a little off, this offing
in “yeah, oh yeah,” one of the magnetic fields’ 69 love songs, form, content, everything is unnervingly off. the guitar drags lazily just a little behind the vocalists, who are just a little ahead of the beat kept by the drum [machine].
“though i need you more than air, is it true you just don’t care?” the female vocalist asks, melancholy and desperate. “yeah, oh yeah” the male counterpart answers, lackadaisical but affirmative. he’s had a lot of time to think about this. “i can’t take your perpetual whining, and you can’t sing,” he complains.
the listener, this one at least, wants to throw something at her, make her not so melancholy and dependent, make her follow that guitar at least.
the song, the character that is the female vocalist, almost step right past each other, but i remain rapt at the sweetness of this aural and interpersonal disaster.
[you don’t get all this completely in the video. but i like that cello.]