The Inner Sleeve

“Why do you let me stay here

All by myself

Why don’t you come and play here

I’m just sitting on the shelf”

     – She & Him, “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here”

So I’m listening to this new disc by She & Him that my colleague Mendelsohn reviewed last issue. It’s a quality record, by and large, with some cute girl-group tunes and pleasant instrumentation, but that’s not what we’ll be discussing today. Hearing that stanza above got me to thinking about the pitfalls of lyric writing, specifically when it comes to rhymes.

If you’re trying to write the way you talk, eventually you’re going to run up against reflexive pronouns (myself, yourself, herself, etc.). And those pronouns may well end up at the end of a line, which means you’re going to have to come up with a rhyme for it.

According to my rhyming dictionary, the only words that rhyme with “self” are the aforementioned “shelf,” which gives us semi-awkward verses like the one above, and “elf,” which is even less helpful (unless you’re writing a Christmas song or a Tolkein-inspired folk tune).

I guess you could try “health” or “wealth,” but only if you’re willing to sing the song in a Dick Van Dyke-esque Cockney accent. The more adventurous songwriter may try to shoehorn “twelfth” in there, but that doesn’t exactly free up your options. (“Why do you let me stay here / All by myself / Why don’t you come and play here / I’ll be here until the twelfth...”)

Sometimes the songwriter gets lucky and two rhyming words naturally work together. We dance with our feet, and music has a beat. That’s good. When it’s night, we see by starlight. With rhymes like that, a song practically writes itself.

On the other hand, my rhyming dictionary tells me that only four words in the English language rhyme with “love.” And since 90 percent of pop songs are about love in some form, songwriters have had to make some serious compromises.

“Of” rhymes with “love,” which means songwriters are often forced to end their sentences with a preposition. This could explain why rock and rollers are so often described as degenerates. That and the Satanism.

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It seems every time we turn around lately we get hit with more snow (or “angel poop,” as I’ve taken to calling it). As a result I have never been more eager for the arrival of spring. Some people start planning the Great Spring Wardrobe Shift, packing away those bulky sweaters and digging out their little short pants. Not me, though.

As a music geek, I’ve begun mapping out in my head when I’ll be able to bust out the springtimey CDs – putting aside the bleak sounding, acoustic guitar and piano music that temporarily transforms the latest dump of angel poop into a serene icy landscape. As the weather warms and the muscles in our backs stop contracting against the cold winds, I seek out music that reflects the newly-recovered “will to bigness,” as Fitzgerald called it. I’m talking great huge major key anthems that sound like a celebration of life and are just begging to be played loud. Driving home from work on the first warm Friday evening with that perfect spring music, left arm resting in an open window – that’s bliss, baby.

Maybe I’m overthinking things, but I’ve already got a few picks lined up. Some Hold Steady Boys and Girls in America, Springsteen’s The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, maybe a little Tattoo You… oh yeah. Soon.

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I’ve been writing about music here for over three years, and yet there’s an 800-pound gorilla in the room that I haven’t spoken about – American Idol.

Let’s face it – few things have had the impact on the music industry in recent years that American Idol has had. It’s made stars out of a few people (that Clay Aiken guy, that Carrie Underwood girl), given us the guy behind the best-selling album of 2007 (the execrable Chris Daughtry), and generally dominated music coverage in much of the mainstream media.

Like it or not, no discussion of pop culture in the ’00s can avoid American Idol But even as American Idol has changed the landscape of the modern music industry, many of us have been dismissive and often scornful of its success. After watching pretty closely for the past couple of years (sue me – I live with teenagers), I think I’ve figured out why we music geeks have been so derisive.

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So I’m reviewing the new Drive-By Truckers’ disc, Brighter Than Creation’s Dark, and I’m deeply puzzled by some of the choices the group made. Baffled, even. This is an album that could have been destined for greatness; instead, it almost sounds like a holding pattern.

After cogitating on the matter for hours on end (and subjecting the ever-patient Mrs. Sleeve to repeated listenings and much attendant yammering), I’ve found at least one good reason why the disc doesn’t instantly deliver — it lacks the perfect Side One/Track One.

In the book High Fidelity, the most accurate look ever inside the mind of a rock dork, Nick Hornby’s loveable loser record store clerks get into a heated discussion of the all-time greatest Side One/Track One songs.

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You know those old films from the Prohibition era, where you’d see some guy with an axe breaking up a big barrel of whiskey while a bunch of other guys stood around acting like they were making a dent in illegal hooch sales?

Well, lately, junior Elliot Nesses the world over are doing about the same thing with a newer scourge – music downloaders. To wit:

- Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed by the Recording Industry Association of America in recent years against people who have been found to be using the services of companies such as KaZaA, Morpheus and Grokster. In nearly every case, the RIAA has won its suit.

- On October 4, Jammie Thomas of Brainerd, Minn., was found liable in the copyright infringement suit filed against her by the RIAA. She had apparently illegally downloaded hundreds of songs, and was sued over 24 of them. Her fine? $9,250 per song, for a grand total of $220,000.

- Later in October, the members-only file-sharing service OiNK was shut down by British and Dutch authorities and the site’s administrator was arrested. OiNK was alleged to have had 180,000 members and specialized in “leaked” recordings (those that had not yet been officially released).

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