The Perfect Road Trip Song Is Herein Revealed!
No it's not freaking a Bruce Springsteen song! Thunder Roads? Thunder Chodes more like
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I have never included The New Pornographers on a list of my favorite bands in fear of having to say their name aloud. I rarely included them on family road trip playlists in case my mother asked who they were and I would be forced to say “pornographers” out loud in her presence. After I bought tickets to see them at the Metro — local reference alert! — 2-3 years ago I started getting some interesting targeted ads. For a bunch of Canadians they really did pick an impolite name.
But I’m not really here to talk about one of the more unfortunate band names in music history, here’s looking at you Hoobastank. Rather, Dan Rather, I’m here to talk about the song “All For Swinging You Around” off their second album The Electric Version. Obviously.
Before we begin, a slight digression into the extremely frustrating time I had at the aforementioned New Pornographers concert experience. Winter had descended upon Chicago and I went with my brother and a friend. Winter concerts are far and away one of the more annoying things for a 20-something to experience. Generally it’s cold outside and wild hot inside. Normally this would not be a problem as your typical concert goer looking to regulate their core temperature could simply remove their winter coat, put it in a closet, and go about their day. However, concert venues generally do not have free closets available to the general public. They make you pay for closet privilege. I will never pay for a closet. So I had to stand in a perfectly full Metro with hundreds of others who refused to pay to store their coats. Needless to say I was hotter than Drake after listening to a Meek Mill diss track — does this make sense as a burn? Hard to say. But I had other problems with this concert other than simply having a higher internal temperature than I prefer. For one, the average of the crowd was about 45-50 and we were some youngest people there, along with an old classmate I saw in the crowd with her parents but did not say hi to. Old people in general do not like to dance and this crowd did not break that rule. We stood still for the entire show, only a slight swaying betraying that the attendees remained alive. To rub even more salt into that wound, The New Pornographers in all their esteemed wisdom refused to play any of their fucking bangers.
The New Pornographers is, as they say, a band of two faces. A Janus Band. They can go pretty hard for a band of middle-aged white Canadians. See for example “All For Swinging You Around,” remember this newsletter is supposed to be about them. But they can also do ballads. And they’ve recently decided that ballads and low tempo adult contemporary snoozers is the way the want to go. Which is fine. But when I shell out mucho dinero for a concert I want to hear the bops, the jams, etc etc. I want to feel something. The New Pornographers apparently did not want to do this. Their opener Waxahatchee, who I’ve previously seen put on a rocking show, also decided to play low-tempo guitar croonery songs as well. So a real bummer all around for me. Especially because I do really like them as a band, and still do! But that concert, woof, pretty frustrating to say the least. Neko Case, the member of the band with the most famous solo career, also sang off of sheet music, which is kinda lame.
Okay, whiny and arguably unimportant digression aside, time to talk about “All For Swinging You Around.” I highly suggest listening to this song. Heck, listen to all of the first three albums and the first half of the fourth! It’ll do ya some good. People smarter than me have written about how The New Pornographers sound has changed over the years, and even made the argument that it came down to one song in particular, “The Bleeding Heart Show.” But this article won’t look to do that. Instead I’m here to tell you that “All For Swinging You Around” is the perfect road trip song.
From that opening drum rip to the hot hot organ action, this song begs to be played on the open road. Unlike many other “perfect road trip songs” this one works both at night and during the day. Imagine this, you’re driving on the Pacific Coast Highway, the sun is out, your windows are down, your hands are out the window flowing in the breeze and there is not a car in sight. And then this shit comes on? HOT DAMN! I can smell the ocean as we speak. But also, imagine this. You’re on I-90 driving through South Dakota. It’s 11pm. No other cars on the road. You’re giddy in the way people get giddy from being stuck in a car and only eating gas station food for 8 hours. That tom-tom part starts playing. HOLY SHIT. You can now drive for another 5 hours no problem. You’ll be home just in time to make sure that no one steals both the wings off the Thanksgiving turkey. All thanks to the New Pornographers.
I’ve listened to the song like six times in a row while writing this and still have not gotten tired of it. As with most New Pornographers songs I’m not sure what it’s about, but that only makes it better as a road trip song. It can mean anything you want it to. Feeling sad? Just wait for the tom-tom break down. Feeling happy? Sing that bridge as loud as you can. Feeling melancholy with a hint of bittersweet happiness? The first verse is all for you baby. Most importantly it varies enough between the chorus, the verses and the bridge that it never gets boring. Similarly, however, it isn’t so complex as to make it impenetrable. It’s easy enough to pick up on one listen. So you can play it for people who have never heard it before and they won’t feel left out.
I’m running out of space – that’s not really true, I just wanted an excuse to end this – but I have a theory about songs you can dance to in the car. They’re definitely different than songs you would dance to at a wedding. Like I would never play “All For Swinging You Around” at a dance party, but in the car? Perfect for that cool hand dance people always do in commericals or TV shows whenever they’re dancing in a car. I think it has to do with BPMs and bass lines, but I haven’t fully thought through it yet.
Anyway, a new New Pornographers album comes out on the 27th. Hopefully they’ve got more songs like this on it.