betelnut:

The Wrens - “This Boy Is Exhausted” (The Version From You’ll Never Eat Fast Food Again: A Drive Thru Records Comp)

I love this song so much. And I especially love the pre-Meadowlands version, which kicks with the late 90’s pop-punk sloppiness/whininess typical of a Drive Thru Records’ (!!) compilation among contemporaries such as Fenix TX, RX Bandits, and New Found Glory. This time and sound in music — which I don’t think gets talked about as much as it does get sung aloud to over the car stereos of people my age — is a huge emotional touchstone for me. I genuinely don’t know if formative things like this are always subject to a critical blindness, but on a day like today when I’m sick, tired, and exhausted, to this day this song has a unique rejuvenating effect on me. Also, I watched I’m Trying To Break Your Heart this morning and mainly I want there to be a version of that film about the pre-Meadowlands The Wrens.

This comp version has a fun, giddy sound—I’d never heard it before. But man, is the Meadowlands track so much better/richer/more complex. What I love about that recording is how it really does sound and feel exhausted. The song’s tempo is about the same as the comp track’s but seems slower, I think because everything is flatter and lower pitched and the Wrens switched out the screeching guitar for eerily poignant backing vocals. And I swear Charles Bissell is huffing and puffing a little, like he really needs that six-note rest before coming in on the chorus.

The Wrens’ career made Steve Albini’s problem-with-music essay read like a bedtime story; they were that fucked. With day jobs and no record contract, it took the band something like four years to write and record Meadowlands. Boy, sequenced fourth, is sort of an inconspicuous keystone:

I can’t type, I can’t temp/ I’m way past college/ no ways out, no back doors/ not anymore/ but then once a while/ we’ll play a show then that makes it worthwhile

Historically, punk and indie rock have offered escape and community and salvation to kids who might not find them elsewhere. Speaking from experience, that’s a very good thing. But what about the kids who grew up and became adults and continued to need the stuff? Boy was a status update from a bunch of guys creeping up on middle age and still desperately in love with music. Even if minimum-wage jobs and cross-country tours of tiny rock clubs made marriages and mortgages and careers that offer health insurance and 401(k) plans impossible—even if love had shaken faith. I don’t want to say one kind of disorientation is more painful (getting old sucks but you couldn’t pay me to be 16 again) or one kind of exhilaration is more pleasurable. But the point is, one has a different pitch and cadence from the other. The label comp Boy, which I’m assuming was recorded at least four years before the album track, almost sounds like a cover by a different band, jamming noise and ripping through lyrics like a foreign language. It’s skin deep. Four years is a long time, long enough for disappointment and frustration to erode confidence, long enough for words that sound good in a song to become words that describe your life. To seep into your very bones. Can’t you hear them creak.

Audio tagged as: music the_wrens this_boy_is_exhausted reblog - Reblog from barthel
  1. buhumoth reblogged this from cokemachineglow
  2. about-today reblogged this from bwall05 and added:
    I always forget about this version. Wouldn’t it be weird if the rest of Meadowlands had alternate versions that sounded...
  3. advancesnone reblogged this from cokemachineglow and added:
    13 hour work day. The siren call of alcohol. Another Saturday night.
  4. ohcommahello reblogged this from cokemachineglow
  5. letstalkaboutthesound reblogged this from cokemachineglow
  6. anythingcouldhappen reblogged this from barthel and added:
    This comp version has a fun, giddy sound—I’d never heard it before. But man, is the Meadowlands track so much...
  7. bwall05 reblogged this from barthel and added:
    All of this (write-up and song) are relevant to my interests. I had no idea this version existed, so I’m especially...
  8. barthel reblogged this from betelnut
  9. cokemachineglow reblogged this from betelnut and added:
    The Wrens - “This Boy Is Exhausted” (The Version From You’ll Never Eat Fast Food Again: A Drive Thru Records Comp)
  10. betelnut posted this
35 notes

ach likes

see more likes