I'm resigned to the fact that ani was inevitably going to be a rhyming alex in nyc on these issues.
― Tim F, Friday, 8 February 2013 04:07 (eleven years ago) link
Another way to look at this is that Ani's number one for all time lyrical skill - the area in which she is basically unparalleled IMO - is in the metaphorical presentation of how she relates to the world around her.
I think despite her rep this is most clear in her relationship songs, a prime example being the lyrics to "Overlap" which I posted at the beginning of the thread - it's hard for me to think of lyrics I like more than "I build each one of my songs out of glass / so you can see me inside of them, I suppose / or you could just leave the image of me in the backround, I guess / and watch your own reflection superimposed."
But similarly her more political stuff also works this way, i.e. only to the extent that she sings it from the vantage of her actual inextricable entanglement in the world. Which is why a song like "The Million You Never Made" is so powerful while her overflowery put-downs of the major label pop music industry seem so cringey: the moment she ascends to a birds eye view she moves from simultaneously wise and implicated to condescending and un-self-aware.
― Tim F, Friday, 8 February 2013 04:18 (eleven years ago) link
A highly compressed list of favorites.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 7 October 2017 02:01 (six years ago) link
Another use of metaphor I love, from "The Million You Never Made":
"And I'm warning you I'm weightless / and the wind is always shifting / so don't try to hang anything on me / if you ever want to see it again"
This is a classic Ani inversion: literalise/visualise the central metaphorical phase ("don't hang that on me" is literalised as a washing line scenario) and then build on that visualisation to reflect back on the original metaphor - with wind blowing clothes off the line standing in for "you don't have a vantage point from which to judge or label me". It's kinda vibe-killing to break down the line to that extent, but I do think it's an excellent and very archetypal use of language.
― Tim F, Tuesday, 10 October 2017 23:44 (six years ago) link
I always come back to the extended metaphors and (when present) internal rhymes which also are the things no one seems to talk about when discussing her work.
On "This Bouquet" (with the key internal rhyming bits in italics):
got a garden of songs where I grow all my thoughtswish I could harvest one or two for some small talkseems like I'm starving for words whenever you're aroundnothing on my tongue, so much in the groundnothing on my tongue, so much in the groundhalf the time I got my gaze trained on your motel doorfourth door from the endrest [of the] time my gaze lays like a stain on the carpeted floorif it weren't for my brain I'd just go over and make friendstoo bad about my brain 'cause I'd like to make friendssee the little songbird unable to make a soundyou'd never know she follows her words from town to townwe both got gardens of songs so maybe it's okaythat I am speechless because I picked you this bouquetyep, sure am speechless, but I picked you this bouquet
half the time I got my gaze trained on your motel doorfourth door from the endrest [of the] time my gaze lays like a stain on the carpeted floorif it weren't for my brain I'd just go over and make friendstoo bad about my brain 'cause I'd like to make friends
see the little songbird unable to make a soundyou'd never know she follows her words from town to townwe both got gardens of songs so maybe it's okaythat I am speechless because I picked you this bouquetyep, sure am speechless, but I picked you this bouquet
in addition to the pleasure of gaze / trained / lays / stain / brain, I find it so satisfying the way the notion of a "garden of song" gets spun out so unassumingly but so effectively into so many interlinking metaphors on what is a very short and otherwise simple song.
― Tim F, Thursday, 4 May 2023 01:47 (one year ago) link