Music |
Dawes
By
Published: May 29, 2014
Category:
Rock
Summer always has a song.
In Rome, a decade ago, we couldn’t go anywhere without hearing Me Gustas Du. In every cab. Out of every shop. Just a simple, bouncy tune and a list of things Manu Chao likes. I hear ten seconds and I’m back there, with my wife and my stepchildren and the first shadow of what would, nine months later, become the child. Emotional!
A few summers ago, it was Pumped Up Kicks, by Foster the People. Irresistible music and lyrics that a lot of people never quite heard — the song is about a kid who’s about to shoot up a mall. “You’d better run, better run, faster than my gun.”
This summer’s choice is more complicated.
Dawes is a Los Angeles band that reaches back to the greatness of that city’s music in the l960s and 1970s: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Jackson Browne. They’re so good at it that time has collapsed for them — Jackson Browne has sung with them, they’ve opened for him. But they’re so very not a cover band; their writer, Taylor Goldsmith, has a sharp eye for nuance. His songs about men and women in their 20s capture the difficulties and complexities of relationships as if they’re short stories. (Like this: “The guy you’re looking for/ sounds like the kind of guy/ I want to be.”) Dylan noticed; they opened for him. Ditto Mumford & Sons. The great Blake Mills was in Dawes; on this CD, they do “Hey, Lover,” one of his best songs.
So "From a Window Seat" isn’t just a catchy tune. It’s meatier. More ambitious. (One of their goals: “to write the kind of song that you can get together with your friends on a Saturday night and pass a guitar around and one of our songs could come up, you know? That’s the kind of band we want to be.”) Grown-up music for grown-ups 25 and older: “vintage” rock. If you have a soft spot for Jackson Browne and have to bite your tongue from saying “The music they used to make is better than the shit people put out now” you have come to the right place. [To buy the CD of “Stories Don’t End” from Amazon, click here. For the MP3 download, click here. To download “From a Window Seat,” click here.]
I give you the words to “From a Window Seat” because… well, they matter.
I buckle in my seat belt, plug my headset in a chair/ And to the music, I watch flight attendants move/ They are pointing out the exits, but it looks more like a prayer/ Or an ancient dance their bloodline reaches through
These planes are built for sifting through the warriors from the men/ I’ve got time to sit and watch them for a while/ You can see everywhere they’re going, everywhere they’ve been/ And how they look out at the clouds each time they smile
And I think, maybe he’s in town for someone’s birthday/ Maybe he makes trouble everywhere/ But as much he resists the conversation between the rivers and the freeways/ He knows it’s always there
As the northwest passage sits somewhere below me/ as I sleep I dream of captains and explorers eating boots/ When I ask if I can join them and they offer one to me/ I wake up as my home comes into view
So I reach out down for my notebook to see what impressions could be spun/ But it’s just buildings and a million swimming pools/ So I leaf back through the pages to see where I am from/ Or for some crumbling map of what it’s leading to
And I find that the hero in this song that I am writing/ Doesn’t know he’s just an image of myself/ But as much he resists the conversation between the rivers and the freeways/ He’s somehow always asking them for help
I want to make out all the signs I’ve been ignoring/ How the trees reach for the sky or in the length of someone’s hair/ ‘Cause when you don’t know where you are going/ Any road will take you there
So maybe I’m in town for someone’s birthday/ Maybe I make trouble everywhere/ But as much I resist the conversation between the rivers and the freeways. I know it’s always there
Is it all this good? Nothing is. But you don’t need to skip songs if you buy it. And, a year from now, you won’t be embarrassed for liking Dawes.
BONUS VIDEO
A story: Dawes toured with Bob Dylan. Naturally they were desperate to meet him. But how? Knock on the door of his dressing room? And then say what? So they did nothing. After the last concert of the tour, the band was about to get on the bus. Lead singer and songwriter Taylor Goldsmith recalls what happened next: “Dylan walked right up to me and said, ‘It was really great to have you guys. What’s that last ballad that you played?’ I said, ‘A Little Bit of Everything.’ And he said, ‘That’s a great song.’ That was our whole conversation — he walked away, and that was it.”
