Normally, our High 5 column features an artist ranking the five best songs from their own discography. The snag with Spencer Krug, however, is that he's released music through more than five projects throughout his adventurous, unpredictable and multifaceted career.
That's why, as his band Sunset Rubdown reunite for their first album in 15 years, Krug slightly rewrote the rules of our column, instead picking seven songs — each one from a different project.
"I'm not one for making lists and picking favourites, but trying to choose just one song from each of my projects — past and present — seems like a fun exercise, so why not," he told Exclaim!
He went chronologically (with one exception), reflecting back on one of his first songs as Wolf Parade's co-frontman (rather than simply their keyboardist), his mom's favourite song he's written, and the song he gotten right on the first take. There's also a shoutout for a favourite song on Sunset Rubdown's characteristically fidgety yet melodic new album, Always Happy to Explode.
Wolf Parade
"Dinner Bells"
Apologies to the Queen Mary (2005)
When I think of early Wolf Parade, "Dinner Bells" is definitely a standout for me. It's one of our earliest songs, and notably one of the first I wrote for the band knowing that I would be singing, because embryonic Wolf Parade had only Dan Boeckner on vocals. Initially I was going to just play keys, but it quickly became obvious we both wanted to sing, and having two singer-songwriters opened up a lot of musical options.
I remember walking through Jeanne Mance Park in Montreal with JLC and reciting the first verse and chorus to her. She laughed and said the words didn't really make sense. She was right, but I didn't change them.
Today, this song is still cathartic to perform. The vocal lines approach the top of my range, but not in an uncomfortable way, just a way that allows me to really belt them out. And the caveman blasts of bass keys and guitar that punctuate the spaces between vocal lines throughout the second verse are terribly satisfying to lean into. Throughout the years, the outro of the song evolved and lengthened into a one of the few moments in a Wolf Parade set where the whole band can just jam around and improvise and let things come almost off the rails, so it's still one we look forward to on the set list.
Sunset Rubdown
"Us Ones in Between"
Shut Up I Am Dreaming (2006)
A year ago I would have said my favourite Sunset Rubdown song is "Us Ones In Between," because it's a classic off the first full-band LP, because the lyrics still get me (I remember writing them in my head while laying in the dark in the back of the Wolf Parade tour van as we did an overnight drive from somewhere in the American South up to Chicago), because I love a melodramatic key change, because of the beautifully improvised Ebow guitar take from Michael Doerksen, and maybe because it's my mom's favourite… Actually, yeah, screw it — it's still my favourite.
But I have to give an honourable mention here to "Reappearing Rat" from our new album. It has a cool story. We recorded a version at the beginning of the recording session, a version based on the demo I'd posted previously to Patreon, and that version we made was totally fine. There was nothing necessarily wrong with it. But by the end of the session we realized the songs we were working on all felt and sounded best when performed live off the floor, with minimal-to-no overdubs. So we took another stab at "Rat." We cut the unnecessarily long outro entirely, simplified some other parts, scrapped some vocal lines, then re-tracked it all together in the same room, abandoning the idea of any overdubs. On listening back we realized we'd made a nice little pop song — simple and fun. It was better, and it felt good to know that we'd fixed it together. That's why I made "Rat" the first single off the album: for me, it represents the band's collective learning curve throughout the recording session.
Swan Lake
"Are You Swimming in Her Pools?"
Beast Moans (2006)
I like this one because it encapsulates what Swan Lake was, and how we approached the songs.
It was just a recording project — we never played live. The members were me, Dan Bejar of Destroyer and Carey Mercer of Frog Eyes, and we each brought three or four songs to the session. I had my then very green lyrical delivery and schizophrenic song structures to contribute. Carey brought his love of spontaneity (a.k.a. keep it loose) and strange affinity for sibilance, and Dan, the magical mix of shyness and confidence (or maybe it's indifference somehow mixed with reverence, in his words). We were in Carey's basement so he mostly manned the controls, a.k.a. none of us had any real idea how to record.
For this track (and most tracks on Beast Moans), we recorded the singer-songwriter of each respective song first, then overdubbed everything else. Even the drums were overdubbed. (Fans of the record might now say, "Ahhh, that makes sense.") So the first thing tracked for "Are You Swimming in Her Pools" was me singing and playing the song on acoustic guitar. I like the lyrics of this song (they're more or less wondering if someone who's gone to a faraway place will return, and was written while visiting my then-partner in Tokyo, where she'd chosen to live for a year), and I like the chord structure, and the music written overtop. But what I mostly like about this recording is how I screw up the words in the middle, stop completely, and then pick up in the same spot with the correct words to finish the song. We all dug the take and didn't want to record another one, but we also (whether out of laziness, or ineptitude, or purism), didn't want to go into the waveform and edit out the mistake, so we just left it as is. That mistake is now one of my favourite parts of the album. I also like how all the overdubs drop away for the outro, leaving just me and the acoustic guitar to bang and howl out the finale.
Moonface and Sinnai
"Yesterday's Fire"
Heartbreaking Bravery (2012)
Ultimately this project got unintentionally split into two separate things: Moonface, which was basically just my solo work, and which I now perform and release under my own name, and then Moonface and Siinai, which was me getting together with a band in Finland to make a couple albums together. So I'm gonna pick one from each, and if we're going chronologically…
I don't play a lot of electric guitar, but when I do, I love when I get to lean into some heavy, repetitive bar chords that eventually resolve on some big fat open chord. Mmm. I very much get to do that here. I also get to belt out melodramatic lyrics about a newfound crush. And when we played it live, I got to swing the guitar over my shoulder and let it hang there by the strap as I finished off the song with a distorted keyboard solo like a rock star. Basically this song is just super fun.
My favourite memory of recording it is when we all thought it was a little too polished-sounding so Risto [Joensuu] went out and recorded an entire take of improvised noise guitar to layer just below the shine. That band, Siinai, are just such incredible and tasteful musicians. Such a joy to make music with. I was recently writing elsewhere about what I feel when I hear the amazingly bombastic production of that album:
These songs hold a lot of nostalgia for me. Whenever I hear anything from that Heartbreaking Bravery session it brings me immediately back to that rural studio in Finland where we recorded. It was such a magical time for me, maybe for all of us. The band and I had no real idea what we were trying to do, barely knew each other, but we heard and felt the songs come together and take on a life of their own almost immediately, while we simultaneously (and unexpectedly?) formed lifelong bonds, all against a backdrop of the green Finnish countryside. I miss those guys. I think of them all the time.
Moonface
"Barbarian" / "Barbarian II"
Julia with Blue Jeans On (2013)
From Julia with Blue Jeans On, the album which found me realizing I still loved acoustic piano, could still play it, and in fact could write songs with just piano and voice. The acoustic piano is a very tactile instrument and I find the physical act of playing the thing to be incredibly therapeutic — it just feels good under my hands. This set of "Barbarian" songs feel especially great. The left hand keeps a steady tick-tock-octave tempo of root notes, while the right hand just follows my vocal melodies around like a puppy. Then I get to dig into the chorus a bit with more of a two-handed rhythm. The lyrics are dark, cryptic, yet vaguely apologetic (a very comfortable vibe for me), and then there's a long instrumental section at the end wherein I kind of musically deconstruct a long arpeggio. I've always found that part enjoyably hypnotic, and if I think too much about what my hands are doing, I mess it up. (It's exciting playing live when you know how easily you can ruin a song.)
Part two contains a section of massive bass chords played harder than I play in any other song, so that alone gives it some points in my book, then the whole thing resolves into a very calm, steady final chorus. I realize this is all just long-winded inside baseball, and not necessarily interesting to anyone but me, but hey, if I'm here to say why I like these songs…
Spencer Krug
"How We Have to Live"
Twenty Twenty Twenty Twenty One (2022)
Originally posted to my Patreon page as part of a song-a-month collection, this song eventually made it onto the second Spencer Krug solo LP, Twenty Twenty Twenty Twenty One. It's just a multi-tracked, home-recorded indie song, but I've always liked it. Over the past few years, I've performed it live on solo piano, on synth with drum machine, and on the bass guitar while playing with a band. All three versions are deeply satisfying to lay into. The bassline reminds me of Twin Peaks somehow. The vocal hook loves to be repeated, and I love indulging it. But that line, "It's how we have to live, versus how we have to live with ourselves" — it's more than just a hook for me. I know it's vague, but it's one of the more political lines I've ever written. I think the question it poses can be applied to a lot of what's happening in the world today. (I personally think of this line sometimes when trying to reconcile the fact that my life continues normally while genocides are being perpetrated elsewhere in the world.) But that flexibility of the line, and the way anyone can hold it up to their own emotional struggle, hopefully finding some comfort or meaning in it, illustrates what I love about lyric writing: the versatility of words.
Fifths of Seven
"Waiting"
Spry from Bitter Anise Folds (2005)
Lastly — and I know I've gone way over budget here, but — I have to give an honourable mention to the song "Waiting" from the Fifths of Seven album Spry from Bitter Anise Folds. It's an instrumental piano song. I don't write much instrumental music, especially nowadays, but this was one of my more successful attempts in my opinion. And I remember getting it on the first take, which is always nice.
Thanks for letting me ramble on like an old man about my own history! Ha.