Every record hides within itself some treasure in the form
of a song that really reaches the listener’s core. It’s a tune that makes a
person transcend their existence for a moment, placing them in a completely new
plane of emotion and connection. During my freshman year of college, I was
driving down an obscenely long and dark back road in a nowhere town, giving
Silversun Pickups’ Carnavas a chance
when I first heard the song “Three Seed.” I was so floored by the melancholic
beauty of the tune that I listened to it on repeat for the rest of the
forty-minute drive home.
Musically, “Three Seed” is a relatively simple song, whose
beauty is built into that simplicity. Chris Guanlao’s cymbals are as rhythmic
as a ticking clock, creating a metronomic feel that helps to accent his snare
and bass hits. Nikki Monninger’s bass line is neither pounding nor punchy,
instead creating a gentle rhythm like ocean waves against the shore, staying in
the same place and yet always moving the world of the song along. The keys fill
out the song with subtlety rather than with force, providing a washed
background that we know is there and yet we are barely able to see. While these
three provide a backdrop, Brian Aubert’s vocal and guitar are the accented
strokes that complete the picture. Everything in the song has been stripped
down to the most essential, making each part meaningful in its selection and deployment.
The use of negative space in “Three Seed” is something that
greatly endears it to me. The vibe of the song is somewhat melancholic and
empty, which the arrangement fully reflects. Brian’s vocals and guitar parts
are extremely spaced out in the song; indeed, there is almost a full minute of
music before the guitar appears. Brian’s parts are the forefront of the tune,
but he regularly backs off from them to showcase the background that the rest
of band has worked so hard to create. Even when he does come in, Brian always
handles these entries with complete ease and grace, guiding the guitar without
attacking it.
While the music is straightforward and unadorned in its
approach, lyrically the song is enigmatic. Brain showcases his poetic abilities
in this song, his words working to paint subtle but meaningful images, such as
in the lines “Cool like the ocean / Burned like a summer home.”[1]
The lyrics, while sparse in some areas, are written in such a way that they
allow for virtually endless interpretation. In an interview with Mike Rothman,
Brian commented on the ambiguity of the song, saying “it is about repeating
patterns and having three completely different situations that as obtuse as
they were from each other…almost shared a singular path.”[2]
Indeed, the amount of themes and inspirations that fans have discovered in the
lyrics seems almost endless, including subjects such as drug addiction,
divorce, suicide, and California’s Three Strikes law.[3]
Such ambiguity allows for complete and varying participation from the listener,
allowing each person to take away unique perspectives from the same song. With
each listen, the song, lyrically and musically, can evolve into something
totally different without losing any of its truth.
“Three Seed” is in itself an ocean of a song, simple above
and complex below, filled with endless change, hiding innumerable truths and
complexities in a gentle and rhythmic current. With each listen, there is some
new discovery, some new reason to return, to spin it over and over again on a
winding black night, worthy of a thousand listens. But more important than all of
that is the simple truth that it is a damn great tune, and one that I highly
recommend.
