Sunday, August 27, 2006

100 favourite songs: #79: "Mimi On The Beach" - Jane Siberry

… quotes Philip Glass both lyrically and musically, filtering those references through new-wave synths and eccentric 80s singer-songwriter stylings (which might initially sound incongruous, but isn't at all once you stop to think about it) and ending up with seven and a half minutes of tuneful, pulsating, resonant, widescreen pop genius … - 30/3/06

I always forget how great this song is until I’m listening to it again, whereupon it all always comes right back to me. It’s in the way it moves, bouncing and kerplunking, humming and echoing, buzzing and singing. And in the weirdly just right details — the first fading “na na na na na na na na”s, the “don’t you have money I asked/Of course I do!” line, the offbeat guitarish-sounding squiggles which appear about halfway through, the emphatic clatter between those last repetitions of “mimi on the beach…mimi and me” and the fade-out. And in the genius melody and the way it contrives to catch you off balance with every turn while also feeling entirely natural, playing endlessly with standard pop forms and motifs. And, obviously, I’m just a sucker for seven and a half minute long synth-pop songs with Philip Glass opera-referencing titles which sound rather like Glass, too…who isn’t?