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Originally Posted by Feelyat
Is it just me, or are the Lee songs on Washing Machine and A Thousand Leaves the greatest fucking songs on Earth? Seriously, "Saucer-Like," "Skip Tracer," "Hoarfrost," and "Karen Koltrane" are the best songs ever.
"Saucer-Like" is about as "fun" as Lee gets in Sonic Youth. Have you ever noticed that his songs are usually really serious? The beginning of that song almost sounds silly -- but it's this weird silliness that builds in intensity until it breaks with the main verse riff. And holy shit, when he starts singing, it sounds like it's the absolute truth.
"Skip Tracer" is incredible, at that. Can you think of a more quote-able Lee song? "Eric's Trip" and "Hey Joni" can come close, but I don't think they hit quite the mark. Every fucking line in "Skip Tracer" is one for the ages, it seems. "Twister / dustbuster / hospital bed! / I'll see you / see you / see you on the highway!".... "LA is more confusing now / than anywhere I've ever been to".... "Hello, 2015!" You want to listen to it now, don't you?
Then you get to "Hoarfrost." My god, that song's beautiful. I always a little disappointed that they didn't go with its original name ("Woodland Ode"), which I thought sounded much nicer. But either way, it's an incredibly beautiful song. The music itself... there's just this unbelievable timeless sadness to it. But then all of Lee's lyrics and the tone of his voice sort of offset the melancholy, like he's trying to comfort you.
And then, oh my fucking god: "Karen Koltrane." The song sounds, I'd say, nearly as sad as "Hoarfrost," but it has this extremely odd quality to it. It almost doesn't make sense until those noise bursts happen. And then the song gets all fucking noisy and suddenly it makes absolute sense. They make these noises with their guitars that are so mechanically violent, I can't understand how it's possible to do that. It's like the guitars are malfunctioning, but Sonic Youth is perfectly controlling every second of it. I was in high school when this record came out and I still remember the day my dad walked into my room and asked me "Is there something wrong with your stereo?" when he heard me listening to those noise bits. I laughed and told him, "No, nothing's wrong at all." No, 'cause Sonic Youth knew what they were doing. They got it right completely.
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