Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks

Song of the Day (The Chain): Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks – Stick Figures In Love

Day 15. In addition to both being off-kilter, underground guitar heroes with a penchant for Jazzmasters, Stephen Malkmus & Thurston Moore have other things in common too. In this case, the fact that they’ve both recorded albums with Beck as producer. Okay, Thurston Moore’s track from yesterday was not from his Beck-produced album (2011’s Demolished Thoughts) but I still thought this was a decent strong link.

Stick Figures In Love, however, is from Malkmus’ Beck-produced album, Mirror Traffic. This was also recorded in 2011, so Beck produced Moore & Malkmus in the same year. I chose Stick Figures In Love because a) it’s from Mirror Traffic & b) I absolutely love that main lead guitar melody. Enjoy.

If you want mine you better take all the lies of me
Drag down no one can see
Market on the dark in no one’s ear
I can see you down sideways in my head
Daughters of the world be on green alert
The scourge of plastic china so fine in carolina
Betting my bread on the minister
The alabaster wino god speaks through that albino
Your frozen enemy came down before the flood
No time no one is done
Your tokens of my voice will scram again your fear
No spies no one is ’round

Keep up to date with the Song of the Day (The Chain) Spotify playlist.

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Song of the Day (A-Z): Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks – Us

Day 21 (U). Us is the closing track from Stephen Malkmus’ second post-Pavement album, and first under the ‘& The Jicks’ moniker, Pig Lib.

Built around trademark Malkmus guitar figures & a solid backing by the Jicks, who are an excellent band. Lyrically, Us features Malkmus’ trademark brand of off-kilter, abstract storytelling & seemingly throwaway lines. Malkmus has confirmed in interviews for his 2018 Sparkle Hard album that some of his weirder lyrics are placeholders which he never got around to changing. I don’t know about you but I take great comfort from human imperfections in one of my heroes.

This version of Us was recorded at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco.

I’m a big fan of the concert that this performance is taken from & watch it fairly regularly. It’s just Malkmus with an acoustic guitar & an overdrive pedal. He seems drunk & he plays loads of Pavement tunes. He even plays Blue Arrangements by Silver Jews. Here as a bonus is the full version.

I wish we could get our act together
Make some sense of present tense alright
Take our time with what we find and fear it
Don’t you know there’s someplace else that we can go
Billions of trees to climb
I don’t really know your taste in ceilings
I don’t know the RPM you rev
But for now I think I’ll keep on reeling
This adventure needs a little game, my friend
It never ever ends
We’re locked in to talking a lariat knot to a Cree
A walk in the cotton, a rebel attempted to ski
We’re locked in to talking, I’d rather you not than agree
To walking in cotton, a rebel attempted to ski
On gypsum slats, you can’t do that
Streaking through the ferns in Allegheny
Chatting up a panda in a bar
Well, I like wearing slippers when it’s raining
This attraction bleeds into a thirst
Like it always does
Hey

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