Jerry's Pick: "It Ain't Right"

"It Ain't Right"-Current Swell

Now, here's a track with more hooks than a Northern Wisconsin bait shop.

Today's song d'jour is "It Ain't Right" (part of the album When to Talk and When to Listen) from the British Columbia-based alt-indie band Current Swell... four musicians who have been rocking Canada now for a little over a decade. 

Everything from those jangly guitar chords to driving backbeat should quickly pull you inside this little garage rocker, including the lyrics... many of which I consider chorus-quality, including that catchy pre-hook, hook.

"I thought you were different, I thought you were cool..."

In an interview with Exclaim journalist Sarah Murphy, Current Swell guitarist Dave Lang pointed out that the music came first, lyrics second. "I remember (guitarist) Scott (Stanton) had these four chords and he had a real cool kind of, like, '60s swing thing going on, and we couldn't quite make it a song but we love the chords."

By the time the group reconvened for their next recording session, they had the words. Lang remembered, "We just sort of got on a roll talking about this guy who kind of does his girlfriend wrong."

"It Ain't Right" uses a third-person narrative to tell the story of some Type-A asshole who abandons his pregnant girlfriend in order to pursue someone else. I figure that makes this toe-tapping tragedy relatable simply because just about everyone knows someone out there who is a complete dick, right?

"The heart of a stone, the mask of a liar..."

And -- through a couple of well written lines -- we discover that not only do her friends know, but she knows he knows they know too.

"She took you out, but were you surprised... that her friends loved to talk but they never look you in the eyes."

The moral of this up-tempo tale; "What goes around, comes around."

I guess you could say Current Swell just scored another one for Karma.

Jerry's Pick: "High Enough"

"High Enough"-K. Flay

I've been under the influence of a certain pop-rock track for a couple of months now and I have to confess, I think this euphonious stimulant's got me hooked. The musical catalyst in question goes under the street name: "High Enough..." the supplier: San Francisco's K. Flay (aka: Kristine Flaherty).

"High Enough" is kinda like if Lykke Li became a member of the Arctic Monkeys... you know, that wonderfully unique impish voice in front of a stable yet grungy back-beat.

But what really pulled me into this alt-indie obsession was K's clever lyrical wordplay, more importantly the song's rolling, steady meter and rapid-fire cadence. 

"The world is a curse it’ll kill if you let it/I know they got pills that can help you forget it/They bottle it, call it med-i-cine but I don’t need drugs..."

Thematically, the brief strung-out vacillating guitar solo just before the middle-eight was a nice touch as well.

Using medication as a metaphor in music ain't at all new, but I'll put "High Enough" as one of the best lyrical examples of the addiction/affection equation since Bryan Ferry's Roxy Music declared "Love Is the Drug" in 1975.

Flay explained to radio.com, "There are so many songs out there about getting fucked up. I think a part of me was asking the question, 'What if I’m already high enough? What if I don’t need anything but what I’ve got?' There are many moments in my life -- whether it’s because of a person or a place -- that I don’t want to feel altered or high or buzzed. I just want to feel exactly what I’m feeling."

You can get "High Enough" off of K. Flay's just-released album Every Where Is Some Where.

Go ahead. Take a hit... before it becomes a hit.

Jerry's Pick: "Adore"

"Adore"-Amy Shark

I'm gonna shine my little spotlight on a song I feel deserves attention, but -- like the protagonist in this confessional -- will probably just be ignored by radio here in the U.S.

Australian singer-songwriter Amy Shark's "Adore" just ain't your typical Top-40 fare; no catchy hook... no bouncy chorus. Instead, Amy offers up an introspective poem that seems to be pulled straight out of a young teen's diary. 

It's a slow, sweet, sincere, sad, brooding, coming-of-age ballad of being stuck somewhere between the hope and heartbreak of young love. Uneasy feelings of longing-from-afar which are accentuated by the wavering notes Amy carefully picks on her guitar.

"Get me a drink, I get drunk off one sip just so I can adore you/I want the entire street out of town just so I can be alone with you"

"Adore" represents those bittersweet emotions of how it feels to fall totally head-over-heels back-asswards in love with someone who barely knows you exist. Just wanting to be close. Needing to be noticed.

"All of my money is spent on these nights just so we can hang out/Squeezing in and out of these dresses/I wanna be found by you/Found by you"

The first three lines are achingly meloncholic. You can just picture this quiet, lonely, shy shoegazer in the vacinity of her secret crush relishing in any form of attention that may come her way.

"I'm just gonna walk home kicking stones at parked cars/But I had a great night 'cause you kept rubbing against my arm"

Shark explained to 13th Floor journalist Marty Duda, "'Adore' was a really, really easy song for me to write. I kind of heard exactly how I wanted it to sound the second I demoed it. It was such a beautiful song for me, and a special song to me... I just had no idea so many people would relate to it." She added, "It's kind of like a play-by-play of a night that I had... but it sounds like a lot of people had those nights."

There's even a bit of quiet possessiveness to "Adore." And although she warns others to stay clear of her man, they're just fantasies played out in her mind.

"Watch me, watch him talk to girls/I'm known as a right-hand slugger/Anybody else wanna touch my lover?"

Yeah, unrequited love is a bitch.