bellwether

so in putting together stuff for the hot ticket i wrote on missing numbers this week, jimmy peterson dropped by and was kind enough to leave copies of both missing numbers discs and the last bellwether album, seven and six. i already own it, but i haven't listened to it in a while and so i'd jsut like to take a moment to call your attention to the amazing track "i thought that you were dead." first of all, the sound of the recording is amazing. both eric luoma and jimmy send their vocals through a scratchifier that makes eric sound like he's about to cry and jimmy sound like he's about to kill you, but here it's just the absolutely right thing to do. sometimes, i think songs begin as fantastic ideas and as a writer you struggle with how to flesh it out into a full song; the beauty here is that i think luoma recognized that this song didn't really need anything more than it already carried in its melody. bellwether is a band that's known for its melancholia, its forlorness, its windblown songs; but this is a standout even in a catalog of standouts. maybe it's the touch of humor that goes along with the admittedly grim central thread. "i thought that you were dead/ and so did your employer/ we cleaned out your desk/ with a box by the door/ i thought that you were dead/ so we opened up your mail/ we had a sale/ sold your clothes and your car." the basic plot follows the protagonist's overreaction to not knowing where his beloved is. it's something we've all gone through; sitting by the phone or maybe looking out the window obsessively as we wait for somebody to come back home. as the minutes stretch into hours, we start coming up with all kinds of ridiculous scenarios about what's happened and what we'll have to do now that things have changed so drastically. but then they come home, and everything's fine. it might seem a picayune occurence, but luoma uses it to limn what's really at the core of a long-term relationship: the interdependence, the way you take each other for granted until something threatens the status quo. in the end, it's the best kind of happy-sad song, making you fearful of the loss of things you love and glad you have them at all in the first place.