Sufjan Stevens - "You Are The Rake"
A guitar chord is plucked and allowed to decay almost fully before another takes its place. The simplicity of the guitar playing is matched by Stevens? direct declarative lyrical approach. At 1:12 banjo begins to emanate from the sparsely timed chords, rolling outwards, pushing Stevens to sing a denser, louder part, fleshed out by backing vocals.
Though the the song?s title would suggest a connection with autumn, ?You Are a Rake? sounds more like a clear winter?s day (guitar and vocals perspicuous like ice) with a light midday snowfall (the delicately placed banjo notes).
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One of a good number of power pop gems from A.C. Newman?s solo debut, The Slow Wonder, one gets the sense from ?Miracle Drug? that Newman is a careful pop auteur with tremendous control of his craft. No synth bleep or clean guitar crunch, rousing snare/bass-drum combo or vocal flourish is out of place.
(This is my first two sentence review, I think. Three sentences now. Hmm, an infinity problem? Feels right.)
Posted by Jordan at December 28, 2004 6:54 AMreally digging this tune
Posted by thebandit at December 29, 2004 2:40 PMhappy new year!
Posted by wel at December 31, 2004 9:40 AMhappy new year!
Posted by wel at December 31, 2004 9:42 AMthanks for all the good songs and witty comments.
i will stay tuned in 2005!
happy new year!!
hey jordan (and sean!), thanks for all the music.
Happy new year! Have a good one.
holy shit, this sufjan stevens song is amazing. what's it from?
Posted by Eric Rojas at January 2, 2005 3:54 AMHappy New Year!
Posted by Linus at January 3, 2005 11:56 AMEric,
'You are the rake' is from the extended version of 'A sun came'. It also features an older bonus song, called 'Joy, joy, joy'.
Posted by Jack at January 3, 2005 5:15 PMLike the Kinks-Only fresher still. Groovy.
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and it will begin playing. All songs are also available to download: just right-click the link and choose 'Save as...'
