We have one of those multi-CD jukebox’s in our car.  So after we load it up and drive off, specifics will elude us and songs will often later waft over the airwaves as oral apparitions.  We may in fact have no idea what we are listening to (hey, hey, quiet over there!).  We’ve been driving around recently with a semi-anonymous stack and one such ghost-song has been haunting us every time we hear it.  Others too have asked about this ghost, usually inquiring, “Is that the new Brandon Flowers or some Killers b-side”?  Not wanting to appear senile, we have guessed/lied (guilty, your honor) and said, “new Brandon Flowers.”  We finally pulled the ghost-box out recently to switch CDs and discovered to our amazement and amusement that the “new Brandon Flowers” is in fact Wolf Parade’s great new and poignant break-up song, What Did My Lover Say (It Always Had To Go This Way), off their latest phenomenal record, “Expo 86”.

Wolf Parade is the ridiculously talented and prolific band from Montreal (again, what’s in the water up there?).  In addition to having put out three CDs of their own, the members of Wolf Parade are also key planks in a raft of other great bands (Frog Eyes, Sunset Rubdown and, our favorite, Handsome Furs).  More on the Handsome Furs another day.

We have heard keyboardist Spencer Krug give some inspired vocal deliveries in Wolf Parade’s past, some of which smacked of Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock and at other times of interpolated Interpol.  But this is the first time we’ve heard him come out and take on Brandon Flowers directly and de-flower him completely.

This song has given us a serious case of lupus (canis, that is).

We love the chorus at 1:38 and after, and then we hang on the bolded stanza below that begins at 2:42 and finishes perfectly with the “la la lala la la lala” bit at 2:53.  And what’s not to like with the howling chant that ends the song beginning at 4:59?  Lyrically, this is the usual fine job by the band, but we especially like “giant shining earrings against the cheek of the sea.”

“What did my lover say
when she was driving with you?
I could not see her face
from my new bed.

I don’t think I should be sorry
for things I do in dreams.
Just like the tumbling birds come tumbling down.

I got a sandcastle heart
made out of fine black sand.
Sometimes it turns into glass
when shit gets hot.

I wonder if all the beaches,
in all your holiday towns,
will turn to giant shining earrings against the cheek of the sea
When finally this supernova goes down.

Just like my lover said,
see,

It always had to go this way.
It always had to go this way.
It always had to go this way.
It always had to go this way.

I sleep all night with the light on,
and dream about the sun.
Maybe because of the light,
Maybe because of the sun.

I got a friend who’s a genius
nobody listens to him.
I got some friends that got famous,
la la lala la la lala.

I don’t think I should say sorry
for things I do in dreams.
Some people live like they’re falling,
some people die in their sleep.

It always had to go this way.
It always had to go this way.
It always had to go this way.
It always had to go this way.

Wolf Parade–What Did My Lover Say? (It Always Had to Go This Way)

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