This Year: 2006

"This Year" is a series of weekly posts, each about one song from one year of my life. See the introduction for more.

Some songs are demanding, even if you're not 100% sure what they're demanding. They hit you hard, overwhelm you, tell you their story. You know it's important. You know it's vital. And you make up your own reasons why, or explore what's there, trying to be sure of the truth.

Wake up you've got a lot of things to do
Wake up the sun is rising without you

My song for 2006 is Quiet as a Mouse, by Margot and the Nuclear So-and-Sos.

It's the kind of song where it's clear something is wrong from the jump, but exactly what is more murky. "Tourists" are doing things - "rob you of your home," "robbed me of my child" - but is that a euphemism for foreign soldiers? Or your own nation's soldiers? Or worse?

And he said times, they gotta change,
but so do we

It's urgent and dangerous, like a war or insurrection. And it's personal in some way - how the speaker feels is important, and shifts from chorus to chorus - "back was broke" to "life and love and hope" to "apathy and hate."

There's a guitar riff in the middle of the chorus that's perfect: a loud buzz saw of an interruption, bam bam bam. This is yet another song that uses that trick that always works: the verses are soft - though they get louder, each to the next - and the end of each chorus ticks up the noise and energy.

I still don't know exactly what this song is about. But I know I don't want the sun to rise without me.