Cass McCombs - "Sacred Heart"

I've been digging through Cass McCombs' back catalogue of late and was reminded me of his stellar Smiths and Cure recalling turn, "Sacred Heart." Originally released in 2004 as a 7" on 4AD and then again in 2005 on McCombs' sophomore LP, PREfection, the track is a rare bit of uptempo driving pop from the nomadic artist. Once you get past all the blissful shimmering guitars and racing drums, there's Cass's one-of-a-kind lyricism: at first depicting romantic and picturesque imagery of the Sacred Heart church, and later the melodramatic goings on of a funeral, and my personal favorite line—"Cinderella's in the doghouse."

You can find the vinyl on Discogs. 

Cass McCombs - "Sacred Heart" (from PREfection)

Best of 2011: The Songs

50. Yelle - "Safari Disco Club"
49. Body Language - "Social Studies"
48. Bleached - "Searching Through The Past"
47. Craft Spells - "After The Moment"
46. Future Islands - "Crish (Javelin Remixxx)"

45. Nurses - "Trying To Reach You"
44. Cheerleader - "Dreamer"
43. Radiation City - "The Color of Industry"
42. Lower Dens - "Deer Knives"

41. Ganglians - "Sleep"
40. Cut Copy - "Alisa"

39. Blouse - "Shadow"

38. FIDLAR - "Wake Bake Skate"
37. Eleanor Friedberger - "My Mistakes"
36. St. Vincent - "Cruel"

A Closer Look: Cass McCombs - "To Every Man His Chimera"

"To Every Man His Chimera," a song off Humor Risk, Cass McCombs' second full-length of 2011, unfortunately does not refer to a world where every man has his own fire-breathing lion-goat-serpent as a pet. Instead, 'chimera' here refers to an illusion fabricated by the mind, and in this case, it's one that haunts the narrator: "Not you again, I thought you died. / I thought you were killed on your wedding night." The track is a standout, not only for its peculiar title, but as one of Humor Risk's most potent moments and McCombs' best of the year, perhaps only following the unparalleled "County Line."

It turns out "To Every Man His Chimera" (also sometimes translated as "To Each His Chimera") is a poem in prose by French poet Charles Baudelaire. In the short work, a narrator watches a group of Roman soldiers pass by, each with giant chimeras adorning their armor. The narrator notes the soldiers consider the chimera a part of themselves and he wonders what affect it has on the men. Here's the work's last line: "but soon irresistible Indifference descended upon me, and I was more cruelly oppressed by its weight than those men had been by their crushing Chimeras." Sort of a cruel joke, right? Chimeras often come up in literature as projections of fears that men manufacture. In McCombs' own song, it's difficult to pin down the exact meaning: is the dead subject that returns a ghost or a projection of the narrator's? Is there a different narrator between the verse and the chorus, where 'Mary' is addressed? "I don't need a host to live," Cass sings in the chorus, and perhaps that Alien-esque imagery is coming from the mouth of the chimera itself?

What's unquestionable here is the quality of the songwriting and McComb's knack for imagery in his lyrics. Try the line "Peel of the latex fair-weather friend, is that supposed to be a nose?" or "California makes me sick, like trying with a rattlesnake your teeth to pick." Interspersed between McCombs' lyrics are background conversations, voice messages, dropped change, a dog barking, and small other clamoring noises. It's a dynamic and familiar setting sound-wise, as if Cass is playing right in the middle of a family's living room, invisible to all but the listener. Maybe the song itself is the chimera?

Pick up Humor Risk on vinyl from Domino.

Cass McCombs - "To Every Man His Chimera" (from Humor Risk)

Streaming/Fondling: Futurebirds, Cass McCombs, Timbre Timbre, Cotton Jones

I don't like streaming. As an avid consumer of all things music, when I really dig something I want to keep it: whether it's by downloading it, preordering it, or running down the street to the record shop and searching for it in the non-alphabetized "general letter" section. The dangling of desirable ear-tingling goods within reach to sample but not take home is like going to the supermarket, fondling all of the best produce, and then leaving them for the next shopper to rifle through all over again. When I find a good grapefruit, I want to it take home. However, this blogger's streaming bin is piling up and am therefore left with no choice but to share these fine gems on a fondle-only basis.