February 17th, 2009 9:23am
Life’s Clearly Not Fair
Electric Six “Lovers Beware”
“Lovers Beware” begins as a tale of banal office romance, but its narrative rapidly escalates until it becomes a hysterical, paranoid nightmare about a corporation hell bent on driving them apart, even if it means murdering the male half of the couple. In a traditional romantic tragedy, family would the institution standing in the way of love, but it makes sense that in modern life it would more likely be a supremely unforgiving human resources department enforcing a faceless company’s elaborate, restrictive rules of conduct. The song itself is a turbo-charged rock ballad with a fist-pumping chorus, and a lead vocal from Dick Valentine that acknowledges the silliness of his premise while selling its tragedy with genuine conviction.
2/19/09 9:53 am
The best thing about Electric Six is just that, the absolute conviction. It pushes the songs from merely goofy to completely absurd, it’s probably what prevents them from being pigeonholed as a novelty act.