I was talking to a friend Saturday night while making some hot wings. We were listening to one of my current favorite albums, by Thao and the Get Down Stay Down. It’s an album that in many ways does not match my image of what I listen to, but I am somewhat obsessed with it.

Coincidentally, I got the impression that my friend, Knox, also liked the album somewhat in spite of himself. According to him, he tends more towards brooding albums, although he doesn’t seem like much of a brooder (he’s much more positive than I am, really). I avoid brooding albums in favor of music that moves and doesn’t make me feel depressed.

But both of us like the Burning Hell, a group that both broods and moves, although I tend to skip over the slow songs. I like that album because it’s quirky and fun. Knox says he is drawn to are the lyrics. He tends to eschew bands with empty lyrics.

I remember discussing lyrics in college, presumably during late night trips to WaHo. The “deep” question is whether you favor music or lyrics in your favorite songs, and I think the assumption is that most of us would want to favor lyrics but tend to favor the music. I do remember noting that my long-time favorite songs are ones that are lyrically meaningful, but the truth is there are few songs in that category for me.

After the Thao album ended Saturday night, I switched to another of my current favorite albums, by the much less accessible Sister Suvi. I’ve been obsessed by this album for weeks, listening to it almost every time I get in the car and generally rocking out, especially to the soulful songs by the extremely esoteric Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs fame (click at your own discretion). Looking up the lyrics this morning, I am neither surprised nor impressed to read the lyrics of my favorite song on the album, a love/breakup song called “American,” which manages to rhyme “tushy” with “cushy, “mushy,” and “squishy,” which is nothing compared to “You stink you stink like a poo/ And that is why I’m leaving you.”

But I still love it. I just wonder if its lack of deep lyrics will lead me to remember it at all a year from now. After all, I have liked Deerhunter for a while, and one of my favorite Deerhunter songs has this as its chorus:

come for me
you come for me
come for me
comfortably
you cover me
cover me
comfortably
comfortably

Deep, right?

Agoraphobia – Deerhunter