11. beck, "the golden age"
why here? i just liked the way the strumming of guitar chords fit after the slow fade of "hold me tight." it's just chromatically pleasing.
why this song? apparently, winona (allegedly) stole more than just handbags and hair accessories: she also absconded with beck's heart, and the forthcoming sea change seems to be the break-up album. ever savvy though, beck has the good sense to seem vaguely depressed so there are no embarrassing andy partridge-like demonstrations of spleen. musically, that gram parsons tribute had quite an effect on beck as he's set out to create the 'cosmic american music' parsons was always talking about but rarely creating, and in the refrain he quotes george jones ("these days, i barely get by.") the voice seems to have changed a bit, now falling somewhere between gordon lightfoot and bruce springsteen when he's being unbearably earnest; lines like "you got to drive all night just to feel like you're okay" recall the latter's dark night of the soul wanderings in nebraska. taken as a whole, "the golden age" is expansive, sighing, surprisingly sincere and, to my non-fan ears, the best thing he's done.