How life can sometimes be

Image: Katherine Chiu

Marry Me - Jesus Licks

Not a cover of the St. Vincent song, this "Marry Me" is, however, as full of surprises: of whim and poesy and good old-fashioned English eccentricity. Dominique Golden sings with a fluttery lilt, like she grows tulips on her tongue and adorns her toes with rings. Like all that's needed to get married is a dress that's clean/for all to see, flowers, a white cake and a band perhaps. A band that threads a flute like gold silk through its nubby weave of acoustic guitar and drums. Except ... this may all be an elaborate fantasy, a daydream. When the song stops short at the altar before the vicar, part of you wonders if maybe this girl doesn't really know this groom-to-be. That if you said to this Mike or Nick or Oliver, "So, I heard you and Dominique are getting married," he might reply, "Dominique? You mean Dominique in accounting? The quiet one?"


Image: Katherine Chiu

The Highwayman - Jesus Licks

Would those backing vocals sound so strange and October-dusk spooky if the mundane clop-clop of the banjo wasn't throwing them into relief? And would her tap-tap (and the echoes) be as shivery, if Golden didn't sing her lines so dream-fogged and demure? An inventive take on the Alfred Noyes poem, it leaves much of the narrative detail out and lets the mood tell the story. Even if you don't understand why a string is tied to a trigger and what the landlord's daughter has to do with a highwayman, you're certain that something bad and bloody is going down.

Buy Highwayman 7" (Post Records), Myspace