Annie – Heartbeat (Alan Braxe Mix)

Every relationship has an arc, a story behind it. Imagine, if you please, a meeting between two individuals who find themselves undeniably attracted to each other. They’re in a crowded club, sipping drinks and dancing slowly. The young woman doesn’t even know her companion’s name, but yet there is a powerful magnetism drawing them ever closer. This situation is, of course, the narrative arc of Annie’s “Heartbeat,” and the music informs the event just as much as her words do. Alan Braxe takes this track and, somehow, gives it even more sex appeal than the original. The thumping bass and snare of his mix is muddier, sultrier than Annie’s version, the overall length nearly double. I envision our pair (out of great love for John Darnielle and a certain authorial prescience about where this piece is going, let’s call them the Alpha Couple) exploring their attraction, growing equally curious about what lies beneath both their projected façades as well as their clothes.

The Wrens – I’ve Made Enough Friends

This might be the best song ever written about the first night of a relationship. Of course, I might be biased. I fantasize that every encounter I have might somehow resemble the graphic yet delicate portrait of desire that Charlie Bissell creates. Now that Annie and Charlie, our Alpha Couple have gone back to Annie’s place, some serious heavy petting is going to occur. Bissell asks, “Are we done with all others?” Even the title of the song alone implies finality, a forgoing of everyone else for this one person. Never mind that you can hardly understand the lyrics, as dense as the production is (On a side note, it is criminal that Secaucus isn’t seeing a reissue, and that Alan Meltzer won’t just let things go, etc.). The point here is that first night, that sexual catharsis that forces one to consider the possibilities of love, and the frenetic stream of consciousness that the Wrens provide is exactly the medium needed to convey it. Now that they have that forbidden knowledge of each other’s bodies, what mystery is left to sustain the relationship?

Spoon – Me and the Bean

Our honeymoon track finds Charlie blending with Britt Daniel (forming… Charlie Daniel?) into one comfortably cool character. Spoon’s sparse production style gives us the space necessary to ponder the nature of our Alpha Couple, with piano and tambourine flourishes accentuating rather than distracting. The void allows Daniel to pose us his dilemma: why is this girl reading Tarot cards beautiful? Whether it is the implicit promise of, “You’ll bring me youth when I am old,” or the romantic, near-obsessive notion that, “I have your blood inside my heart,” there is something about this relationship that gels. Spoon has always been a mysterious band to me, albeit a mystery that vaults them into my top few groups. The more I think about it, the more I am sure that the key to the puzzle is the quality of anticipation. Just as our Alpha Couple may have anticipated the moment when they made enough friends, every production detail in Spoon’s catalogue is a sonic interpretation of waiting for something significant to happen. This intangible quality, especially in Girls Can Tell, makes it perfect for this tale. Our male protagonist is anticipating the moment when he will understand why this woman is important to him.

The Mountain Goats – No Children

Most of us desire happy endings. We’d like for things to work out for nearly everybody, for people to get what they desire. Happy endings, however, will elude us today. For our Alpha Couple, what they eventually want is nothing more than decay and violent destruction. Ironically, John Darnielle combines his devastating invective with a bright, upbeat piano melody. I respect Mr. Darnielle as perhaps the best songwriter of our era, and this song shows him at his finest. Charlie Daniel-Darnielle, our amalgamated hero, will not find his happy ending. “I hope you die, I hope we both die,” is his cry now, desperately aching for release from his marital bed. This song is a brilliant vial of caustic acid, searing any possibility of repair and leaving the only connecting factor in the relationship a drunken smoldering despair, a mutually-recognized desire to drag the other down into ruin. The song is professed by Darnielle to be about his own fictional Alpha Couple, a picture-perfect representation of the fury of dwindling love themselves. Annie and Charlie have hit their tragic peak, a pinnacle of effete rage and repressed aggression. In a twisted way, it is admirable. But only just.

Feist – Let It Die

It’s only appropriate that we end our story of Annie and Charlie, our Alpha Couple, with an offering from the Arts and Crafts collective. (See, there’s an alphabetical connection!) Also, it’s about time we returned to the female perspective. We’ve been spending the last three songs talking about things from Charlie Daniel-Darnielle’s point of view, and poor Annie Feist has been ignored. “Let It Die” is a bittersweet companion to “No Children,” not so much a pining to see the relationship dead as it is a recognition of the fact that it already is. The true tragedy, as crooned to us elegantly by Leslie Feist, is, “The saddest part of a broken heart isn’t the ending so much as the start.” From the moment that Annie saw Charlie at the party, dancing with him without even knowing his name, the relationship was destined for failure. This is a heavy blow to take, but with Feist’s beautiful voice I’m slightly assuaged. The beautiful lounge-pop that she conjures up with beau Gonzalez’ sparse production is a painkiller to the quiet desperation that her lyrics carry. Our Alpha Couple is no more, a footnote to each other’s histories. Charlie will hang her up with the rest of his ex-girl collection, and Annie will find another piece of gum to chew on. C’est la vie. Que sera, sera. Life marches inexorably on. And all that jazz.

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