The Delicious
Champagne Sprayed Over A Serious Cake
Oct 10, 2008
Words by Sean Moeller
Illustration by Johnnie Cluney
Sound engineering by Patrick Stolley
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Welcome to Daytrotter
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Social Security
unreleased
This was one of the first songs written for the Delicious. I wanted all of our songs to be written this way; with immediacy and inherent humor, without laboring over lyrics heavy with personal riffraff, without worrying about the simplicity of the result. When the Delicious formed, I tried to abandon self-conscious creativity for effortless fun. I wasn't concerned with originality for a time either. To me the song sounds like a synthesis of its influences. It's partly the result of listening to the awesome and reverberant Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone by The Walkmen. I was interested in linear song structures something more narrative rather than a more repetitive verse/chorus sort of thing. That and the somewhat conversational lyrics were swiped from The Unicorns. The stringing together of skronky and hooky riffs comes from listening to The Pixies and The Starlight Mints. I still managed to make the song about unease despite its silliness. It depicts an encounter that begins with courteous and timid small talk, progresses to awkward desperation, and concludes with aggressive attempted identity theft. The intro to the song was tacked on for shits and giggles. At practice one day we asked Matt if he had any songs to contribute to the Delicious cause, and that was the answer (which, speaking of influences, was written after Drakkar Sauna came to town).
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Dearest Duchess
original version appears on Postcard To My Sewing Circle
"Accelerated Dickery" describes the nervous energy that comes from having your hard work toppled; your sand-castle stomped, or for example your college credits voided. When half the song was written, I felt it was too unspecific and easily misconstrued, so the rest of the song became footnotes of clarification. The title of the song is what I used to answer when asked about my college major.
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Accelerated Dickery
unreleased
This is another conflicted ode to getting over personal hang-ups. I've been told that it wins hearts because of its use of the alphabet.
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The Tangible
original version appears on Postcard To My Sewing Circle
This song is about the conflict between science and spirituality. It's about the desire to believe in the supernatural while seeking nullifying scientific explanation. The second verse deals with crafting a personal spirituality quietly referencing Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics. "The Delicious MySpace Page":http://www.myspace.com/thedelicious"Joyful Noise Recordings":http://www.joyfulnoiserecordings.com
The other day, while walking through a surprisingly humid early October afternoon and passing by a home with an adult-sized golden retriever sitting still on an old couple's front sidewalk, the dog's owner came over to the dog as we approached and said, "She likes to lick babies' faces." It wasn't a joke and he said it without even a smidgeon of a chuckle or cracked smile. It was just a point he was making and there it was: the doggie would approach our two-year-old daughter and slobber her to death. We thanked him for his diligence in knowing his dog and making sure that such a horrific turn of events never even had the opportunity to play itself out.
He will be getting a Christmas card or a plate of cookies come this holiday season. This is the dog - which we never saw in the heat of the moment, letting those natural proclivities kick into gear that would make her temporarily insane, slapping and slurping her tongue over the surface of any little face that met her at snoot-level, leaving behind a sheet of froth and stickiness - that is guided by the same impulse that guides Bloomington, Indiana, band The Delicious. They just act, shooting from the hips and getting dizzy on the process, or letting the process dizzy them. They don't show their work, but instead go free-form, forcing their jingling pop songs to live up to only one single, battered question: Was it good for you cause, believe us, all the pleasure was on this side of the table? There are no tethers or restrictions and there's no fear of getting too close to their idols and sharing some of the same intricacies.
The Delicious bring it on thick and sloppily, just as that golden retriever would if a tiny face or some little hands got too close to its trap. They take their abnormally long and wide tongue (figuratively, of course, as we don't know them well enough yet to know anything substantial about their tongue parameters) and just spread that wet love all over the place, throwing off splashes of numerous flavors of ramshackle pop. It's a world of the kind of music that is brawny in a lot of different spots, but still just barely keeps itself together with loose tendons and streamers. It's as if the verses pull out those tiny champagne popper party favors, shooting streams of wavy confetti toward the bridges and choruses, tying them all together with some random associations. They stick together with the gumminess of the kind of runaway train effervescence of The Teeth and the enticement of words and imagery that follow no itinerary or code of conduct. There is a respectful smirking underneath the band's laidback current that let's you know that hell yeah they care.
Everything you hear comes at you in a playful way that marries the idea of getting together with the chums to just bang out some songs that take on a conversation that they would have been having if there was no music moving things along (just like in musicals when people break out into song and even though the song was spontaneous, everyone already knows all the words) and also of being maniacally attentive of the effects that all of the jubilance and smart-talking could have on the outsiders. For some reason, the Delicious give off a feeling of the madcap hijinx of JJ McClure and Captain Chaos (Burt Reynolds and Don DeLuise) were making nipple jokes around Farrah Fawcett and Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. were drunkenly cussing in "Cannonball Run" and the thesis paper or a scientific survey that feeds us data that tells us that one in every six Americans worries about being hit by a semi tractor or a school bus once every two weeks. They serve it all up in a cake that's absolutely smothered with the richest frosting and covered in sprinkles.
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