Thursday, April 28, 2011





  1. "intended as a grand joke"

    Like all great 'comedy' music, the underlying tone and meaning can still be very serious - and that's okay.

    By comedy music, I don't been songs with jokes in, but the likes of Neil Innes, Flight of the Conchords,Tim Minchin. Songs where they can easily be nistaken for serious songs if you are not listening carefully!

  2. This song is not really intended as comedy (except perhaps in a very wry and almost dark way), although the overall album might be a "grand joke", as you say. I originally got it on the strength of their cover of "Common People", which I really liked, and ended up just downloading the whole thing. I've been surprised how well it ages -- especially this song, which came as a real surprise. I agree 100% that it has way more to do with Folds and Hornby (plus the Aime Mann cameo!) Still, Shatner was the right guy to 'sing' this. You can imagine him being this guy, looking up the daughter he fell out with years ago, and hoping that they can just "forget about the past" (gotta imagine there is a lot of past… or maybe not enough) and move on. Of course, being a father with a daughter, it does tug at the heartstrings… I hope I will never be this guy who says at the end "You wanna try Cold Mountain?... or is that too long?"