Tegan and Sara - The Cure

One of my very favorite Tegan and Sara songs is “The Cure” from their “Sainthood” album. I have never heard this song live. It is not one of their more well-known songs. But it is probably in my top five favorites of theirs.

“Sainthood” is absolutely Tegan and Sara’s most rock and roll album. Which is why it is my favorite. Which is a crazy thing to say given how near perfect “So Jealous” and “The Con” are. Even, I think I am crazy for liking “Sainthood” more then those two albums.

“The Cure” is a highly emotional song, but saying that, I guess the majority of Tegan and Sara’s songs are deeply emotional. It has a verse that sticks with me as a mantra, as much, or more then “Where Does the Good Go’s” chorus.

“I know the world's been mean to you.
I've got a cure; hold tight.
I know the world's not fair to you.
I've got a cure for its crimes.”

I say this as a mantra all the time. But, for me, the song “The Cure,” is equal parts song and riddle. What is the cure for all the pain Tegan describes in the track?

Like many, maybe even most, Tegan and Sara songs, there are a lot of lyrics implying a broken relationship. Those girls must have had a rough go at love for a long time… no wonder I find their songs so easy to connect with. “The Cure” is loaded with lyrics describing a collapsing relationship. The chorus pretty says exactly that.

“All I dreamed up,
All that seemed like luck,
Seems silly to you now.
All I said to you,
All I did for you,
Seems so silly to me now.”

The songs with the repeating information:

“I’ve got a cure.
I’ve got a cure for you.”

What is the cure? Well I do not believe it is a complicated riddle. The second verse basically tells us:

“I know that bad’s got to fix itself,
Correct over time.
And, I know 'cause I've got the cure.
I've got a cure for your crimes.”

It's time right?

Like, I do not know if that is exactly what Tegan Quin is suggesting in this song, but that is always how I have taken it. The cure for the heartbreak, is time. The cure of all the cruelty and pain is time. The song feels infinitely universally relatable. All our ails, all of them, can be cured in time.

It is the only cure for the world’s crimes.

So, to literally everyone I have ever met, I say to you:

“I know the world's been mean to you.
I've got a cure; hold tight.
I know the world's not fair to you.
I've got a cure for its crimes.”

See why I like that second verse so much?

Stay strong everyone. The cure is time.

Tegan and Sara - Where Does The Good Go

The 2023 Calgary Stampede’s Coca-Cola stage was blessed with a home coming return of our girls, Tegan and Sara. I sure think it was cool of them to do a free show, surely, they are popular enough to have performed at one of the larger venues during the Stampede, this is their hometown, they are popular here. So, a free show is a wonderful gift, and I was very happy to see them again. I believe this was the fifth time I have seen Tegan and Sara live. It was an interesting double feature, Death From Above, and, Tegan and Sara. I can only count four things they have in common, they are both Canadian, duo acts, became established musicians around the same time, and most importantly, both are freaking great.

While I really enjoyed Death From Above, being the more intense fan of Tegan and Sara, I very much enjoyed them. It did not hurt that they played many, perhaps, most, of my favorite songs of theirs. I think it was the second, or perhaps third, song they played was “Where Does the Good Go.”

Sometimes, passage of time, modifies our appreciation of things. Small differences in perspective and memory can cause some songs to become more or less loved in our hearts in time. “Where Does the Good Go” for me, is a song that is endlessly wonderful. This song connected to me when I first heard it, and has only strengthened my appreciation for it.

As it happens sometimes, I will quote a song often enough that the quote becomes part of my casual vernacular, and the line from “Where Does The Good Go” that has accomplished that in my conversation pieces is from the chorus;

“It's love that leaves and breaks,
The seal of always thinking you would be,
Real happy and healthy, strong and calm.
Where does the good go?
Where does the good go?”

It is a good chorus.

Like many before me, on a great number of different songs, I was singing the words to this chorus wrong, in multiple different ways, until I finally figured out the correct lyrics. Mostly, I kept breaking out the adjectives to be applied to two people. As in, you will be happy and healthy, and I will be strong and calm. Perhaps this is my unrelentingly masculine perspective, but a primary goal of any relationship for me is to ensure, that she, is happy and healthy, meanwhile, I must be strong and calm.

“Happy and healthy.”

As a knight, I want to rescue princesses. But, I want to do this, with the hope, the dream, that they will be forever afterward happy and healthy. Drop the metaphor, and a goal I always held in my mind for romantic relationships would be to support my bride to be those two things.

“Strong and calm.”

As a knight, I feel it is extremely important to remain strong and calm. Strong, obviously because dragons need slaying. Calm, because that aids enormously in maintain the honourable codes of chivalry. Again, drop the metaphor, it was always important to me to be those two things. Not just towards woman of my desire, but always professionally, and in everything I do.

Admittedly, I am a lot better at the former than the later. I am always very strong. Sometimes I am a hot head.

That is the linchpin of my perspective, and thus, these two adjectives reoccurring in my verbal expressions. I have re-written, the chorus to where does the good go so many times in my head, that it is funny. We are all guilty of it, singing along to a song with the wrong words. I sang dozens of different versions of this chorus until finally getting it right.

There actually are not many lyrics in “Where Does The Good Go.” The repetition is appropriate, as the statements being made are powerful. Love, and heartbreak, and longing, and wanting, can take things away from us, including the positive characteristics, that make us who we are. We can lose our happiness, and our strengthens. We can lose our kindness.

“Where does the good go?”

As much as plea, as a question.

It has been one of my favorites of Tegan and Sara’s for years. I enjoyed hearing it with an small army of friends.

Thanks again for the free show Tegan and Sara.

- King of Braves

Tegan and Sara - Arrow & Sentimental Tune

Arrow:

Sentimental Tune:

Of all my favorite bands Tegan and Sara must be the strangest odd one out. I listen to a lot of metal and classic rock, so the indie rock pop style of Tegan and Sara, while enjoyable to all, in theory should not rank that high in my personally admiration, but they do. I suppose it is not that strange when you consider my fondness of indie rock in general. I listen to a lot of Arcade Fire, Metric, Interpol, Bloc Party and several others. I guess it is just I identify more with the rock and rollers of classic rock and metal and a lot less with the hipster variety fare most of us expect from the indie crowd.

But hey man, it’s all about the music.

In 2009 Tegan and Sara released their sixth studio album “Sainthood” and it was a departure from their previously more mellow and emotional indie and folk rock styling and engaged more so into good old rock and roll. Naturally “Sainthood” is my favorite Tegan and Sara album, granted there are a variety of nuances we could discuss, but the broad picture item of this album is by being more rock and roll added to my extra enjoyment.

So, it is highly appropriate that I like “Sainthood” so much, given my natural rock and roll ways, and this apparently puts me in the minority. “Sainthood” was not overly well received by critics and fans who were still madly in love with “The Con,” Tegan and Sara’s previous album, an album that is the apex of their indie rock catalogue. This stronger embrace of rock and roll was the first meaningful change in style Tegan and Sara had ever engaged in, and they would find huge success with their next two albums “Heartthrob,” a very pop rock album, and recently “Love You to Death,” a very eighties inspired album. Those last two albums are probably Tegan and Sara’s best selling albums to date, nonetheless “Sainthood” was the first experiment departing from their indie rock styling, and is now becoming somewhat overlooked.

I am a firm believer that the best albums should start and end strong, and my two favorite tracks from “Sainthood” is the first and second last, which creates a nice journey from beginning to end.

The first track is “Arrow” a short but punchy rock song with a very striking intro that turns into the best, and most rock and roll, rhythm on the album or on any Tegan and Sara song for that matter. I believe it was very wise to make this the first song on the album as it has the greatest energy of any track and brings the listener in. My first two Tegan and Sara concretes I attended both opened with “Arrow” and while not being their most popular song served as a fantastic opening to the show and really got the crowd pumped up.

While “Sainthood” does technically end with “Someday” I find the true end note to be “Sentimental Tune.” Again, as a rock and roll machine, I should, in theory, appreciate “Arrow” as my uppermost favorite in the Tegan and Sara catalogue, but such is the duality of man, I like the mellow and sweet empowering “Sentimental Tune” most. I believe “Sentimental Tune” is about someone refusing to allow someone else to love them, a cynical romantic maybe? This sentimental tune is meant to soften the hard heart of the nervous would be lover who is for reasons unknown refusing to believe in, or allow an embrace of, love. Which is, you know, sweet.

I particularly like the opening line in the chorus “Hard-hearted don’t worry I’m ready for a fight.” While tangential at best, my complete lack of a flight mechanism means I am always ready for a fight, which makes me relate to this song in a completely unintentionally demission.

Long time readers of this blog will know I really like Sara, and perhaps it is not a coincident that both “Arrow” and “Sentimental Tune” are both Sara songs. A strange fact about Tegan and Sara that many do not know is that they never wrote songs together until the album “Heartthrob.” Each would independently write songs and then collaborate when recording. This adds an extra element of personality and a note of interest when digging dipper into their music catalogue and gradually gaining an ear for not only the very slight differences in their voices but also their emotions and expressions. The later of which is actually more distinctive.

There is a weak, but very real connection between “Arrow” and “Sentimental Tune.” In “Arrow” Sara is asking for a very tough love, real assessment of herself from someone she loves and in the hope they will fight for her,

“Would you touch me?
Cling and wage an intimid fight for me?”

The sort of fighting for someone Sara later expresses in “Sentimental Tune” only this time as the active agent, fighting for the tough love. It is not the strongest connection I admit, but I have always felt there was something there, if not is symbolism or narrative, then at least in Sara’s mind. She wants someone to fight for her, like she would fight for them? A reasonable guess into the mind and heart of Sara Quin I suspect, but also a fair description of most people’s wishes I imagine.

The times I have sat to listen to “Sainthood” in full, I find myself repeating the second final track or starting the album over to start the gambit again with “Arrow. Normally the custom of this music blog to talk about one song, but these rules were made by me, and made to be broken, because why not. I struggle to think of a time in the near future where I might revisit this album or band, so it made sense to discuss the beginning and end of the album all at once. A two-song review; think I’ll have to do that again sometime soon.

Until next month, keep on rocking in the free world.

- King of Braves

Tegan and Sara - Now I'm All Messed Up

I absolutely love Tegan and Sara. In fact I would go so far as to say I am “in love” with them, especially Sara. I am total in love with Sara Quin. Read all about my lame emotions here:

The Sara Quin Love Letter - http://colinkellymusicinreview.blogspot.ca/2012/02/sara-quin.html

So yeah...I really like Tegan and Sara, so when they decided to play two shows in Calgary during their Heartthrob tour I bought tickets to both shows. I was going to go get a big eye full of two very pretty girls and listen to them play some high emotion music, and that’s what I did. I had a blast.

I have always been very impressed with the emotions Tegan and Sara manage to stir in me, and now... I’m all messed up.

Now I know Tegan and Sara pretty well, because when I like something I typically learn just about all there is to know about it, and I immediately identified something was wrong the first night after the first few songs. Sara was singing two or three songs for every one Tegan was singing, and when Tegan barely got through their performance of “The Con,” as her voice was giving out, I turned to the two sisters from Montana that befriended me while waiting in line, and said “something is wrong with Tegan.” Later on I also noted that Sara sang lead on “Where Does the Good Go” a Tegan song, which is somewhat unusual.

The second night Tegan was clearly felling better. She sang stronger than the previous night and she treated us to songs like “Call it Off” which were absent in the first show. Tegan explained she had strep throat during one of her monologues and my suspicions were confirmed. I didn’t mind though, Tegan performed well in spite of her condition, but also I enjoyed the subtle interactions between the sisters. There was various times where Sara gave Tegan cues whenever her voice began to fade, mostly she would sing with her for a few lines until Tegan managed to pick her voice back up. There is a lot of personality in moments like that. Also I didn’t mind because Sara sang her ass off, and I love her.

I think my favorite moment in the concert was the second last song before the encore “Now I’m All Messed Up.” Sara sang this song amazingly. I love escalation in music, rising action if you will, and by the end of “Now I’m All Messed Up” Sara was yelling the chorus “Go if you want, I can’t stop you!” I like to use the term “high emotion” sometimes to describe really heavy heartfelt moments in songs, and this was definitely a high emotion moment. “Now I’m All Messed Up” was always a strong candidate for my favorite song on the new album Heartthrob and after seeing that live performance, twice, it has won my vote.

It is very clear that Heartthrob, Tegan and Sara’s seventh studio album, is the most pop album they have ever created. This does not offend me like it might some music critics (do I qualify yet?) because I do not have any preconceived notions that music can only be appreciated once it fits into a preapproved genre. This pop movement for the girls feels like a natural progression, their song writing has been gradually changing towards this direction the entire time and frankly I like this next step in their journey. Their last album, Sainthood, was their most rock and roll album, which is probably why it is my favorite, and it was canned by critics and apparently did not sell very well, so I highly suspect this trend of under appreciation to continue on for Heartthrob, because how dare anyone evolve as a band.

Every Tegan and Sara album was always more complicated than the one previous, and while we music critics do not like to admit it, a lot of pop songs are complicated. Granted it is easy to create a complex multilayer song when you let a machine do all the work for you, also it is easy to perform such songs live when all you do is press a play button on a machine and sing along (some don’t even do that), however that is not what is happening on Tegan and Sara’s Heartthrob.

The Calgarian girls have come to a point where the two of them alone were unable to properly perform the songs they had written. By the time “So Jealous” came out they brought in Ted to play guitar and keyboard, also they have had to have a drummer with them since that time. Now they need a full band, a bass player, a drummer, a keyboarder and good old multi-talented Ted, as sixth are needed to perform this “pop” music live. In this somewhat rare example pop has equated to depth, and while I may personal prefer the more rock and roll Sainthood stylization I can definitely enjoy what is being accomplished on Heartthrob, especially on tracks like “Now I’m All Messed Up.” Having a full band frees up Tegan and Sara’s attention so they can focus on singing and that paid off big time during their latest live performances.

While I may normally be a tough guy listening to hard rock and metal music I have a soft spot, and apparently the best way to melt my heart is with strong sensitive identical twin lesbian indie pop rock. It makes sense when I think about it.

Until later this month, keep on rocking in the free world.

- Colin Kelly

P.S.

Sure enough some enthusiastic gentleman ran up to me after the show and complimented me on my Blind Guardian t-shirt. I informed him of my plan that if I could find a girl who was into both Tegan and Sara and Blind Guardian I would be set.

To which he replied, “That’s an awesome plan... good luck with that dude.” Yeah, I’m going to need it. Thank you stranger.

Sara Quin - A Love Letter

Image taken from www.charlyncamron.com apparently.

There are some bands where it is only a question of time before I get into them. Like gravity all it takes is a little push and I fall. Well I never thought I would fall as hard as I have for Tegan and Sara.

I always liked Tegan and Sara, every song of theirs I heard on the radio I enjoyed, but I never bothered to get any of their CDs or download any of their music. Then one random day wanting something new to add to my winamp list I decided it was time to give those Calgarian girls their fair chance. After a few YouTube videos I was sold on Tegan and Sara. They were solid, with an impressive list of songs I could really enjoy, but there was something else drawing me to them.

Sara is my kind of girl,
a rock star

I know their identical twins, and you know me starting a sentence off like that means I’m about to say something stupid; anyway, I know their identical twins, but there is something about Sara I just find adorable. It’s her smile, or maybe the fact she smiles more often, or maybe the slight slenderness of her face, or maybe something intangible, but I think Sara Quin is just so cute. I explained this to a friend of mine and he was quick to say that he thought the same thing only about Tegan. It was agreed then and there that if we ever met Tegan and Sara, he would hit on Tegan and I would hit on Sara. We shook on it. So I would like to pre-emptively apologize to the Quin sisters if we ever happen to meet you.


Now the average person might look upon this conversation and think we’re idiots because Tegan and Sara are lesbians, so what could we possible hope to accomplish by hitting on them? First of all, I would like to point out an even greater hurdle to overcome; we don’t know them. Thinking you are just going to pick up a rock star is fairly unrealistic, don’t you think? Them being lesbians is irrelevant if we have never met, having said that, yes, them being lesbians does make this far away fantasy rather impossible. I am sure if I ever do meet the lovely Sara Quin I will probably just shower her with very flattering compliments and nothing more. The real problem here is I don’t know Tegan and Sara, and yet it feels like I do.

Sara is my kind of girl,
Tomboyish but girly.

The Quin sisters have an amazing ability to make their songs very personal and relatable. It would almost feel like they are are airing out the dirty laundry of their lives if not for their sense of poetry keeping details as general as possible. I often say when writing “less is more.” I used to write long winded music in reviews until I learned “less is more.” In poetry and song lyrics, it is almost always better to say general things without providing all the details. Let the audience fill in the blanks for themselves. Tegan and Sara are exceptionally good at this.

As time went on, I couldn’t get Sara Quin out of my head, and I know the exact moment she stormed her way into my heart. Tegan and Sara were doing an interview on Q-Radio for their 2009 album Sainthood, when Sara had a little speech about relationships. She explained how we, as a society, put too much emphasize on relationships in our lives. Society treats people like they have failed in life if you fail in your romantic life, when really one’s life is composed of so much more than just romance. There are our careers, our spiritual well being, our friendships, families, and creative satisfaction that also fill up our lives. Sara Quin went on to explain that she was starting to think she wasn’t made out for romance and love, it just didn’t suit her, and maybe she was destined to be happy alone, but that wasn’t a sad thing, or a failure in any way. She was just a strange animal too unique to truly be compatible with any other person.

Tegan and Sara on QTV talking about Sainthood:

These were sentiments I had been saying to myself for some time, and I could not help but feel a kinship with Sara. I too had failed in love, and I had begun to refuse to believe that made me a failure in life. I had come to realize I was a strange animal too unique for any ordinary person to appreciate. We were alike insofar that both of us had found the strength within to see past society’s silly expectations. It only takes one soul to be one’s self.

In that moment, Sara Quin strung all my heart strings and I knew immediately I loved her. I am twenty-eight years of age and I know full well how foolish my feelings are. This was the first time in my life I had formed a crush on someone I had never met face to face. It was the first time for me that a relationship of fan and artist has grown in this manner. I respect and admire many musicians, some of them lovely women, but never has this admiration grown to something so emotional.

I don’t know Sara Quin, I could be projecting my feelings upon her, I could be reading between the lines of her songs, and her interviews searching for hints to suggest we share more in common than we really do. Was I being unreasonable to think I found someone who was a kindred spirit? Had Sara Quin succeeded so brilliantly in expressing herself she had reached every corner of my iron heart?

Sara is bueatiful and
utterly unobtainable,
the perfect woman.

Then I remember just how productive and strong I was when I was in love with my favourite girl in the whole world. I recalled all the little things I used to do to impress her even when she was not present, or even when I knew she would not care, and I liked what I was then. So I thought for a while and I realized that I am no fool, at least not so foolish to contrive unrealistic expectations of what might be. There is a great distance between fan and artist that is not easily breached, preventing me from ever even trying something foolish. Then I thought what am I fighting against here? Sara’s smiling face always seems to make me smile. Her sentimental tunes brightened my days. Is it foolish to admire someone? As dark and lonely as I have become, it is nice to take a moment and remind myself, that yes; I can love.

Sara Quin sometimes tries to tell a story about her first time falling in love. I say she tries to tell the story as she is often interrupted by her sister Tegan, but I believe I was able to piece together the point of her story. She was in love with someone who was not a lesbian; it was an impossible love, an unrequited love. This event in her youth set a standard she has found difficult to escape. Sara often talks about unrequited love and how it is addictive, well, she’s right, believe me I know, at first I thought it was unlike me to let myself get carried away by a lesbian rock star, but the more I think about the more it completely suits me.

The Quin sisters are very talented, amazing, beautiful people. I do not like them, for that is too mild an emotion, I love them. I love Sara Quin.


Keep on rocking in the free world.

- Colin Kelly