Song Spotlight: "Blue Boy" by Texas is the Reason

My musical fascination for the last year and a half has been post-hardcore and emo from the 90’s. Since falling in love with the music of At the Drive-In, I have continued backwards through the rabbit hole to find the bands they toured with, or the bands that share their influences. I’ve encountered many monster acts on this journey, becoming caught up in single songs or whole albums of melodic madness. But for the past year, one song in particular keeps rising to the top of my queue, a truly beauteous composition: “Blue Boy” by Texas is the Reason.

Two tenuous guitars open this tune, Garrett Klahn’s simple melody mixing with Norman Brannon’s wavering chords. The rest of the band sidles in behind the strings, until Texas is the Reason explodes into the song proper, layering distortion and wailing bends over the chaos. There is a subtle heaviness to the song, hiding in the drop tuning and Chris Daly’s quick drum fills, that colors the initial feeling of melancholy into something darker. Amid this prismatic instrumentation, Klahn begs for a chance to prove himself to a distant lover, struggling to keep her near with the line “maybe with you on my side / I’ll be able to reach the sky.”

“Blue Boy” is one of those tunes that grip me right at the beginning, leading me like a small child through an emotional journey. The lilting and tilting intro is laden with trepidation, not unlike the feeling buried in the stomach before talking to a crush. Yet the subsequent explosion of overdrive, crash cymbals, and earnest vocals suggests a newfound confidence, a statement of intent and purpose. Where once there was only nervous energy, suddenly the band finds a conviction, a belief in itself that is perfectly summed in the refrain “to me, this is for real.”

This new and confident identity is not just a feeling I’m imposing on the song, but actually a representation of the band members themselves during this time period. While initially released on a split EP with The Promise Ring, “Blue Boy” was one of a few new songs written for Texas’ next full-length, one intended to be their major label debut. As Norman Brannon states, these songs show the band finally “[figuring] out what Texas is the Reason sounded like.” The band truly felt that these songs “actually were” Texas is the Reason, showing their sound evolving into one both original and progressive, and thus Garrett’s exclamation in the coda of “you finally found me” suddenly seems far more personal.

That evolution from boys in a band to men making music is what lies at the heart of “Blue Boy.” The “reactionary spirit” inherent in each vibrating string, each thumping drum hit—that is the goal of music, to capture the human journey in a succession of notes. As Texas is the Reason’s only true sophomore release (the other two songs written at the time were only recently recorded), “Blue Boy” is the notch carved into the doorframe of this band’s house, the only true testament to that moment in their existence.

To lead singer Garrett Klahn, “Blue Boy” is a song that “pinpoints exactly where [Texas is the Reason] were and where we were maybe going.” For me, it testifies to the strength of soul-searching in a band, in discovering what truly makes up the experience and putting it out in as faithful and honest a version as possible. Those first few notes of “Blue Boy” strike my heart with truth and excitement like few other songs can, a feeling of which I could never grow sick. They are notes laden with uncut integrity and pure potential, and I have no doubt they will ever get to me.

Song Spotlight: The Promise Ring's "Red and Blue Jeans"

            Because I am a pretentious jerk, I've always defined myself as someone who is drawn to songs steeped in intelligent writing. Of course, I thoroughly enjoy simplicity of a thrashing punk riff or a straightforward blues, but the tunes with lyrics that are wrapped in layers of metaphor or that spin unique and vivid images tend to take precedence in my shuffles. However, if a song manages to take the basic pieces and push them to their limits, squeezing every drop of emotion and meaning from each note or word, I cannot but help playing them incessantly, listening until I am sick and then still again. These songs prove that significance doesn't require anything complex or even thorough, and the most recent such tune to overcome my senses is "Red and Blue Jeans" by The Promise Ring.

            From the first time it appeared on my Pandora playlist, my ears were instantly glued to the speakers, and my obsession with "Red and Blue Jeans" has only grown since. With nary a second of drum fill, the whole band launches into the song’s tender, almost self-conscious main riff. Davey von Bohlen quietly croons his single line of lyrics over gentle chords, while Jason Gnewikow’s accented lead knits itself into a counterpoint for the vocals. Scott Beschta's intricate bassline ushers the band out of the first section and into a spacious prelude to the song's apex, a loud and thrashing reprise of the main theme. From there the song essentially repeats one more time, except that instead of rehashing or mimicking his initial verse, von Bohlen eschews language entirely, favoring punctual, nonlexical vocals which lead "Red and Blue Jeans" into its driving instrumental coda.

            "Red and Blue Jeans" rings in my ears as amazing, sonorous, and complete, but it is perhaps one of the most structurally unadorned songs ever written. The Promise Ring utilizes only a few chords and fourteen total words to assemble "Red and Blue Jeans," yet every second feels like a sprawling odyssey of energy and emotion, part of which stems from their expert application of dynamics. From open to close, the band maintains their essential musical theme defined by the interlocking guitar work of von Bohlen and Gnewikow, creating variation by alternating the feel and attack of the theme between a stroll, a saunter, and a sprint. Similarly, von Bohlen's decision to sing lyrics at the beginning and wordless vocalization towards the end pushes to the forefront the melody rather than the message, diffusing the spotlight among the entire band instead of focusing it on the vocal.

            The Promise Ring uses some very basic principles of music and songwriting in their composition of "Red and Blue Jeans," assembling a modest but poignant foundation in which the listener can cultivate meaning and significance. The band makes its choices in line with an austere aesthetic, following a "less is more" ethic and applying it like adepts. Rather than writing another verse or repeating the opening and only line, von Bohlen slips into his humble "doo doo"s, leaving his sentiment only as defined as the first line allows. In the same vein, the band chooses to rely on dynamics alone for complexity, but never once draws out a riff or progression too long at one energy level, always giving their theme room to breathe and evolve without making it redundant.

 

            Despite the plain ambiguity of the lyrics and the subjective feel of the instrumentation, "Red and Blue Jeans" is a song laden with emotion, but the straightforward and plain presentation provides a ton of room for the listener to interpret and evoke that emotion. Davey von Bohlen's simple statement of "Nothing feels good like you in red and blue jeans and your white and night things" is simultaneously broad and inclusive; PunkNews remarks the lyric can be read "as sensual, longing, romantic, desperate; it can be all these things because of what it implies,” based upon how the listener connects with it.[1] On one side, von Bohlen's statement of "nothing feels good like you" can be seen as a celebration, a declaration so definitive that no other words can improve it and thus leaving him simply speechless in the second half of the song. Conversely, his lyric can be viewed as mournful longing, a realization that "nothing feels good" without the presence of his lover, and that her absence inevitably leaves him wanting more from his life.[2]

            For all its space and simplicity, "Red and Blue Jeans" is loaded with a quiet significance that is as malleable as the listener needs it to be, and therein lies its brilliance. With this song, The Promise Ring takes the idea of repetition and molds it into a tune that is both intricate and inviting. Because of its sparing shape, there is no limit to the connections and connotations that "Red and Blue Jeans" can carry, and effectively, no barrier between song and listener. "Red and Blue Jeans" is truly unlike any song I've ever heard, and I don't doubt that I will be uncovering new meanings and moods within these two-and-a-half minutes for years to come.

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[1] http://www.punknews.org/review/10783/the-promise-ring-nothing-feels-good

[2] http://www.plyrics.com/lyrics/promisering/redbluejeans.html