Track Review ⊙ Daily Ops Home
Fulton Lights :: "Fire In The Palm Of My Hand"From Fulton Lights (Android Eats Records; 2007)
One of those songs where it only takes a few measures to know: “yeah, this is going on my next mixtape.” Andrew Spencer Goldman -- who effectively is Fulton Lights -- allows his album to exhume plenty of Grizzly Bear atmosphere, but it’s only on “Fire” that his lyrics and melody do as much spine-chilling as the piano’s damper pedal. With definite relish, Goldman yearns out a metaphor for losing something intangible yet vital; he knows as well as we that by missing his fortune he’s struck gold -- even if just this once.
The song itself is the slow-burning, harmless fire, the quiet heat of potential, and so illustrates clearly what it is Goldman says he’s lost. It’s a deep familiar to swallow: the organ, the steady drum pulse, an ABAC rhyme on the piano, distant string thrills, and Goldman’s tenor gently aching through the likes of “Oh, there was a time / When I held fire in the palm of my hand / We wondered where it came from / And now I wonder will it ever come back.” The chord progression becomes insistent and silvery before stepping out beneath Goldman’s finest moment: “And every fire alarm blaze / And every lit cigarette / Every candle / Reminds you of the old days.” Continuing and fading, the song’s blue flames lick away at the diminishing form of their maker.
Chet Betz :: 22 January 2007 |
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