Much of what I wrote about "Song For Zula" applies to "Poison Oak."
Except the kind of overwhelming existential despair you get in "Song For Zula" is different than the overwhelming existential despair of "Poison Oak."
"Song For Zula" feels like paralysis--which is why it's appropriate that the music video's about a woman chained to a rock--while "Poison Oak" is kinetic.
There's a John Mulaney bit about how being Irish means that you bottle up all your feelings and one day you'll die instead of having to deal with them. That's the hope, of course, but that's not how it works. There's only so much negativity you can feel without some kind of outward-facing response.
That's why it's so powerful that the melody, introduced low and quiet, jumps up an octave and explodes. (Much as I love a great key change, a great going-up-the-octave is just as good.) It doesn't happen in a crescendo--you just mumble to yourself until it all explodes, and you are drunk as hell on a piano bench.
I'm not sure there's a song that captures this particular kind of despair so well. It quietly and serenely piles family troubles, abandonment, struggles with sexual/gender identity and loss of innocence into one power keg, then lights it. And once it gets lit, it just explodes. Nothing is solved, and the only thing left to hope for is that one day you won't feel anything.
"Song For Zula" feels like paralysis--which is why it's appropriate that the music video's about a woman chained to a rock--while "Poison Oak" is kinetic.
There's a John Mulaney bit about how being Irish means that you bottle up all your feelings and one day you'll die instead of having to deal with them. That's the hope, of course, but that's not how it works. There's only so much negativity you can feel without some kind of outward-facing response.
That's why it's so powerful that the melody, introduced low and quiet, jumps up an octave and explodes. (Much as I love a great key change, a great going-up-the-octave is just as good.) It doesn't happen in a crescendo--you just mumble to yourself until it all explodes, and you are drunk as hell on a piano bench.
I'm not sure there's a song that captures this particular kind of despair so well. It quietly and serenely piles family troubles, abandonment, struggles with sexual/gender identity and loss of innocence into one power keg, then lights it. And once it gets lit, it just explodes. Nothing is solved, and the only thing left to hope for is that one day you won't feel anything.
