3:28
Escondida, 2004
Written by Jolie Holland
Holland is unrelated to Squeeze keyboardist Jools Holland, but is a founding member of the Be Good Tanyas. This song is an old-timey Americana plaint. Her sometimes quavering vocal reminds me a bit of Gillian Welch, except Holland sings here with a unique (albeit compelling) Southern accent, vowels all stretched and distorted. The song struts along at an easy shuffle, a spare but evocative arrangement, with guitar, maybe a mandolin, and what sounds like a singing saw. The lyrics tell of someone burdened by all the ills of the world — "Now folks that know what's good for 'em / Are good at ignoring 'em / But I just can't put these thoughts down / I'm harrowed and abused and broken and pursued" — before veering off into a quasi-mystic picture of postmortem dissolution into the natural world, a Californian, less defiant, take on Frank Turner's "One Foot Before the Other."
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