Down By The Water – The Drums – Summertime EP 2009

I’m going to start this entry with a confession- I think I have a readership of about four, so I feel I’m amongst friends… I’m a romantic. Of the hopeless variety, it has to be said, but a romantic none-the-less. Around this time of year you start to see the ’50 Greatest Love Song’ complilations and the like all over the place, and to borrow the words of Morrissey ‘they say nothing to me about my life’. So I got to thinking, in true ‘High Fidelity’ style, what I would consider my ‘all time top 14 favourite love songs’ to be. Not 14 to be awkward, but I had the best intentions of covering one a day until Feb. 14^th, stating the case for each. Missed that boat… Ah well- I’ve been left with a carefully considered list of what to me personally, are some of the best examples of putting in to words feelings that can be all too hard too adequately convey. Songs that treat love not as an emotion, but a force that is as real and futile to resist as gravity. Songs that understand that ‘The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return’. So in no particular order, here’s the first one;

Down By The Water – The Drums – Summertime EP 2009 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvW9E2606Oc

There are not many groups that have found a place in my heart as quickly and as immovably as The Drums. On my last.fm profile, they’re my second most listened to artist and just 75 plays behind The Beatles. Considering that’s from an entire back catalogue which, including b-sides and remixes, barely totals about 30 tracks, it’s safe to say I’ve had them on heavy rotation. The one that, if pushed, I would probably consider my favourite of theirs is Down By The Water. Absolutely wearing the girl-group influences on its sleeve (going so far as to steal wholesale the black-and-white podium based video of ‘Out In The Streets’ by The Shangri-Las), DBTW evokes a ‘morning after the night before’, 50’s high school romance sort of impression.

‘If you fall asleep down by the water,
Baby I’ll carry you, all the way home’

Bruno Mars would catch a grenade. Throw his hand in the blade(?!). Jump in front of a train for his girl. In reality, how useful is that ever likely to be? What Jonny Pierce is promising here shows a far more believable and genuine commitment. Although at no point in the song does it explicity state the ‘couple’ are in a relationship in the romantic sense (making it no less a ‘love’ song, by the way), it could just as easily be a strong platonic friendship albeit with unrequited feelings on one side. In fact I’d even consider that to be more likely considering the next lines;

’Everybody's gotta love some one,
But I just wanna love you, dear.
Everybody's gotta feel something,
But I just want to be with you, my dear’.

It’s less a declaration of love than a plea, the vocals really capturing the ‘teenage heartbreak’ essence as performed so well by the likes of The Shirelles and The Shangri-Las. Its an archetypal situation- all too relateable to many, I expect.

’If they stop loving you,
I won't stop loving you.
If they stop needing you,
I’ll still need you, my dear’.

Boy loves girl, girl loves boy but only ever as friends. Girl lives happy and fulfilling life, boy left heartbroken shell, no less dedicated to the happiness of the one he believes should be with him. It’s a teen-movie soundtrack compilers dream!

‘You've gotta believe me,
When I say…
When I say the word ‘forever’,
And whatever…
Comes your way,
Oh we'll still be here together’.

The innocent, naive(?) faith and fervent belief in his feelings for the girl as evident from the lyrics are only half the story, the yearning performance Jonny Pierce gives sells it. I can give it no higher praise than to say it could have easily come from the era it was clearly written in reverence of. The music itself is pretty minimal, simple accompaniment so as not to detract from the focus of the track, namely Pierce’s delivery. They don’t make ‘em like this anymore. Except… they just did.