He: I thought you had gone and would never return.
She: I came back to see if our love could still burn.
He: I made my mistakes, but I'm trying to learn.
Then they both say together: The curtain is velvet,
The moon is on high, and the play has begun.
But moments later, the scene veers off in another direction:
He: My family wants, my job wants, and you -
She: I want to be best at whatever I do.
He: My personal past forms my point of view.
Then they look at each other: This is no love scene!
The pulse in our wrists has much more to say.
What drives the insight home is that the harmonic progression behind it is perfectly true to the tango, and also really compelling in the way it winds the mock tension ever tighter, then releases it perfectly at the end. Or look at this abstract yet frankly realistic lyric:
Growth's not growth if it's prescribed growth.
Growth is only growth when it breaks with the prescribed form.
Mostly what passes for growth is the fullfillment of
Prescribed expectations.
One learns, bit by bit, how to be a boy, etcetera.
One grows into, not out of -
into, not out of prescribed expectations.
Garland's songs contain too many funny noises, complex harmonic progressions, and free-form lyrics to ever make it in the pop world, but he is a thinking man's sensitive, honest, musically brilliant songwriter.
- Kyle Gann
