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Hannah Fury: The Thing That Feels
Number 1 of 2007 — Hannah Fury: The Thing That Feels
You don’t make up your mind by thinking,
you make up your mind by feeling.
Richard Levick
For evidence of the loveliness of this album, look no further than the first song. Not Like You is seemingly inspired by Marvel Comics’ Man-Thing, but it gets that joke over with in the first line (if indeed it is a joke). The rest of the song aches with heartbroken rejection – “Don’t speak / Don’t support / Just quietly abhor me / The thing that feels” – those thoughts are strengthened further by its production. Hannah’s vocals are always softly sung, but mixed so that you can hear every breath, whisper and sigh. The effect becomes overwhelmingly pretty when she choruses them (almost always) or adds other harmonies. Everything is overdubbed and mixed perfectly. A chorus or line you hear at one point in a song will never be the same elsewhere. Because the mixing draws attention to each inflection it brings great intimacy to the material. So although The Thing That Feels is mainly constructed around simple flowing progressions, the bridges between elements of each song are magical. Not Like You sweeps upwards to its solitary break, delivering a riposte which is quietly shattering: “So what if you don’t like me / And you don’t care how I feel / So what if you can’t see me / I know I am really here.” And yet, despite this, the song ends unresolved.
The vocal layering and subtly shifting rhythms of each song exude a spontaneity which adds to their attractiveness. This is, thankfully, no rigourously sequenced work (although it is precise). Love Today is underpinned by drawn out melancholic piano sequences punctuated with chords, which then break apart to flutter fitfully around a harrowing lyric “For the love of life, don’t say goodbye.” Meathook gets more obviously personal despite a deceptively happier tune – “Don’t put your red dress on for him”, and later, “No meathook is as bad as a hook in the heart” which is delivered alongside a ghostly choir.
Another of this album’s charm (and reward) is that its delicacy gives the impression that at any time any of the songs might collapse in discord or some vocal or melodic mis-step. Fortunately, they don’t. There are no extraneous riffs, unwanted vocals, misplaced lyrics or worst of all: filler tracks. Even the coda to Meathook and the two short instrumentals that bookend the core of the album are exquisite and essential. The first instrumental, Of Longing, combines and loops tiny musical phrases to act as a break before the falling hanging introduction to Let It Show. This opens a sequence of five songs inspired by Gregory Maguire’s novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (itself derived from the land and characters of Oz.)
But in the context of the rest of the album, some of these songs can be taken allegorically, even though they clearly work as collection of vignettes. In some respects it is better not to know their origin, and instead get swept up by their emotions – which is, after all, the subject of the album. For example, the titular oily and green-skinned character Elphaba is seen as an outcast, and one cannot help but reflect on the lyrics of Not Like You. Moreover, the parting lament of I Can’t Let You In speaks of spurned desires, rejected through a stubborn believe in destiny “Her for you, but you for me” and “I can’t let you in, ‘cause the world will tear us to pieces.”
And Your Little Dog Too is the darkest song on the album. It’s menacing atmosphere builds through an almost obsessive repetition of Elphaba’s creepy demands for Dorothy to relinquish the slippers of her dead sister Nessarose. Correspondingly the piano work is more brooding, but the song relies most on Hannah’s vocals for its impact, as indeed it must.
The final two songs in this sequence are more reflective. All Is Not Well has a tone of regret and It Was Her House That Killed Nessarose considers deceit, revenge and fate, and consigns them to a lingering death.
After these songs and the closing instrumental Of Longing And Otherness (which is a sweet development of its earlier companion) come my three favourite songs on the album. Firstly, Sweet Heart, which devastates me entirely when I listen to it because it extracts emotional essence from the previous tracks and personifies them. “Solitude still holds you / I don’t have to fake the blues” may not be great insight, but its closing verse suggests a way out of darkness, executed with great poetic finesse matched by an expanded melody and warm bass notes, thus becoming more welcoming and positive. Hannah then switches from the abstract to the real. Away is a tribute to the late Jeff Buckley, written while he went missing, swimming in the Wolf River on 29 May 1997, but it could be for anyone who has been lost or who is dearly missed. This song features one of only two accompaniments on the album – David Eastwood provides a solemn bassline to complement some occasionally busy piano work.
The other accompaniment is Brian Standefer’s cello which joins in the lengthy choruses on the final and most impressive song. The eight minute The Vampire Waltz is the song which persuaded Hannah to write music. It uses a vampire’s seduction of a bride as a representation of deep eternal love (and the act of falling in love). It’s lyrics are charming and thoughtful, illustrating confusion, submission and acceptance “I need you near me / I think I’ve been fooled” and “Oh, why am I not dressed in white? Something is not right.”
The Vampire Waltz ebbs and flows as a modern classical piece of music, together with smartly executed changes of signature (3/4 to 4/4) and mood. The ending, written some years later, revisits the main musical theme, but develops it further to magnify the relevance of the final repeated lyric “Will the light spark?”, which echoes the wistful questions asked elsewhere on the album and Hannah’s (then) teenage apprehension. Each delivery is beautiful and aching, reverberating inside me long after the album is over.
From a personal perspective, Throwing Muses’ 1986 shocking visceral debut was the first album that broke me completely and I never expected to experience such powerful emotions through music again. The Thing That Feels confounded this belief and surprises me with its intense beauty every time I listen to it.
The Thing That Feels – iTunes UK
The Thing That Feels – iTunes US
