Sufjan Stevens - "You Are The Rake"
A guitar chord is plucked and allowed to decay almost fully before another takes its place. The simplicity of the guitar playing is matched by Stevens? direct declarative lyrical approach. At 1:12 banjo begins to emanate from the sparsely timed chords, rolling outwards, pushing Stevens to sing a denser, louder part, fleshed out by backing vocals.
Though the the song?s title would suggest a connection with autumn, ?You Are a Rake? sounds more like a clear winter?s day (guitar and vocals perspicuous like ice) with a light midday snowfall (the delicately placed banjo notes).
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One of a good number of power pop gems from A.C. Newman?s solo debut, The Slow Wonder, one gets the sense from ?Miracle Drug? that Newman is a careful pop auteur with tremendous control of his craft. No synth bleep or clean guitar crunch, rousing snare/bass-drum combo or vocal flourish is out of place.
(This is my first two sentence review, I think. Three sentences now. Hmm, an infinity problem? Feels right.)
Posted by Jordan at December 28, 2004 6:54 AMreally digging this tune
Posted by: thebandit at December 29, 2004 2:40 PMhappy new year!
Posted by: wel at December 31, 2004 9:40 AMhappy new year!
Posted by: wel at December 31, 2004 9:42 AMthanks for all the good songs and witty comments.
i will stay tuned in 2005!
happy new year!!
hey jordan (and sean!), thanks for all the music.
Happy new year! Have a good one.
holy shit, this sufjan stevens song is amazing. what's it from?
Posted by: Eric Rojas at January 2, 2005 3:54 AMHappy New Year!
Posted by: Linus at January 3, 2005 11:56 AMEric,
'You are the rake' is from the extended version of 'A sun came'. It also features an older bonus song, called 'Joy, joy, joy'.
Posted by: Jack at January 3, 2005 5:15 PMLike the Kinks-Only fresher still. Groovy.
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