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🦋 Perspex Island song by song: Birds in Perspex

And we come to the song that first made me want to get this record. It is so beautiful, my heart just stops. Love is clearly going to be a major concern of the record. The poetry contained in the first verse -- "Well I take off my clothes with you/ But I'm not naked underneath/ I was born with trousers on/ Just about like everyone" -- grips me so tightly, I haven't been able to get past that much to the rest of the song as more than an auditory experience -- although I hear a lot of snatches of lyric that sound like they could be really meaningful. As an auditory experience this song is fantastic. Listen to the vocal arrangements, Hitchcock and the backups singing to each other and with each other. Listen to the mind bending instrumental midway through.

The image Hitchcock had in mind, according to this interview*, was of birds contained in clear plastic paper-weights like the ones "they sell at seasides with crabs and shells in them" -- the birds are "a frozen moment waiting to happen". I haven't gotten my head around this song enough yet to see that -- I'm focussed on the psychological stuff still; but that "frozen moment" feeling was part of my response to "Oceanside". So: tension on the record between movement and stasis. How does love fit into that dynamic?


*Another great line from the interview, "Perspex Island is a sort of portable Avalon."

posted evening of Tuesday, April 10th, 2007
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