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The Common Snipe

It's taken me a long time to get on the John Grant train, but now that I'm officially on it, I'm staying. Later this evening, John Grant will be playing at the El Club on the outskirts of Detroit, and while it's killing me not to go, listening to my favorite tracks on his new album Love Is Magic will help soften the blow.

If you're not familiar with John Grant, you can go here to get some background on what appears to be a rather interesting life. (We have some minor similarities in that we were both born in Michigan and we both moved to Colorado -- and we both have vocal ranges that approximate nicely when I'm bleating his songs in my car -- but that's largely where the connection points end.) His work isn't for everyone, which most certainly appeals to the contrarian in me.

Love Is Magic starts off with the song "Metamorphosis," which blends affected seemingly non sequitir verses with his more familiar smooth crooning on the chorus, and if you can find a way to enjoy the journey of that particular track (or at least tolerate it), you will have tuned into the frequencies that John Grant is transmitting. From there, Love Is Magic offers so many moments of beauty and booty-shaking that you could simply glide by on the surface and enjoy the record on those merits.

But a deeper dive into the album allows for a more substantive appraisal of Grant's full gifts on display. "Tempest" uses the sounds of '80s video games to reflect on the transient pleasures of youthful joy and abandon, while "Smug Cunt" and "Diet Gum" offer pithy condemnations that end up in curt dismissal and embarrassed acquiescence, respectively. And while the other highlights are plentiful, it's "The Common Snipe" that I keep coming back to. Here's the lyric to the song:

Jill and I were talking just the other day about the bowerbirdies 
And the little houses they made 
They collect sticks and objects in lovely colours 
In order to attract a special and suitable lover 

And David thinks the hummingbirds are fascinating 
I wonder if they invented the art of speed dating? 
They flap their wings 50 to 200 times per second 
I guess that's how they get those crazy pecs 

But it was the flight of the common snipe 
Which kept me up in my bed at night 
And I thought about what it was to him 
A reflection of his beauty which made my head swim 

Have you ever seen a picture of a cassowary? 
It has a six-inch claw which I find rather scary 
If you're not careful it may very well eviscerate you 
And, if you ask me, that's a dinosaur 

And what is up with the shoebill stork? 
It looks like it's about to stab you with a fork 
And yet apparently it's highly prized 
Perhaps because its beak is very large in size 

But it was the flight of the common snipe 
Which kept me up in my bed at night 
And I thought about what it was to him 
A reflection of his beauty which made my head swim 

And I thought about what it was to him 
A reflection of his beauty which made my head swim 

But it was the flight of the common snipe 
Which kept me up in my bed at night 
And I thought about what it was to him 
A reflection of his beauty which made my head swim

The precision of the lyric alone is pretty on the page. But what makes the song take flight (sorry) is the vocal layering that Grant applies to the chorus, with atypical minor-key harmonies fluttering (sorry again) in tight formation around his melody, constrained but not constraining. It's simply gorgeous, a magic trick of wringing longing and tension out of a left-field ornithological examination. It has literally kept me up in my bed at night, which is all you can hope for in art.

If John Grant and I were to ever meet, I would thank him for this song alone, then offer him a Faygo in Pure Michigan fashion. "The Common Snipe" deserves to be canonized in a peculiar corner of rock history, and if you like it, I just might like you a bit more than I already do.

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