30 November 2006
Sparklehorse: "Chaos of the Galaxy/Happy Man"
This is one of the gems of Sparklehorse's more conceptual writing (without, honestly, trying as hard as Sonic Youth might).
It's 4:31 total. Beginning with a 45-second organ drone (descending/ascending span of a third in steps), then 45 seconds of an elliptical, pining pop verse as the guitar strumming fades and pops with between-the-dial radio distortion. A short chorus--all I want is to be a happy man
--and abbreviated verse with more distortion. At around 2 minutes, the song completely de-tunes to static with the organ drone periodically returning.
The pop song eventually fades in and, once it dominates the sound, takes the remaining 2 minutes.
The pairing of the "happy man" chorus with the loss of communication is what's important. It expresses a formative desire repressed either by outside forces--a non-reactive medium--or by his own inability at the controls of that medium--the radio dial. Either way, as that impotence is resolved in the second half of the song, the desire remains.
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