Clockwise Cat Strikes Back
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CD MINI-REVIEWS<br />
By ALISON ROSS<br />
Courtney Barnett: Sometimes I Sit and Think and Sometimes I Just Sit<br />
Any write-up about Courtney Barnett obligatorily focuses on two key components: Her<br />
lyrical ingenuity and her vocal style's striking similarity to that of The Fall's Mark Smith.<br />
The Aussie-born singer has been hailed for her lyrical acrobatics. It's true that her gift as<br />
a lyricist encompasses a literary sensibility that flips and twists mundane activities and<br />
observations into words of import and intrigue. Witness this stanza from her song<br />
"Pedestrian at Best," a simple song about the aggravating ambivalence in relationships<br />
that she craftily bends into metaphysical musings:<br />
“My internal monologue<br />
is saturated analogue,<br />
It’s scratched and drifting,<br />
I’ve become attached to the idea<br />
it’s all a shifting dream bitter sweet philosophy,<br />
I’ve got no idea how I even got here.<br />
I’m resentful<br />
I’m having an existential time crisis,<br />
what bliss, daylight savings won’t fix this mess.<br />
Underworked and oversexed<br />
I must express my disinterest,<br />
the rats are back inside my head<br />
what would Freud have said?”<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-nr1nNC3ds<br />
Under the auspices of a less captivating character, such lyrics might come across as<br />
painfully pretentious. Transported in Barnett's resigned, deadpan delivery, however, and<br />
the lyrics take on a self-deprecating tone tinged with lighthearted - but never lightheaded<br />
- humor. They invoke reflection on their significance as well as on how style and<br />
substance can achieve a supple meshing.
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