Minor Key Monday 68: Lera Lynn – My Least Favorite Life

I always have to stop myself when I say I like “all kinds of music”. Because, honestly, that just isn’t true, there is really only one kind of music I like. No, not [just] Black Metal, I’m talking about music in a minor key. I mean, I’m a pretty happy guy, but there is something about sad, sad songs that just does it for me. I don’t dislike Vivaldi’s “Spring” and “Fall”, but I far prefer “Summer” and “Winter” (guess which seasons he writes in a minor key). “Satisfaction” is a fine song, but I’d rather listen to “Paint it Black” any day…you get the idea. Basically, it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that sting [of soul crushing sorrow and sadness].

This month on Minor Key Monday I talk about a singer songwriter who is so sad she is almost, but not quite, parody.

Of the many so bad it is almost good things about Season 2 of True Detective, my easy favorite is the ridiculously morose singer songwriter chick that is always playing at the bar in which the characters go to stare at each other.  It should come as no surprise that each and every one of her songs was perfect Minor Key Monday fodder, though, unfortunately, after listening to one of her albums, I found out that her normal fare isn’t quite as staggeringly melancholy.

Today’s song is easily the darkest of a comedically dark bunch of True Detective soundtrack sweetners.  With an opening guitar line that sounds like it was crafted to shamelessly pander to the type of person who talks loudly about underground Italian films and considers Quentin Tarantino a musical tastemaker–things don’t start off well.  On the other hand, that opening guitar line, uninspired as it might be, is honestly pretty sweet, and it leads into the kind of song that makes Lana Del Rey’s seasonal depression sound positively positive in comparison.

I’ve never been one for subtlety in my music, but even I have a suspicion that the lyrics to today’s song push the limits of teenage poetry to their breaking point:

This is my least favorite life
The one where you fly and I don’t
A kiss holds a million deceits
And a lifetime goes up in smoke
This is my least favorite you
Who floats far above earth and stone
The nights that I twist on the rack
Is the time that I feel most at home

We’re wandering in the shade
And the rustle of fallen leaves
A bird on the edge of a blade
Lost now forever, my love, in a sweet memory

The station pulls away from the train
The blue pulls away from the sky
The whisper of two broken wings
May be they’re yours, maybe they’re mine
This is my least favorite life
The one where I am out of my mind
The one where you are just out of reach
The one where I stay and you fly

I’m wandering in the shade
And the rustle of fallen leaves
A bird on the edge of the blade
Lost now forever, my love, in a sweet memory

And yet, again, when reading those lyrics, aside from the eye-rollingly obvious refrain, I must admit that even there she’s kind of winning me over.  I’m tempted to say this song is like Season 2 of True Detective: A fitfully arresting work of art written by that annoying dude in your sophomore English lit class.  But, it’s much better than that.  In fact, it’s more like Season 1 of True Detective: A predominately arresting work of art written by that annoying dude in your sophomore English lit class.