Friday, October 13, 2006

100 favourite songs: #18: "Wise Up" - Aimee Mann

If ever there was a voice with which I could fall in love, this is it. Add the fact that Aimee Mann is one of the great, classic songwriters of our time, and the way that her lyrics sparkle with a sensitivity and an understanding of the quiet hurt/hope of modern life, and you have something approaching perfection. - 9/4/04

An artfully artless combination of simplicity and depth, “Wise Up” has a poignancy and a tenderness almost crystalline in their clarity — the kind that brings a lump to one’s throat even on the umpteenth listening. Feels like a distillation of the sadness that we all know into an achingly expressive form — and no, it’s not going to stop…