PT Bruiser

4. Helplessness Blues by Fleet Foxes

I forget about this album sometimes. It’s not often that I think, “Hmmm, I’m in a mood for Helplessness Blues” (although occasionally I’m in the mood for “Helplessness Blues,” the song), but when I start playing it, I’m immediately glad that I did. Of all the albums this year, there are only a couple that I can listen to start to finish without once getting the urge to skip a song. This is a rich, rich soundscape and it this product of both musical talent and classical training—the harmonies and intricate instrumentation prove that.

Once or twice I’ve even forgotten that I saw Fleet Foxes play just about every song on this album and Fleet Foxes at a live show. I had a lot on my mind that night, but when I stop and remember I realize just how magnificent that concert was. Until the show, I never realized just how much Fleet Foxes put the “rock” in “folk rock”—the Cain’s Ballroom floor undulated with all the stomping and dancing of the audience’s feet as Robin Pecknold somehow merged his voice into a simultaneous roar and croon.

I wish I could pick out songs for you and praise their particular merits, but I barely can, and that’s a testimony to how little mining of this album’s precious minerals I’ve actually done. Of course “Helplessness Blues” is fantastic, being a little piece of our Zeitgeist with its disillusionment with individualism and self-determination, with the American Dream itself, perhaps. And I’ve yet to meet a person who doesn’t love that line, “Gold hair in the sunlight, my light in the dawn / If I had an orchard, I’d work till I’m sore / Someday I’ll be like the man on the screen.”

I also find it easy to get the musings of “Blue Spotted Tail” stuck in my head: “Why in the night sky are the lights hung? / Why is the earth moving round the sun, / Floating in the vacuum with no purpose, not a one? / Why in the night sky are the lights hung?” Maybe it’s a lullaby melody, but those lyrics won’t let you go to sleep easily.

I shouldn’t forget about this album—I won’t do it again. It’s the kind of work that you should spend time with. I doubt there’s a song on it that would disappoint you if you seriously delved into it; that’s no small accomplishment in the Age of the Single.