MP3: Cathedrals – Jump Little Children

Three words to describe this song: 1. Haunting 2. Smooth 3. Distinctive

Instrumentation: acoustic guitar chords strummed offer up the structural backbone. Violin slowly creeps in (and potentially cello?) and provides the ‘feeling’ as they rise and fall with the vocals. There is zero percussion with the exception of a couple bass bongo beats towards the very end of the song.

The instrumentation is simple, and it is perfect for a song consisting of these lyrics. It is clean and pure.

Vocals: I love Jay Clifford’s voice! He does a tremendous job of combining tenderness and power. He is controlled, patient and possesses a somewhat unique delivery; ie: “of New York and Rome…” He doesn’t remind me of anyone else upon first impression, and that is grounds for me to be excited!

Lyrics: Essentially the song outlines the writer’s description of Cathedrals inside and out, the impact they have on him emotionally, and his opinion of the impact they have/should have on the world.

Although I truly appreciate the fact that the subject matter is very unique, I have a bit of a contradictory opinion of the lyrics for this song. I like the poetic-ness of the writing b/c I happen to enjoy poetry. However, I found the lyrics to be almost ‘purposely poetic’ – like someone took an existing poem and decided maybe it should become a song. Of course there is a fine line between song writing and poetry (or some may argue none at all), but that was my initial feeling when I first read the lyrics as I listened to the song, and we all know how hard it is to shake off initial impressions.

Overall

Now don’t get me wrong, I like this song, in fact, I like this song very much. It smoothly rolls in, and pulled me along (although I didn’t offer up much resistance).

And if you’ll allow me a some poetic liberty, I offer you a summary in the form of a similie; this song builds and backs off like a lazy Sunday afternoon of comfortable, semi-passionate sex. After my third listen I was left with a strong desire to smoke a cigarette.