Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Monday, February 25

today's song is a brilliant and clever rock and roll theme and variation: "Time To Waste" by Alkaline Trio.

i love the incorporation of motifs throughout this song. the piano starts with a melody and builds...then the guitar picks up a close variation of it that pulls it squarely into the world of rock. all of a sudden, the verse starts, and the music is completely different from that piano bit at the beginning. it sneaks up on you, though, because each part seems to flow so naturally from the last. conversely, you never notice how similar the chorus is until right before the bridge. the second repeat of the chorus ends, and the piano comes back during the bridge. it's a reworking of the beginning of the song, leading back to the final repeat of the chorus.

whenever i listen to this song, i think of a french braid...it's a gorgeous and coherent whole that picks up new pieces here and there all along the way and integrates them flawlessly.