Listening To: Marian Call

I love, love, love this album. :) I've been addicted to it ever since I first got it, so I'm actually going to do something I have never before done in my life, and blog "review" an album. And when I say "review," I mean, tell you everything I like about it. I am not a music critic. I just know what I like. :) Call has a good voice and harmonizes beautifully and interestingly. Her lyrics are smart and thoughtful, and since I'm a big lyrics girl, that's important. I can't stand a song with bad lyrics, no matter how catchy the tune is. Bad lyrics will just crush a song for me. Some of Call's songs grew on me after I listened to the lyrics. I started out liking about half the tracks, which is a higher percentage rate of like than I usually get out of an album on first listen (and sometimes any number of subsequent ones). All the others grew on me by 3rd listen, thanks to Call's lyrics. Now I like nearly the entire album, and the songs I don't necessarily *like* I still listen to because the lyrics are solid.

Track 1 - I'll Still Be a Geek After Nobody Thinks it's Chic (the Nerd Anthem)
Snappy in the same way the cantina song from Star Wars is. Infectiously geeky and adorable, with lyrics like, "My superpower's draining fun from parties," and references to pop culture, historical nerds, and numerous geek stereotypes - both accurate and not.

Track 2 - Good Old Girl
Possibly my favorite song on the album, Good Old Girl is a smokey little number about both ships and heroines. It's a little downbeat but hopeful, with great harmonies. I sort of marvel that she can write a song about both vessels and women and have the lyrics equally applicable to both. Excellent use of metaphor, with lyrics like, "Her structure's sound, her clock is wound/Through mistreatment and neglect, she'll give whatever she's got left/And she's run aground; she's run aground/But on the weakest breath of wind, she'll up and navigate the din of love and lies..." and "It's far too much to take, but my girl don't know how to break, so she'll make, she'll make a way/She's a good old girl, she'll fly true." It does a syncopated bridge thing a little over halfway through that's pretty neat too. I just really like the song, and since I've been having a tough time the last several years, it really resonates with me.

Good Old Girl - Marian Call

Track 3 - Don't Try
I will admit I do not care for the intro, but the song is a love song, and a very pretty one. It starts slowly and sadly but blossoms into a lovely and thoughtful song about why and how we fall in love, perhaps because of a person's imperfections, rather than in spite of them. "You won me when you stumbled as you got up to dance/ when you tried to fly, and instead you took that fall/Oh, I want to love a human, afterall/You had me when you drew the curtain back and let me see/There was no one else behind that veil but you."

Dont Try - Marian Call

Track 4 - Dark Dark Eyes
The only song on the entire album I do not particularly care for, and yet I can't bring myself to say I don't like it. It's an old-fashioned sounding waltz, vaguely reminiscent of mountain music.

Track 5 - Vera Flew the Coop
It's like a steel guitar road song with a Thelma & Louise style heroine who, not surprisingly, meets with a bad end. I didn't like it that much at first, but it rapidly grew on me. I especially like the crooning lie-lie-lie's between verses.

Track 6 - It's Good to Have Jayne on Your Side
The only track on the album Call did not write. She fudged a couple of words. It was originally a song called "Shaner," by Justin Boot. It's ridiculous fun when you know she means it as a tribute to everyone's favorite antihero, Jayne Cobb. :) It's also catchy. I find myself singing it at odd moments nearly every day.

Track 7 - In the Black
Every time this song starts, I think I don't like it and am going to hit the skip button. Since I'm lazy, I don't, and then I'm glad I didn't. It's sort of about struggling and falling behind. It's kind of blues, kind of western. It's the kind of song you'd want to hear sitting around a fire in the wilderness when that guy who always has his guitar with him starts strumming stuff and singing half to himself, half to the rest of you. I can't really explain it any better than that.

Track 8 - Got to Fly
Funky, kicky little number about escapism and finding that world we all thought we were growing up in, before we found out reality was not half as cool as we'd been led to believe. Quick, witty lyrics like, "Thank you for calling, I'll get back to you soon/If you should get a message from the dark side of the moon/You'll know that that's me/Baby, you'll know I'm there/The reception's lousy baby, but the view's beyond compare/So if you wanna call shotgun on my rocket, well you oughtta, baby/Let's let's, baby, let's let's let's fly."

Got to Fly - Marian Call

Track 9 - It was Good for You Too
As I understand it, Call actually wrote this for a contest called Sing a Song of Saffron, based on the character Joss Whedon wrote for Firefly. She won the contest, and if I have my facts straight, it motivated her recording career, an incident for which I will be eternally happy. The track is a smoky jazz croon I can easily imagine Call singing dressed in a long, slinky black sheath, standing behind a blocky, old fashioned microphone, bathed in a white spotlight.

I really think you should hustle over to imeem and stream yourself these and more of Call's tracks, and then go buy the album. I can't wait until I start work again and can buy her first album, Vanilla. Marian Call rules. :)