Okkervil River "The Stand Ins"
Before we begin, I'd like to preface that, as sure as I am about how I interpreted Stage Names, I am that much unsure about Stand Ins. I will do my best, but I'd really love for you to listen, form, and share your own opinions.
Contrary to what I told you in the first post, Okkervil River did not want The Stage Names to be a double album. Instead, they wanted to keep it short, hence the 9 tracks. However, they had about 5 really good songs left over and Sheff just couldn't drop the ideas in them. The Stand Ins became a sequel album. Again, we'll take it track-by-track:
1. "Stand Ins, Pt. 1"
Andrew insisted I mention more than the lyrical appeal of Okkervil River. Their music is just as catchy and emotional as the lyrics, it's true. I only neglected to mention it because I am terrible at musical dissection. I'm good with words. Stand Ins does require some notes on the music, so I will do it where I can with confidence. The first major difference between Stage Names and Stand Ins is these interludes, segues, whatever you wish to call them.
Remember we left Stage Names with the untimely departure of John Allyn Smith. "Pt. 1" provides a melodic interlude between that sea venture and the next. It sounds like the sun rising over the sea and the strings recall just perfectly the shimmering waves....
2. "Lost Coastlines"
This is my favorite Okkervil River song of all time (arguably). I cannot help but dance to this song. It doesn't matter WHERE I am or WHO can see me. The irony is that the song is not that happy. Here again we see our sailing theme. What does it mean this time?
This time sailing refers to life, or maybe even to touring again ("Look out at each town that glides by and there's another crowd to drown in crying eyes"). I've heard some argue that this song mirrors "Unless It's Kicks", but I think of it more as "Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe"'s counterpart with "Kicks" built-in. The fact that they get lost and can't do anything but go with the flow leads me to believe this is more of a life metaphor with touring mixed in. After all, what can you do but sit back and "la la lalalala..."?
There is talk of a marionette. She recalls our groupie, who, as you may remember, was called a statue. She has to decide "what her dance might be doing, ruining the play and in the ensuing melee escape." Keep Shannon and this image in mind and we'll see if it pops up later.
It should also be mentioned that the second voice you hear in this song is that of Jonathan Meiburg*, who has left the band to work on another band (ask me what they are called, I need to give them a listen anyway). He left on good terms, so some see this as a farewell to Jonathan as well as Sheff's "what will I do without you?!" I've also read that this is a political song. Don't be fooled. I've just told you what the song is about.
*I must have read this somewhere, but a year later I have no idea where. I'm pretty damn sure it's actually Pestorius who sings the counterpart.
3. "Singer Songwriter"
This song is about a no talent big name. Though he refers to this guy as "you", unlike before, I don't thing he's referring to you the listener. Basically, the song is the narrator saying, "Hey you did this pretty cool thing? You're related to these cool people? You listen to and read cool stuff? Awesome! Too bad you are worthless, you pretentious asshole." It's musical (and all-encompassing) elitism at it's best. This guy doesn't do anything but live in his bubble of people and products of people who do things with their lives. In short: "Your world is gonna change nothing."
I find it interesting that Scheff switches to "our world" at the end. I can't decide if he's being the pretentious one or if he's the one calling out the pretentious. Either way, it's full of pretentious bull-shit, which I love. That and that beat kicks ass! Dance or YOU'RE the pretentious ass!
4. "Starry Stairs"
This is one of the left-over songs from Stage Names. The demo was titled "(Shannon Wilsey on) the Starry Stairs". I hope you'll recognize the name. This song is the stand in for Stage Names' "Savannah Smiles". Remember that that song was from the view of the parent (fan). This is from the star's point of view. Finally we get Shannon's point of view after hearing so much about her.
The images in this song are beautiful, but tainted, as they would be in the eyes of someone who has been abused by rockstars. "I kept a warm safe place at my core...before I lost it", "I'm alive, but a different kind of alive than the way I used to be", "I retire to a split, white smile to be seen in some old stag magazine", "this girl's eyes, when they were roughly wrenched-open I could see a starry stair up your thigh", etc. I love the way he seems to haphazardly toss in "If you don't love me, I'm sorry" as though she doesn't care. Maybe she doesn't anymore.
I must say that the way Scheff phrases the lyrics leads one on perhaps like the glamour of a pornographic film. He sings the beautiful images of shimmery things and white smiles, draws a breath, and leads in with the less glamorous truth: the stag magazines and the lost warmth. It's all there for a breath....
Then it changes. She talks about her dual lives, the one she half-lived, the part when she was a kid, which turns into the one "that blazed through your lids to find a warm safe place to sit, curled up, inside it." And now she realizes that she has to divorce those parts from a new life caused by new tragedy: "So here's 'good-bye' from the part that's staying behind to part that has to leave, to the sublime lips that were never spoiled by a line, to the face inside the beam, who wasn't me." Not only was she ripped from her innocent childhood and thrown into a life of sexual objection, but now she talks about the new issue: she's lost her perfect, line-less lips and face to a disfiguring car crash (I read beam of a headlight, in which light her face was last gorgeous, but do dispute), which isn't the pretty object she has become so used to being, though that girl wasn't her.
Scheff mentioned that he thought a lot about the last image of her in the Tom Petty video when writing this song. You can see for yourself how symbolic it is of the life of a groupie: Don't Come Around Here No More
Note the mention of a "shimmering silver ship." I really don't know what to make of it except that it sounds good as a connection to the last song on the album.
5. "Blue Tulip"
This song is near and dear to my heart because I can relate to it, just like any girl who is or was a teenager can. This is the stand-in for "Girl in Port". Where, before, we had the rocker trying to convince the girl to be a groupie, here we have a girl (fan view, but not a groupie) trying to convince the rocker to love her, not just sleep with her. I think I can safely say I've outgrown this fantasy (except maybe with Will Scheff), but I remember as a tween I was madly in love with Devon Sawa and just KNEW that when I met him, he'd love me forever. With that embarrassing tidbit, let's continue.
Diehard fans feel a sense of friendship with their favorites. When we've been fans long enough we say things like: "They say that it [fame] changed you. I know that can't be true." And then we do things like: "I came in the entrance the make-up girl went through and waited for ages. I waited there for you" (I'll admit, I've done the waiting bit). And we think: "They're waiting to hate you, so give them an excuse" or, to translate: love me because that'll piss 'em off.
Despite all our efforts it ends the same way (you can taste the longing in his voice): "I'm held back by a velvet rope and he's behind the wall the smoke machine has made between us. And if he does exist, if camera-clicking green room guests swirl 'round a man who's real and can be touched, then I will do just that much." We're left with the hope that "you'll be there and you'll see us."
Newsflash: stars don't fall in love at meet-n-greets. Sorry, ladies, it's true. So, when he doesn't sweep us off on tour with him, we go back home and keep telling ourselves, "I've got my ear against the screen. I feel your feelings crackling through every single inch of me. I'm going to make you mean it. With every single cell of me I'm going to make you mean the words you sigh."
If I've dashed any dreams of celebrity love, at the very least, Bill Beckett recognizes Rachel and me in a crowd because we've seen TAI... so many times.
6. "Stand Ins, Pt. 2"
Just a soft little segue from something slow and serious to something fast and fun.
7. "Pop Lie"
When I said "Lost Coastlines" was my favorite (debatable) song, I had this one in mind as the point of debate. This song is as catchy and dancy as they come. It's a perfect parody, actually. It's a song about the lies singers sell everyday. People get attached to songs and their sounds so much that they define moments of our lives, but we never stop to think whether the writer was full of shit. We take for granted the emotional connection we think we hear. It might be the stand-in for "Plus Ones" because of its jabs at pop music, but I'm not sold on that idea just yet.
Scheff pops the dream bubble right away: "words and music he calculated to make you sing a long." These songs might mean the WORLD to you. Maybe they saved your life! But these songs don't mean anything to the guy who sings them. Maybe not even to the guy who wrote it (if it's someone other than the singer, and if that's the case, you need to be obsessed with a new band). It's all a giant indication of the power musicians hold over the rest of us: "by the back room the kids all waited to meet the man in bright green who had dreamed up the dream they wrecked their hearts upon--the liar who lied in his pop song [....] and you're lying when you sing along."
Most of the images are about sex, which leads me to believe he's specifically talking about love songs that sweep us (stupid fools that we are) away. This assumption leads directly back to "Blue Tulip" (we fall in love with the singer) and to Shannon Wilsey (and then we sleep with every singer we fall in love with) and we "wreck our hearts."
Now the end of the song (best part): "I'm ashamed to admit that I cannot resist what I wish were the truth, but it's not. And I truly believe we're not strong, and we'll sing until our voices are gone, and then sink beneath that manicured lawn. [This is respectfully dedicated to the woman who concentrated all of her love to find that she had wasted it on the liar who lied in this song.]"
Thanks for the dedication, Will.
8. "On Tour with Zykos"
Here we have another fan, one who is the victim of "Pop Lie". This is the stand-in for "You Can't Hold the Hand of a Rock and Roll Man" seen from you the groupie's point of view rather than from you the rock star's. Zykos is a band (I actually think it's just one guy, but I don't really know) Okkervil River has toured with. I'm not sure why the song's named after the band, but I have a hunch it's some kind of inside joke. In any case, I have a version of Zykos playing the song that's pretty good.
This song's pretty cut and dried. The narrator is fed up with the lies. "I want you to love me or I want you long gone." She kicks Mr. Music out and carries on with her own life tending bar, being an object of desire for them while he's off being envied by the world: "they wish they were you, like I wish you were mine. What a dumb thing to do." Here we see the "Blue Tulip" girl, but jaded, realizing what a dummy she is for wanting the hand of a rock and roll man. "What a girl who got tired." She can't help but "wonder who you got your hooks in tonight, was she happy to be hooked and, on your arm, did she feel alive, her head all light?"
Best line: "How come I shout 'Good-bye!' when God knows I just want to make this white lie big enough to climb inside with you." It hurts to cut someone loose, even when it's the right thing to do.
I don't know what to do with the whole senator's son part. If you have an idea, let me know.
9. "Calling and Not Calling My Ex"
My dream is to have an ex think all these things about me, haha. Basically, we have a guy who quit when he thought the going would get tough ("I had just been fired and her first offer had arrived, and the New Year would see her flying far away from me, though I didn't know it at the time."). Now she's a famous model or actress raking in the big bucks and "God knows I'm feeling really stupid now for ever having said goodbye." He knows "Girl, you won't wait for me--in some secluded stand of trees, on some Christmas Eve that some God considerately set aside--although I'd love you to."
Best part of this song: he's not bitter or depressed or exploitive. "I remember every instance when you stunned me. You're so lovely. You're so smart. So go turn their heads, go knock them dead, go break their hearts."
10. "Stand Ins, Pt. 3"
Gentle interlude taking us from "Aww shucks" to contemplative. I guess that's a good word. Maybe regretful. REALLY regretful. Or just burned out.
11. "Bruce Wayne Campbell Interview on the roof of the Chelsea Hotel, 1979"
Remember our stars who "hang 'round too late"? Meet Bruce. Look him up. He's John Allyn Smith's stand-in. A '70s glam rocker who lost his battle for fame against the likes of David Bowie and, much later, against AIDS.
He's tired of "singing the same songs." Instead, he wants to drink. He's a has-been. "Old times, hello. Hey, I've missed you. Old life, hey now, let me in. [....] It has been so many years. I've lived my yearning. But in every bed it led me through they only blew on what was burning and it grew. [....] And now with nothing to consume it's turned on me in my glass room. Where I bet you think I'm finished. [....] Go on assume."
We get a ship again. The star ship clearly comes from his music (Bowie era, remember), but also reminds us of John Allyn Smith's ship and the one in "Lost Coastlines". It's some sort of metaphor for death here, as with John. It could even be a metaphor for fame. It has lifted off, but it's not landing to let anyone off--not even the guy too wasted to walk--ever again until "finally stars hold him in all around, until he forgets the ground, until he forgets the crawling way real people sometimes are."
I have a hard time with this song, but here's what I think I can make out: Bruce just wants to forget about his stint as a star--the groupies, the pop lies, the fall from grace--but once he boarded the ship, he was stuck. Like John, he just wants release from his sad, alcoholic life, which is the stars and forgetfulness. He gets it.
There it is. The wonder that is Okkervil River's Stand Ins. Tell me what you think about my thoughts on this one. Like I said, I'm terribly unsure of myself here and I love a good discussion about music.
Contrary to what I told you in the first post, Okkervil River did not want The Stage Names to be a double album. Instead, they wanted to keep it short, hence the 9 tracks. However, they had about 5 really good songs left over and Sheff just couldn't drop the ideas in them. The Stand Ins became a sequel album. Again, we'll take it track-by-track:
1. "Stand Ins, Pt. 1"
Andrew insisted I mention more than the lyrical appeal of Okkervil River. Their music is just as catchy and emotional as the lyrics, it's true. I only neglected to mention it because I am terrible at musical dissection. I'm good with words. Stand Ins does require some notes on the music, so I will do it where I can with confidence. The first major difference between Stage Names and Stand Ins is these interludes, segues, whatever you wish to call them.
Remember we left Stage Names with the untimely departure of John Allyn Smith. "Pt. 1" provides a melodic interlude between that sea venture and the next. It sounds like the sun rising over the sea and the strings recall just perfectly the shimmering waves....
2. "Lost Coastlines"
This is my favorite Okkervil River song of all time (arguably). I cannot help but dance to this song. It doesn't matter WHERE I am or WHO can see me. The irony is that the song is not that happy. Here again we see our sailing theme. What does it mean this time?
This time sailing refers to life, or maybe even to touring again ("Look out at each town that glides by and there's another crowd to drown in crying eyes"). I've heard some argue that this song mirrors "Unless It's Kicks", but I think of it more as "Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe"'s counterpart with "Kicks" built-in. The fact that they get lost and can't do anything but go with the flow leads me to believe this is more of a life metaphor with touring mixed in. After all, what can you do but sit back and "la la lalalala..."?
There is talk of a marionette. She recalls our groupie, who, as you may remember, was called a statue. She has to decide "what her dance might be doing, ruining the play and in the ensuing melee escape." Keep Shannon and this image in mind and we'll see if it pops up later.
It should also be mentioned that the second voice you hear in this song is that of Jonathan Meiburg*, who has left the band to work on another band (ask me what they are called, I need to give them a listen anyway). He left on good terms, so some see this as a farewell to Jonathan as well as Sheff's "what will I do without you?!" I've also read that this is a political song. Don't be fooled. I've just told you what the song is about.
*I must have read this somewhere, but a year later I have no idea where. I'm pretty damn sure it's actually Pestorius who sings the counterpart.
3. "Singer Songwriter"
This song is about a no talent big name. Though he refers to this guy as "you", unlike before, I don't thing he's referring to you the listener. Basically, the song is the narrator saying, "Hey you did this pretty cool thing? You're related to these cool people? You listen to and read cool stuff? Awesome! Too bad you are worthless, you pretentious asshole." It's musical (and all-encompassing) elitism at it's best. This guy doesn't do anything but live in his bubble of people and products of people who do things with their lives. In short: "Your world is gonna change nothing."
I find it interesting that Scheff switches to "our world" at the end. I can't decide if he's being the pretentious one or if he's the one calling out the pretentious. Either way, it's full of pretentious bull-shit, which I love. That and that beat kicks ass! Dance or YOU'RE the pretentious ass!
4. "Starry Stairs"
This is one of the left-over songs from Stage Names. The demo was titled "(Shannon Wilsey on) the Starry Stairs". I hope you'll recognize the name. This song is the stand in for Stage Names' "Savannah Smiles". Remember that that song was from the view of the parent (fan). This is from the star's point of view. Finally we get Shannon's point of view after hearing so much about her.
The images in this song are beautiful, but tainted, as they would be in the eyes of someone who has been abused by rockstars. "I kept a warm safe place at my core...before I lost it", "I'm alive, but a different kind of alive than the way I used to be", "I retire to a split, white smile to be seen in some old stag magazine", "this girl's eyes, when they were roughly wrenched-open I could see a starry stair up your thigh", etc. I love the way he seems to haphazardly toss in "If you don't love me, I'm sorry" as though she doesn't care. Maybe she doesn't anymore.
I must say that the way Scheff phrases the lyrics leads one on perhaps like the glamour of a pornographic film. He sings the beautiful images of shimmery things and white smiles, draws a breath, and leads in with the less glamorous truth: the stag magazines and the lost warmth. It's all there for a breath....
Then it changes. She talks about her dual lives, the one she half-lived, the part when she was a kid, which turns into the one "that blazed through your lids to find a warm safe place to sit, curled up, inside it." And now she realizes that she has to divorce those parts from a new life caused by new tragedy: "So here's 'good-bye' from the part that's staying behind to part that has to leave, to the sublime lips that were never spoiled by a line, to the face inside the beam, who wasn't me." Not only was she ripped from her innocent childhood and thrown into a life of sexual objection, but now she talks about the new issue: she's lost her perfect, line-less lips and face to a disfiguring car crash (I read beam of a headlight, in which light her face was last gorgeous, but do dispute), which isn't the pretty object she has become so used to being, though that girl wasn't her.
Scheff mentioned that he thought a lot about the last image of her in the Tom Petty video when writing this song. You can see for yourself how symbolic it is of the life of a groupie: Don't Come Around Here No More
Note the mention of a "shimmering silver ship." I really don't know what to make of it except that it sounds good as a connection to the last song on the album.
5. "Blue Tulip"
This song is near and dear to my heart because I can relate to it, just like any girl who is or was a teenager can. This is the stand-in for "Girl in Port". Where, before, we had the rocker trying to convince the girl to be a groupie, here we have a girl (fan view, but not a groupie) trying to convince the rocker to love her, not just sleep with her. I think I can safely say I've outgrown this fantasy (except maybe with Will Scheff), but I remember as a tween I was madly in love with Devon Sawa and just KNEW that when I met him, he'd love me forever. With that embarrassing tidbit, let's continue.
Diehard fans feel a sense of friendship with their favorites. When we've been fans long enough we say things like: "They say that it [fame] changed you. I know that can't be true." And then we do things like: "I came in the entrance the make-up girl went through and waited for ages. I waited there for you" (I'll admit, I've done the waiting bit). And we think: "They're waiting to hate you, so give them an excuse" or, to translate: love me because that'll piss 'em off.
Despite all our efforts it ends the same way (you can taste the longing in his voice): "I'm held back by a velvet rope and he's behind the wall the smoke machine has made between us. And if he does exist, if camera-clicking green room guests swirl 'round a man who's real and can be touched, then I will do just that much." We're left with the hope that "you'll be there and you'll see us."
Newsflash: stars don't fall in love at meet-n-greets. Sorry, ladies, it's true. So, when he doesn't sweep us off on tour with him, we go back home and keep telling ourselves, "I've got my ear against the screen. I feel your feelings crackling through every single inch of me. I'm going to make you mean it. With every single cell of me I'm going to make you mean the words you sigh."
If I've dashed any dreams of celebrity love, at the very least, Bill Beckett recognizes Rachel and me in a crowd because we've seen TAI... so many times.
6. "Stand Ins, Pt. 2"
Just a soft little segue from something slow and serious to something fast and fun.
7. "Pop Lie"
When I said "Lost Coastlines" was my favorite (debatable) song, I had this one in mind as the point of debate. This song is as catchy and dancy as they come. It's a perfect parody, actually. It's a song about the lies singers sell everyday. People get attached to songs and their sounds so much that they define moments of our lives, but we never stop to think whether the writer was full of shit. We take for granted the emotional connection we think we hear. It might be the stand-in for "Plus Ones" because of its jabs at pop music, but I'm not sold on that idea just yet.
Scheff pops the dream bubble right away: "words and music he calculated to make you sing a long." These songs might mean the WORLD to you. Maybe they saved your life! But these songs don't mean anything to the guy who sings them. Maybe not even to the guy who wrote it (if it's someone other than the singer, and if that's the case, you need to be obsessed with a new band). It's all a giant indication of the power musicians hold over the rest of us: "by the back room the kids all waited to meet the man in bright green who had dreamed up the dream they wrecked their hearts upon--the liar who lied in his pop song [....] and you're lying when you sing along."
Most of the images are about sex, which leads me to believe he's specifically talking about love songs that sweep us (stupid fools that we are) away. This assumption leads directly back to "Blue Tulip" (we fall in love with the singer) and to Shannon Wilsey (and then we sleep with every singer we fall in love with) and we "wreck our hearts."
Now the end of the song (best part): "I'm ashamed to admit that I cannot resist what I wish were the truth, but it's not. And I truly believe we're not strong, and we'll sing until our voices are gone, and then sink beneath that manicured lawn. [This is respectfully dedicated to the woman who concentrated all of her love to find that she had wasted it on the liar who lied in this song.]"
Thanks for the dedication, Will.
8. "On Tour with Zykos"
Here we have another fan, one who is the victim of "Pop Lie". This is the stand-in for "You Can't Hold the Hand of a Rock and Roll Man" seen from you the groupie's point of view rather than from you the rock star's. Zykos is a band (I actually think it's just one guy, but I don't really know) Okkervil River has toured with. I'm not sure why the song's named after the band, but I have a hunch it's some kind of inside joke. In any case, I have a version of Zykos playing the song that's pretty good.
This song's pretty cut and dried. The narrator is fed up with the lies. "I want you to love me or I want you long gone." She kicks Mr. Music out and carries on with her own life tending bar, being an object of desire for them while he's off being envied by the world: "they wish they were you, like I wish you were mine. What a dumb thing to do." Here we see the "Blue Tulip" girl, but jaded, realizing what a dummy she is for wanting the hand of a rock and roll man. "What a girl who got tired." She can't help but "wonder who you got your hooks in tonight, was she happy to be hooked and, on your arm, did she feel alive, her head all light?"
Best line: "How come I shout 'Good-bye!' when God knows I just want to make this white lie big enough to climb inside with you." It hurts to cut someone loose, even when it's the right thing to do.
I don't know what to do with the whole senator's son part. If you have an idea, let me know.
9. "Calling and Not Calling My Ex"
My dream is to have an ex think all these things about me, haha. Basically, we have a guy who quit when he thought the going would get tough ("I had just been fired and her first offer had arrived, and the New Year would see her flying far away from me, though I didn't know it at the time."). Now she's a famous model or actress raking in the big bucks and "God knows I'm feeling really stupid now for ever having said goodbye." He knows "Girl, you won't wait for me--in some secluded stand of trees, on some Christmas Eve that some God considerately set aside--although I'd love you to."
Best part of this song: he's not bitter or depressed or exploitive. "I remember every instance when you stunned me. You're so lovely. You're so smart. So go turn their heads, go knock them dead, go break their hearts."
10. "Stand Ins, Pt. 3"
Gentle interlude taking us from "Aww shucks" to contemplative. I guess that's a good word. Maybe regretful. REALLY regretful. Or just burned out.
11. "Bruce Wayne Campbell Interview on the roof of the Chelsea Hotel, 1979"
Remember our stars who "hang 'round too late"? Meet Bruce. Look him up. He's John Allyn Smith's stand-in. A '70s glam rocker who lost his battle for fame against the likes of David Bowie and, much later, against AIDS.
He's tired of "singing the same songs." Instead, he wants to drink. He's a has-been. "Old times, hello. Hey, I've missed you. Old life, hey now, let me in. [....] It has been so many years. I've lived my yearning. But in every bed it led me through they only blew on what was burning and it grew. [....] And now with nothing to consume it's turned on me in my glass room. Where I bet you think I'm finished. [....] Go on assume."
We get a ship again. The star ship clearly comes from his music (Bowie era, remember), but also reminds us of John Allyn Smith's ship and the one in "Lost Coastlines". It's some sort of metaphor for death here, as with John. It could even be a metaphor for fame. It has lifted off, but it's not landing to let anyone off--not even the guy too wasted to walk--ever again until "finally stars hold him in all around, until he forgets the ground, until he forgets the crawling way real people sometimes are."
I have a hard time with this song, but here's what I think I can make out: Bruce just wants to forget about his stint as a star--the groupies, the pop lies, the fall from grace--but once he boarded the ship, he was stuck. Like John, he just wants release from his sad, alcoholic life, which is the stars and forgetfulness. He gets it.
There it is. The wonder that is Okkervil River's Stand Ins. Tell me what you think about my thoughts on this one. Like I said, I'm terribly unsure of myself here and I love a good discussion about music.