![]() ![]() It’s just beautiful, a great example of the recent influx of modern dance choreography in music videos.Ĭarl: The video for “Get Hurt” is excellent, as are most of Gaslight’s videos. Not to mention, I watch the music video for “Get Hurt” a handful of times a week. The rest of the songs seem like personal engagement with the transcendental aspects of those four songs. In other words, they work because they do what Handwritten did as an album, they connect universally. They search for some kind of catharsis in a way the rest of the album doesn’t.īlake: I totally agree with you, especially re: “Get Hurt” & “Red Violins.” They have a certain transcendence that anyone who has experienced heartbreak can connect with. ![]() It’s like Fallon decided to go against his own advice on the last album’s “Too Much Blood” and just put his own stories on the page instead of vicariously living through middle-man narratives, hence the exhaustion and raggedness.Ĭarl: I view the essential songs on Get Hurt as “Get Hurt,” “Underneath the Ground,” “Red Violins,” and “Dark Places.” By essential, I mean these are the songs that tap into the sorrow and pain and attempt to manufacture something else from that pain. Get Hurt is clearly a very personal piece of work. I remember the band saying that Pearl Jam was a big influence on this album, and they are certainly another band where the music often moves me more than the words. It almost seems that the music moves this album rather than the lyrics. As for the music itself, I’d say it feels generally more emotive than on their other records. You’re right–there’s a world-weariness that speaks beyond his age. The emotional core of the album hits hard.īlake: Fallon has one of the best rock voices in the business right now. I think that’s part of what makes this album a departure for the band this time the raggedness and exhaustion are real, not just stories about other people. Even the ostensibly happy songs like “1000 Years” burn with regret, and you can hear it in Fallon’s weary voice. This album strikes me as Fallon giving up on such memories and letting reality be the driving force.Ĭarl: Musically, Get Hurt aches-jagged guitar solos slicing through melancholy bass, whispered vocals over steady drumming. Maybe that’s because he, and the listener (from their own experiences), know that how we remember things and people is often distorted. Even though a lot of his songs revolve around looking back on past events or relationships in a way that feels nostalgic, he never leaves it there. Perhaps Fallon, due to emotional turmoil, is attempting to return to those days when emotions and feelings weren’t trampled under the boot heels of “adulthood.”īlake: That’s another part of his writing I’ve always appreciated as well: the interplay between nostalgia and reality. This may not be his strongest work, but I still appreciate it on the whole.Ĭarl: Speaking of lyrical gold, there are a couple lines on “Stray Paper” that get me every time: “Now we’re much too old for this/ I don’t feel those kind of things/ So don’t you cry for me, I used to feel everything.” All of a sudden I’m back in high school, before I was so cynical. ![]() ![]() The Horrible Crowes album sealed Fallon as a personal favorite lyricist for me. It strikes a nice balance between The Hold Steady’s regional and spiritual immersion and singer/songwriters who try for levels of meaning. I do agree that break-ups tend to be more personal and exclusive to those involved, whereas falling in love (which was represented in part on Handwritten and some of their other material) usually allows more general room for connection or, as Fallon put it, “blood on the page.” Even then, though, I enjoy the way Fallon approaches lyrics. There may be hints of both on Get Hurt, but nothing that makes me want to discard the album wholesale. Rock “break-up” albums tend toward either self-pity or sentimentality. The ones I like are largely in the soul category, like Marvin Gaye’s Here, My Dear (1978). Get Hurt is certainly a “break-up” record, and while that adds an emotional rawness missing from Gaslight Anthem’s earlier work, I felt as if Fallon’s lyrics lost some of the universality they have on Handwritten and The ’59 Sound.īlake: As far as “break-up” records go, they are hit and miss for me, too. In the trend of recent conversation pieces, Blake (B.I.C.) and I bring you a discussion of The Gaslight Anthem’s newest album Get Hurt.Ĭarl: First off, how do you feel about “break-up” albums? Intense emotional pain and torment have produced classic albums like Blood on the Tracks, but more often than not I find “break-up” records to be less interesting than others. ![]()
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