Though the ticket-taker is not terribly essential to the song’s story, his presence does underline the way McMahan and Walford wrote their lyrics in response to their arrangements. The characters and action in “Breadcrumb Trail” are married to their riffs with the attentiveness of a Broadway musical. The action on the roller coaster is confined to the “roller coaster riff”; the ticket-taker only appears in the “ticket-taker riff”; the protagonist and fortune-teller’s feet are on the ground only during the segment that opens and closes the song. Paired with its lyrics, the music of “Breadcrumb Trail” seems almost manipulative in the ease with which it carries the listener from one part of the carnival to the other.
The direct connection between character or action and riff or song section shows up elsewhere on Spiderland as well. All of Slint’s songs were methodically honed as instrumentals, with the lyrics painted over top by McMahan and Walford well after the mood of the song was set. This is why the content of the lyrics might seem so rigidly pinned to the way the instruments interact with each other. You can imagine the thought occurring to McMahan or Walford, “Hey, the middle section of ‘Breadcrumb Trail’ swings up and down; let’s make the song about a roller coaster”; likewise the sinister sound of “Nosferatu Man,” the earliest developed song on the album, must have begged for a sinister story line. Decidedly darker both in its music and lyrical content, the song’s gothic imagery is accentuated by Pajo’s spindly lead motif which creeps over McMahan’s churning chords, mechanically rolling in time to Walford’s disorienting beat.
As with “Breadcrumb Trail,” the action of the story seems tailored to each riff. Vice versa, the music does its share of work in filling in the story’s details, such as in the first verse:
I live in a castle.
I am a prince.
On days I try
to please my queen.
The simple lines are notably free of adjectives; instead, all descriptive duties are left to the music. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with vampire stories fills in the details of what kind of castle this is — dreary, dark, foreboding — because the music has set the scene. Walford’s snapping snare propels the music forward while McMahan, Pajo, and Brashear each play mutated versions of the same riff — McMahan plays an ascending chord progression, Pajo descending, while Brashear picks at a higher note to add an eerie undertone to the guitars’ interlocking chords. Between every four spoken lines Pajo’s high-pitched lead enhances the chilling atmosphere with its distorting half-notes and bending strings.
As in “Breadcrumb Trail” the action and the characters seem tied to which riff is being played. Both verses depict a relatively static portrait of the prince and queen, inside their castle. With the shift to the chorus sections — loud, aggressive, more muscular than scary — so too does the scenery and character dynamic change. In these sections the prince is outside of his castle, caught up in a chase with a mortal girl, the queen nowhere to be seen. Meeting the girl in the first chorus, she is a trespasser on the castle grounds, frightened away by the prince:
Like a bat I flushed the girl
as I flew out my back door.
I came to no one no more —
she ran with no glances
and railed like a red coal train.
In contrast to the inert content of the verses, the chorus sections are all action, matching the ampedup music. He “flew”; she “ran with no glances” and “railed like a red coal train.” In the second chorus the tables are turned and the girl chases the prince away. The prince is “set in a whirl”; the girl “set[s] a fire burning” as the prince “railed on through the night.” The verbs in the chorus sections are more aggressive, the characters are moving at a clip. As the music shifts from quiet to loud, the lyrics also shift from static to active verbs.
“Nosferatu Man” contains probably the most rudimentary quiet verse / loud chorus on the album. On the heels of “Breadcrumb Trail,” it becomes apparent how this element of the band’s sound became synonymous with Slint-as-adjective. But at the same time “Nosferatu Man” feels less concerned with its juxtapositions and more focused on creating intensity through rhythm. The song is dizzying in its jumps from one time signature to the next. The first verse is in 5/4, followed by a pause in which Walford clicks a single bar in 3/4 before the band launches into a chorus in 6/4. They repeat this pattern for the second verse and chorus before moving to the bridge, where things get especially complicated. Story-wise the chase between the prince and the girl escalates into a cat-and-mouse game. The music reflects this polyrhythmically as the band splices into two separate but simultaneous meters, in effect circling each other. Walford hunkers down into a quarter-note-based kick/snare rhythm while Pajo, McMahan, and Brashear play a series of triplets, floating in and out of phase with Walford, who occasionally adds an extra beat to keep things from spiraling into cacophony. They sync up again for a third verse in 5/4, in which the prince’s “teeth touched her skin,” then unravel again into an extended polyrhythmic bridge — this time evened out to stay locked into Walford’s steady quarter note — before Walford and Brashear return to the 6/4 chorus section while Pajo and McMahan continue to stab at their stop-start chords in three. The song finally concludes with the girl gone and the prince holding his dead queen. The band lands together on a final G chord, dangling ominously in the air as the prince remains alone.
One can look at the two halves of “Nosferatu Man” and see the two sides of Slint’s reverberating influence: the easy-to-duplicate dynamic back-and-forth of the first two and a half minutes, followed by an escalation to a level of musicianship that is the antithesis of indie or alternative rock’s roots in punk, a genre born from an embrace of attitude at the expense of technical skill. Spiderland is a fork in the road for the evolution of underground rock: an album that inspired countless kids previously weaned on the ethos that anyone can do it, made by a band of musicians who did it better.
While the rhythms on Spiderland don’t get any more complicated than the dazzling conclusion to “Nosferatu Man,” the band’s skill remains on display. This is especially apparent in the way that much of the rest of the album deviates from the template set by the opening pair of songs. “Don, Aman” is the most explicit departure. Where every other song on Spiderland is precisely composed, the entire band turning up and down like a machine, “Don” is rough and rushed. In the overall sequencing of the album, the foreboding tone of “Nosferatu Man” might be heard as a bridge from the niceties of “Breadcrumb Trail” to the alienation of “Don.” Closing out the first half of the album, “Don” is a pivot point away from the dramatic rises and falls and toward an interior-minded, self-conscious, depressed atmosphere. Though the song features no drums whatsoever, the spotlight here is almost entirely on Walford, who wrote the music and most of the lyrics.2 Here the drummer, a driving songwriting force dating back to Maurice’s earliest days, finally steps away from his drum kit, taking up lead vocals as well as playing McMahan’s guitar. Pajo is the only other musician on the track, essentially following Walford’s lead.
Despite the skeletal nature of the song, it still contains no small amount of drama. Telling the story of a man quietly suffering a paranoid panic attack while at a party, the song is a giant frayed nerve. Walford and Pajo play a halting, fragile guitar riff full of pauses and awkward phrasings as Don stands outside of a house, alone, kicking himself over something he’d said while inside. Unlike the prior two songs, which involve a cast of characters, Walford’s lyrics stick tightly to the psyche of a single man who is at odds with himself. Don is conflicted, and the drama of the song lies in his battle with himself, choosing at different times to conquer or embrace his self-hatred. Evoking this split in Don’s personality, Walford and Pajo’s guitars are mirrors of each other — literally, they are played like reflections. The tones of the guitars are in stark contrast to each other, one warm, one cold. Walford’s guitar is panned slightly toward the right in the mix, Pajo’s panned left. Add
itionally, Pajo hits every chord on the downstroke, Walford on the upstroke; you can hear the scrape of Walford’s fingers on his strings, while Pajo’s downward strum emphasizes the bassier element of the same chord.
These subtle, premeditated differences keep the two guitars from sounding like mere overdub. Often on recordings a guitarist might record the same part twice as a way of making the instrument sound thicker, meatier (similar to the way a singer like Elliott Smith might double-track his vocal to make his voice sound fuller). By playing the same part in two contrasting tones, separated in the mix, the notes specifically picked from opposing angles, Walford and Pajo effectively make the music sound like a fractured version of what should be a singular, unified whole. It’s a perfect complement to poor, nervous Don, who manages to convince himself to return to the party.
When he re-enters the house the pace of the song, like his pulse, accelerates. As Walford describes Don’s hyper-sensitivity, the guitar strums quicken to a steady, anxious rhythm — a single chord, only the root note changing every two bars. The hypnotic high notes become tense, the shifting root note a tick-tocking paranoia. As Don’s silent panic becomes more and more acute, Pajo adds a few rhythmic, sharp harmonics, like tiny daggers stabbing at Don’s ego. Soon enough Don’s anxiety overtakes him and he once again ejects himself from the party, this time for good. As he gets into his car and drives wildly into the night, literally howling at the moon, Walford’s guitar tumbles into distortion to reflect Don’s unhinging.
This is hardly the towering dynamics of “Breadcrumb Trail” or the anguished climaxes of “Washer” or “Good Morning, Captain.” The upward shift here is clumsy, even weak. No bass or drums kick in to bring Don’s wild ride to an apex. You can practically hear Walford’s foot click on his distortion pedal, just a hair behind the beat, accentuating the awkwardness of the transition. And it doesn’t last. The song soon winds down, as if, like the car Don is driving, it has run out of gas. In the light of the morning, the guitars again unified yet distinct, Don has come to terms with himself: “In the mirror, he saw his friend.” Were the song to end on this plodding riff, the guitars in quiet unison as Don reconciles his two sides, one might think that Don has seen the error of his self-loathing. But like a trick movie credit — “The end . . . or is it?!” — that maddening distorted guitar briefly fades in, then back out, leaving Don’s story open and unsettled.
Spiderland is a tense album, and that is due in large part to the way Slint withhold one element or another during their louder moments, such as the clumsy and brief single-guitar outburst in “Don,” which makes the character’s alienation and impotence all the more deeply felt. “Washer,” which begins the album’s second half, is an even more compelling illustration of how such withholding dramatically increases the impact of its climax. Though the song may begin as a kind of lullaby, it unfolds as something altogether more tortured, eventually reaching a plateau as powerful and affecting as the more celebrated conclusion to “Good Morning, Captain.” The reason the song’s zenith is so visceral is because of the way its drama is earned. “Washer” attempts, three times, to reach some sort of sonic release, but it only succeeds once. Where a song like “Breadcrumb Trail” is a symbol of the ease with which a band can manipulate the dichotomy of quiet and loud — as easy as riding a rollercoaster up and down — “Washer” is the best example of why Slint transcended their dynamics. The band spends nearly seven minutes laying the groundwork for its eventual payoff.
“Washer” begins quietly — so quiet, in fact, you might not realize the band have even begun if your volume is not high enough. It’s an all-downstroke descending chord progression — a subtle bit of fore-shadowing for the song’s eventual climax, though at the start it seems to be played so casually you might think Pajo or McMahan were just noodling around waiting for the rest of the group to start up.
Twenty seconds in they do, as “Washer” announces Spiderland’s second half with a new lushness. Pajo and McMahan’s guitars intertwine in intricate, ringing arpeggios while Brashear’s minimalist bassline accentuates Walford’s sparse drumming. Though not without an underlying melancholy — there is a string of despair running from “Don” all the way to the end of the record — “Washer” feels warm. Following “Don”’s anxious strumming, the first few minutes of “Washer” are a welcome comfort. When McMahan’s voice comes in — singing, up high in the mix — “Washer” reveals itself as a totally different animal from Spiderland’s other tracks. Of the sixteen songs that Slint ever put to tape, “Washer” is the only one that features actual singing — tentative, naked, honest singing. McMahan’s high voice and sometimes awkward phrasing only adds to the intimacy. It doesn’t feel like a song the rest of us are supposed to hear.
All of the other songs on Spiderland are told, in a way, at arm’s length. Aside from the somnambulant instrumental “For Dinner . . .”, each of the other four songs on the album feature vocals spoken like short stories, and most are in third person. Their fictional settings transform them into movie-like entertainments. “Nosferatu Man” and “Breadcrumb Trail” dazzle with their odd time signatures, “Good Morning, Captain” with its inspired arrangement. “Don, Aman”’s stripped down intensity is upsetting. “Washer,” by contrast, is played softly in 4/4 time with discernable verse sections in which McMahan sings lyrics rather than speaks sentences. Even the subject matter is comforting in its familiarity: How many songs in your collection are about losing love? How many are about vampires or shipwrecks?
Slint use this familiarity to their advantage, lulling the listener with a prettiness heretofore unheard on the album. Yet as the song progresses its dark edge is revealed; though the lyrics are often elliptical and vague, by song’s end “Washer” feels less about a lover skipping out in the dead of night (“fill your pockets with the dust of a memory / that rises from the shoes on my feet” is about the most poetic kiss-off I’ve ever heard), and more about suicide by sleeping pills. The gravity of the situation seems to increase with each verse — the first two about a lover walking boldly into the darkness; the third, told from the partner’s perspective, a desperate plea (“please, listen to me / don’t let go”); and the final verse the lover’s acceptance of his fate (“I’m too tired now / embracing thoughts / of tonight’s / dreamless sleep”).
The music of “Washer” teases out the drama by dropping into a series of builds with each passing verse, each more emphatic than the last yet denying a crescendo. By contrast, McMahan’s vocal delivery seems to get quieter as the song goes on. His performance is perfectly attuned to the content of his lyrics. The first two verses are sung with some level of conviction — he enunciates every word, singing at an intelligible volume. His lyrics are brave — “I know it’s dark outside / don’t be afraid / every time I ever cried for fear / was just a mistake that I made.” Meanwhile the music of “Washer,” up to this point, has been fairly straightforward. Pajo and McMahan’s intertweaving arpeggios, a mixture of romance and melancholy, have been the definitive musical element. For the first three and a half minutes of the song, it’s the only significant riff other than the near-silent introduction and a few simple chords letting McMahan’s voice carry each verse. The song retains a simple pattern — riff/verse/riff/verse/riff — through the tail of the second verse, at which point the music shifts to reflect the increasing gravity of the story. Walford switches to his toms, creating a rolling tension as Brashear, Pajo, and McMahan each begin a slow build. But this rising wave dissipates before it can crash, morphing into another entwined riff — one guitar picking a complicated arpeggio while the other drops in a few well-placed chords, Brashear pushing things along as he slides up and down the neck of his bass. The new riff lasts just two bars before returning to the original anchoring arpeggio.
The third verse, a plea from the partner’s perspective, is sung with more desperation. Its first word — please — barely a whisper, and the rest of the verse only slightly more audible than that. For the first time in
the song there is a real inkling of finality. Where in the first verse McMahan sings “I won’t be back here / though we may meet again,” here the partner’s words are more fatalistic: “promise me the sun will rise again.” McMahan’s voice by now is weak, absolutely without strength, as if the partner lacks any belief that the promise could be fulfilled. Through his change in inflection, McMahan has tapped into the despair that has underlined the song from the start.
As if in answer to the newfound tone of finality in the lyrics, the music becomes more intent. Where each of the first two verses landed on the cushion of the song’s main riff, the third, with urgency, falls right into the darker riff introduced earlier, in which one guitar plays an arpeggio while the other punctuates with chords; this time the second guitar plays with more insistence, while Walford’s kick drum gains prominence in the mix. This subtle change adds a layer of fatalism — there is no going back. We march forward. As the guitar playing the more complicated part changes back to the song’s main riff — as if trying to steer back to safer waters — the second guitar, bass, and drums continue their march. Then, for the second time, the music drops into near silence, steadily building toward a climax, rising higher than before — only to be squelched by two sharp hits from Walford’s snare, like a slamming door.
The snare pushes everything to silence as McMahan utters the final verse:
I’m too tired now
Embracing thoughts
Of tonight’s
Dreamless sleep
My head is empty
My toes are warm
I am safe
From harm.
Again McMahan’s performance is a deliberate reflection of the action. Gone is the boldness of the first two verses. His voice becomes weaker, his phrases more elongated. McMahan literally sings as if he’s fighting sleep; you can hear the lover’s pauses as he trickles out the words “Embracing thoughts . . . of tonight’s . . . dreamless sleep.” That last phrase is, obviously by now, yet another indication that the sun, in fact, will not rise again. Lyrically McMahan connects back to the fearlessness described in the second verse. He knows it’s dark, he is not afraid. Passing from life to death, he feels safe from harm. McMahan holds the note of the last word — literally, the lover’s last word — and then, midway through the hold, drops in an overdub of himself singing that word again, to ghostly effect.
Slint's Spiderland Page 8
