Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks: 37/38 - 2003

37
2003/03/31 Barcelona & 2003/04/13 Brussels
2 early versions of 'It kills'

Two more 'in progress' versions of 'It kills'.

'It kills' is a difficult song for everyone involved: the band, Stephen himself, they're just starting to get a handle on it. It's a difficult song for the audience too.

Just a quick digression: I don't think all of Stephen's songs have lyrics that are primarily meaningful. Some of them are just wordplay, or chaotic poetry (which I love), or howls (I like what Stephen once said about 'Wowee zowee' – that one of its defining characteristics is that a lot of the songs have vocals but not really lyrics as such). It's just that music critics (them again) seem to have decided that's all he does, and he's never written a song with a meaningful lyric. So you get this one-sided view that's repeated in reviews ad nauseam – the king of puns and weird rhymes. And Stephen doesn't talk about that stuff at all in his interviews. It's a little weird to write down my interpretation of songs that I think have coherent and meaningful lyrics with well-thought out arguments. It feels like engaging in flights of imagination, like I'm making it up, desperately reading something between the lines. But I think they're wrong, I'm not making it up, I'm just reading some very straightforward lyrics and engaging with them. And I think Stephen puts time and effort into those lyrics to get them to say exactly what he means.

'It kills' is a heavy song, in its finished form. It talks about growth, growing as a human being, and about the pain of growth, casting off ancient layers of skin, leaving behind the person you were to enter a new phase. It talkes about the difficulty, about hesitation and uncertainty.

In the Barcelona version Stephen's tackling the eventual theme in some half-finished lyrics ('What you gonna do?... Where you gonna go?' is in place, as is the word 'kill' in the chorus – 'she kills', 'they kill'). But in this early draft it talks more about societal exploitation (2nd verse) and I think, about the love/death interface (1st verse – 'she kills').

The Brussels version has dummy lyrics again (strange as it seems) about 'Frank Lloyd Wright' and a girl with 'false hair' and a chorus of 'my little sister knows her ABC'.
Musically they're straightening it out. Interestingly enough, the one part where I feel the studio version falters is the bridge (both lyrically and arrangement). On these early versions (especially Barcelona) Mike plays some very low piano notes, which suggest another direction for the bridge, that's the way I think it should have gone.


38
2003/04/13, Brussels
Old Jerry

By now you know how much I dig this tune – but I'm about to jump into wild psychological conjecture to convince you this is one of the most important songs in Stephen's book.

Side-note: I told you of my 2001 Jicks concert trauma. If not for that, I would 've probably been at this Brussels concert. I only know one other song they played, but just the thought that they played 'Old Jerry' so wonderfully and so near my home... and I decided not to see 'em again! It's enough to reduce a buddhist lumberjact to tears (so you can imagine what it does to me!).

Skip back to note 27 for my general impressions of this song. I mention unfullfilled longing, open-ended desire, the kind of subconscious emotional reflexes a lot of Pavement songs are build on. It's an adolescent feeling, when you're looking for a place in the world.

How much songs from 'Face the truth' onward emit that emotion? I don't know any.
I mean, let's not dwell too much on biography (I ain't A.J. Weberman), but Stephen was settling down, taking on the responsibilities of adulthood and family. Found a place in the world. As people do.
And the tone of his meaningful lyrics reflects that change. There's a whole new discourse on 'Face the truth' and beyond (a great one, which has given me as much guidance and recognition as the Pavement songs).

So, it's the end of an era.
Actually, he plays it like the era's already passed. I may not have gotten it if I'd been there in the audience. The song's taken at a brisk pace, moving along breezily almost, not dwelling on the lost feeling, almost valedictorian.
It took me a few listens but then I got it, he plays it like he's remembering the feeling, rather than feeling the feeling.

That's what I think, anyway. Every time he played the song during the 2003 concerts he got closer to that final farewell. And just wait till we get to the final and definitive version.