33. Maps - The Yeah Yeah Yeahs

I’ve written before about my distaste for your ‘traditional’ love songs.

I find them boring, naff, commercialised fluff trading on cheap emotions for easy listens.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t like any love songs. The good ones, the really great ones, have staked out a clear claim in my memory.

Not just by linking to some indelible event - sometimes it’s just because it’s a damned good song, filled with meaning and feeling.

And none more than the wonderful Maps by Yeah Yeah Yeahs.  

I have no idea when I first heard this one.

I suspect it was during my time in the call centre at an electricity retailer, where my musical (and life) education really took off.

But I must have listened to it hundreds and hundreds of times since.

It’s not a terribly complex song – vocals, guitar, drums, fewer than thirty words – but it’s utterly emotive.

Hearing Karen O’s voice – that muscularly feminine powerhouse of a voice – dance over such simple lines is to hear pure feeling in music.

That the lines are also a punch of romantic confusion make them even more powerful:

Oh say say say
Oh say say say

Wait

they don't love you like I love you

Wait

they don't love you like I love you

 And the way her voice swings and tilts over that iconic line:

Wait

they don't love you like I love you

As the song clips along is heartbreaking.

Her voice, starting from vulnerable to angry to wounded to confused to strength is like an iron bar wrapped in a pillowcase. Not a pillow, mind you – just the pillowcase.

It’s still gotta hurt when she swings that bar.

I love the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s anyway, and any fan implicitly acknowledges the majesty of her voice.

But Nick Zinner’s opening guitar line – jittery, sharp – pushes this song along the cliff. Teetering on the edge, like one extra note or flourish could tip it into the ridiculous, it tinkles along underneath That Voice.

Until the covers come off and he starts attacking the pickups with a brick, by the sound of it, assaulting the strings like they’re the ones that have hurt him.

And ever-present are those drums.

They kick in early, before Karen O strolls to the front of the stage. And they’re thumping, keeping solid time with a stare, challenging you to look away.

Personally, I can’t understand how any drummer can do what they do without a grimace on their face, akin to that of a marathon runner passing the mid-point of their race.

The physical and mental exertion required to have four limbs moving at different speeds would be enough – doing it for minutes at a time must be exhausting.

But in the clip for this song, you’ll notice that Brian’s face doesn’t really betray any of the effort going on.

And there must be some effort – he’s not keeping it simple. Remove that kick drum and this song crumbles in on itself.

It – like all of their best songs – is a triangular structure of vocals, guitars and percussion.

And of emotion, feeling and being.

There’s a backstory to the song and the film clip, around how Karen O’s boyfriend-at-the-time was hours late to filming, resulting in that tear rolling down her cheek.

Whether true or not, the reason that story’s resonated is because it’s so perfectly aligned with the tone of the song.

This song is about disappointment, about waiting for somebody you know is doing things they shouldn’t, with people they normally wouldn’t.

About longing for somebody not equally invested in what you thought you have, and about acknowledging that this thing that was, no longer is.

And the reason this is a love song – not a break-up song only – is because of how much pain comes from those realisations.

The height of the fall speaks to the depth of feeling.

It was love, and for her it still is.

For now, anyway.

This is the antithesis of corporate music drafted in committee and recorded by disinterested observers.

Meaning and emotion drip from every note, chord, riff, drum fill, cymbal tap and vocal quiver. And that meaning is clear:

To love is to be vulnerable; and sometimes that vulnerability means you’ll get hurt.

People will let you down, and you won’t always understand why.

That’s the quid pro quo of feeling anything – to see the great, you’ve got to prepare for the hurt.

Which sucks.

But damn, it leads to some great music.