Easy and strong striding start for "Eight Two"
by
Rodrigo Toscano
"Underground" is a fascinating song. The lyrics are deceptively simple, but pack tons of sublime meaning after repeated listening. Here, the soft, but very real, daily alienation of mass urban transportation gets artfully smushed up to an ultra vulnerable-personal lament of one lover, mystery entity, missing another lover, mystery entity. Strangely beautiful is the refrain "why can't I love you more", which, elliptically and simultaneously speaks to totality of the city. The lyrics are purposefully gender neutral, thus avoiding the typical sticky heternormative teen commotion of so many love ballads. Also, there's a philosophic bent to the whole piece. People are described as actively saying and doing nothing (and looking away), which of course, is a major urban mass undertaking! It's hilarious in this way. The humor of it grew on me slowly and subtly. In this way, the surface sweetness of the song gets a very real (even hard) material coating that evinces both a state of vulnerability (I'd say even sleepy vulnerability) coupled to a very heightened state of awareness of its surroundings (real subway station sounds are lightly mixed in). It's ambience is artistically achieved through several factors, not forced on us by genre expectation. It's a little bit of Samuel Becket meets Beatles enigmatic. The guitar rhythms are tinkly, and nicely meshed, but leaving real space between the weaving, giving an impression of a short spell of quiet space (a subway ride, a stroll in the park, a lonely run late at night). This transpo-ambient philosophic love ballad is in great contrast - and thus a great companion to other major urban movement songs such as The Jam's "going underground", Berlin's "metro", and Gary Newman's "cars". A very smart and promising first cut for Eight Two. I can't wait to hear more.
