Ten Best Songs of 2008 – #7
One of my best surprises of 2008 was My Morning Jacket’s newest album, Evil Urges, an alt-rock triumph that sounds like a mix between the Allman Brothers and Prince. I liked it even more than some of the band’s biggest fans, who felt it was a bit too strange a left turn.
Amid all of Evil Urges‘ heady themes and country-funk stylings, the song I was drawn to the most was the simplest of the bunch. ‘Librarian’ coasts along on a plaintive little melody accompanied by a delicate acoustic guitar and an almost subliminal heart beat of a bass line before keyboards, strings and drums show up at the halfway point to heighten the emotion.
Alex recently heard this song in the car and asked “Where is the chorus?” It was the first time I’d realized that it doesn’t really have one. She meant that as a criticism but I find the song’s meandering quality one of its finest points.
Lead singer Jim James spins a simple tale of pining for a librarian, with allusions to the soul-crushing role of technology and our obsession with image thrown in for good measure. It’s a slice of life that makes you think and feel and one of my very favorite songs of last year.
I can hear the insects buzz on the leaves ‘neath my feet
Ramble up the stairwell to the hall of books
Since we got the interweb these hardly get used
Duck into the men’s room, combing through my hair
When God gave us mirrors he had no idea
Looking for a lesson in the periodicals
There I spy you listening to the AM radio
Karen of the Carpenters, Singing in the Rain
Another lovely victim of the mirror’s evil way
It’s not like you’re not trying, with a pencil in your hair
To defy the beauty the good Lord put in there
Simple little bookworm
Buried underneath is the sexiest librarian
Take off those glasses and let down your hair for me
So I watch you through the bookcase, imagining a scene
You and I at dinner, spending time, then to sleep
And what then would I say to you lying there in bed
These words with a kiss I would plant in your head
“What is it inside our heads
That makes us do the opposite,
Makes us do the opposite
Of what’s right for us?
‘Cause everything’d be great,
And everything’d be good,
If everybody gave like everybody could”
Sweetest little bookworm
Hidden underneath is the sexiest librarian
Take off those glasses and let down your hair for me
Take off those glasses and let down your hair for me
Simple little beauty, heaven in your breath
Simplest of pleasures, the world at its best
Meet Me In Montauk 
I like this, but I agree with Alex–the song could you a chorus, a bridge, sonething….Also, I don’t hear either Allman Brothers or Prince in this track.
This one is a departure from the rest of the album.
I really enjoyed this song. It felt to me like taking a walk and also like listening to a lullaby. I didn’t mind the absence of a real chorus and felt like the repeated line to “Take off those glasses and let down your hair for me” loosely filled that role. To my ear the song is clearly in two parts, with the break at that line in the middle and then again at the end.
It’s different from what I would usually be drawn to and I think I’ll need to listen to it again, but I did like the song and can see why you enjoy them. I’d like to hear some of their other songs to see where the Prince and Allman Brothers references come from – sounds like an interesting mix. 🙂
This song has the Prince/Allman Brothers thing going on:
I don’t feel it is missing a bridge or a chorus, although the “…let down your hair…” lyric is repeated. Maybe A Day In The Life would not have been perfectly sublime without the bridge Librarian is!