Lyrical Analysis

Normally I hate lyrics. Looking at lyrics in print is most often a painful experience, and analysis usually offers little insight into much of anything. But on Brighten the Corners, Pavement singer/guitarist Stephen Malkmus has constructed the most multi-layered lyrical passage in rock history, thus bringing issues of language to the fore. In verse two of "Stereo," this album's first single, Malkmus asks the listener:

What about the voice of Geddy Lee?

How did it get so high?

I wonder if he speaks like an ordinary guy.

(I know him and he does.)

And you're my fact-checking cuz'.

Have we discovered anything here besides the fact that Lee's voice takes on the more homey cadences of the average Canadian national in non-rock settings (i.e. the golf course, drinking beer over a sizzling hibachi)? Indeed! Malkmus is not just wondering about the literal division between the public and private life of Rush singer/bassist Geddy Lee. Note that Malkmus ends the stanza with the discovery that he has found his "fact-checking cuz'" after a voice which is not Malkmus's--perhaps his rockist superego--states that Lee's true voice is unlike his musical/creative voice. This is a metaphor for the distinction between public creative life and internal life.

Furthermore, this lyric is a reaction to previous readings of Malkmus's own work. I would argue that Malkmus seeks to delimit his liminal lyrical space to himself. He is rejecting interpretation. Next time a rock critic dissects his lyrics, the critic will have to deal with the fact that Malkmus now has a "fact-checking cuz'" to argue the case. (i.e. "I was dressed for success, but success it never comes" from Slanted and Enchanted's poignant ballad "Here" is often used to support theories that Pavement are anti-careerist. To this Malkmus's cuz' says no, no, no!)

Do you buy into this? No. Well, buy Brighten the Corners. It's good.

--Alec Bemis

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