Song Review
Owen Pallett’s highly anticipated follow-up to He Poos Clouds found it’s way onto shelves last week (January 12th). Across Canada, fans finally began their journey through Pallett’s conjured-up world of Spectrum, with help from the album’s narrator Lewis; Heartland is a concept album narrated by a farmer named Lewis as he comes to terms with his creator. Note: it wasn’t until I read the lyrics to Lewis Takes Off His Shirt that I realized Lewis’ creator actually referred to Owen Pallett himself. Pallett’s latest effort is easily his most accessible, and finest work to date, proving that the two are in fact not mutually exclusive. In an interview with Pallett last week, Craig Norris from CBC Radio 3 predicted that Heartland would sail smoothly into the 2010 Polaris shortlist; After each listen, it becomes increasingly more difficult to disagree with him. For more from Heartland, as well as Pallett’s earlier work under the moniker Final Fantasy, we’ve posted the following songs below.
Owen Pallett – Lewis Takes Action
Final Fantasy – This Lamb Sells Condos
Final Fantasy – Your Ex-Lover Is Dead (Remix)
As soon as I got on the horse, I forgot about the math.
Forgot about the odds against an adolescent standing up to all of Owen’s wrath.
The heat of prairie summer, impossible to take.
I grab the hem and lift the fabric over my sweet head.
I know what you’re looking for, and I’m never gonna give it to you.
I’m never gonna give it to you.
I’m never gonna give it to you.
Government rule established by a dazzling light show.
A hegemony armoured with a thousand-watt head and seven inches of echo.
I keep up my velocity, my spurs are in her sides.
I don’t know what I’m doing, and it is the only way.
Toward the range I’ll ride, singing, I’m never gonna give it to you.
I’m never gonna give it to you.
I’m never gonna give it to you.
“I am overrated,” said the sculptor to the sea.
“I’ve been praised for all the ways the marble leaves the man, and I was wrong to try and free him.”
And as for me, I am a vector, I am muscle, I am bone.
The sun upon my shoulders and the horse between my legs,
This is all I know.
My senses are bedazzled by the parallax of the road.
I concentrate to keep contained the overflow.
My knuckles grip so tightly, my fingers start to bleed.
What I have is what you need,
And I’m never gonna give it to you.
I’m never gonna give it to you.
I’m never gonna give it to you.
I’m never gonna give it to you.
I’m never gonna give it to you.
I’m never gonna give it to you.
