Song of The Day #11 - of Montreal - 'The Past Is a Grotesque Animal'

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If you can write a song like this, you're allowed to look like that.

I make no secret of how much I love music. I try to do it in the nicest way possible and I genuinely hope I come across more enthusiastic than I do anything else. Still, these outward pourings of passion often lead me to talking to people about music. People who like all sorts. Good stuff, bad stuff, The Script. Everything. Still, there are some songs that - when asked for recommendations - I know are sure fire winners. 'The Past Is a Grotesque Animal' is undoubtedly, hands down, a die cast example of this. It's 11:53 long. It's a sprawling mess of heartbreak, regret, sex, defiance, classic literature, beauty and the gestapo. It runs and swaggers, swaggers and runs. Falls over, gets back up, falls over again. It's just incredible. It's a song for when everything has gone wrong, gone the opposite way to how it should in every conceivable manner. This is how venting, in the most brilliant and reckless of ways, sounds.

of Montreal - 'The Past Is a Grotesque Animal'


Do I have to scream in your face?

I'd say here that this is the best song I've posted so far in this 'Song of The Day' simply because there's nothing else like it. 'Let's Not Shit Ourselves' by Bright Eyes perhaps is vaguely similar but that's mainly just because it's really long, raging and all over the place. This song truly stands alone and I've listened to it many many times since I discovered it a while back. In fact, considering it's length I've probably spent like a day just listening to this song. Sounds a lot but then again, my game time on Call of Duty is around ten days so yeah, comparatively productive.

With a song of this size, it's difficult to pick favourite parts. If pushed I'd say it's between the below moments I guess:

- That crazy robotic sound (could be a warped guitar effect or a synth) after "We're always touching by underground wires."
- The line "We want our film to be beautiful, not realistic." - Pretty much sums up life for me.
- "Let's tear this shit apart." EXACTLY what I do every time I listen to this. Pillows be gettin' punched, floors jumped on with little care for the neighbours downstairs beating off or whatever they do down there. Transcendent shit.
- The bass line that introduces the song and just about holds the sprawling riot together for the duration.

Stop reading this blog and listen to the song. I mean that for once.

I'm flunking out,
I'm flunking out,
I'm gone,
I'm just gone,
But at least I author my own disaster,
At least I author my own disaster.