The next song on our ‘Best of Lyrics’ comes from Silversun Pickups, an LA band that got its start playing clubs in the Silver Lake neighborhood. A friend of mine from graduate school lived in the Los Feliz neighborhood, which is just north of Silver Lake, and we would haunt the clubs and restaurants of Silver Lake looking for fun. One of my favorite stories about the Silversun Pickups is the one that they got their name from post-show runs to the Silversun Liquor store, which is believable since they often played the Silver Lake Lounge, right across from Silversun Liquors (and I myself have made a Silversun pickup after a late night).
Silversun Pickups’ first, full length album was Carnavas, and the song that got the most attention was “Lazy Eye,” which generated airplay on The O.C., and as the promo song for major sporting events such as the MLB All-Star Game, the World Series, and the NHL Stanley Cup Finals.
I could wax philosophically about the meaning of the lyrics, especially with it’s catchy phrase “I’ve been waiting/ I’ve been for this moment,” (which has various endings throughout the song that include “all my life,” “all night long,” and “but its just not right), and the title Lazy Eye – a medical condition about an eye that wanders and tends to look in a slightly different direction than the other ‘dominant’ eye. Indubiously, it is about infidelity, or the return to the relationship thereafter. But like many songs in the shoegaze genre, I find it best to just enjoy the tireless wall of sound built by the catchy singing, droning riffs, and distortion that is simultaneously soothing and pleasantly agitating.
Here is the official video for the song – a mere 4:20 longs. The Carnavas version is 6 minutes, and if you are dedicated enough you might find on the interwebs the UK version that clocks in at over 7 minutes.
If I were to blog.... 