hesitation. It is both fear AND wonder. Honestly, if 3:30 onward doesn’t make you tear up even a little bit, I suggest you consult someone regarding your toaster6 tendencies.
Finally, I would like to point out that this song is 10 years old. Many of you7 might be thinking “this is a really long-winded review with more tangents than actual substance AND it’s not even current. Also, she talks more about herself than the actual song.”
To that I say, I’m sorry you expected anything else.
If I didn’t completely turn you off to music with my crap writing, check out the Song Exploder episode of The Commander Thinks Aloud here.
1 Fuck Beats. That’s right. I said it. Are they cooler looking? Definitely. But NO ONE needs that much bass all the time. Sometimes I want to listen to Iron & Wine, and those headphones just aren’t going to do the job. This is a footnote intervention, and I’m telling you that you need more balance in your life.↩
2 Do people still use Shazaam? Is that a dated reference? I still use Shazaam.↩
3 This is a lie.↩
4 It’s not a spoiler if the movie has been out for at least a year. Sorry, I guess.↩
5 I’m sorry if you actually have tinnitus. Archer made it funny, not me.↩
6 Seriously, you’ve never watched Battlestar Galactica either?↩
7 If even one person is reading this that isn’t my dad, I am genuinely surprised.↩
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