Portions for Foxes: Great Northern

"Portions for Foxes" is a series of weekly posts, each about one song by a woman or a band led by a woman. See the introduction for more.

This week, let's turn the clock back to 2009 for Houses by Great Northern, a compelling, ominous song that won't quite say what it's being ominous about.

And now
All this time when we walk we won't feel
Put some time in a box it can steal
All this time when we talk its not real its not real not real not real its not real

That "not real" is repeated a lot - call it the central motif of the song, or the thing the singer most wants to emphasize. 

That sounds like denial, doesn't it? No one insists that strongly about something that's clearly true - you only push that hard against something you don't want to admit.

It's another song about something broken, something lost - between the singer and the person she's speaking to, we assume - something to do with their lives and relationships. We can assume whatever we want: the song is crisp but noncommittal.

And there's that great tick-tock drumbeat driving the song forward, dying into the mix and then coming back.

The end begins just as it starts.