SONGWRITING: Get a good rhythm, make sure the syllables scan, and then “pay attention to every aspect.”
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The Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner — 20-year-old genius frontman of the UK’s hottest band — sounds the way you’d expect him to sound on a cross-continental phoner on a late Monday afternoon, four days into the current leg of a tour (coming to Avalon for a sold-out show this Saturday) that started around Christmas — “a week off here, a few days there.” He’s friendly enough talking from Portland, Oregon, smart as you’d expect, drawling quietly in that soft South Yorkshire accent that everyone by now knows from Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not (Domino), charmingly swallowing his consonants, just as on the record, drifting off, yawning when he answers a question he’s been asked a thousand times before (“Indeed . . . absolutely”). But also giving off flashes of that wit — that presence of mind that allowed him to announce matter-of-factly during the band’s debut US television appearance on Saturday Night Live, mid song, pointing, as if it were part of the lyric, “That man just yawned.” Ah, live TV!So he yawns, mumbles into inaudibility, perks up. He’s been “a bit ill” today, didn’t have much of a chance to get into a songwriting groove, but part of the problem is “there’s no fuckin’ acoustic on this tour.” Some of us forget the sunblock when we pack, others the acoustic guitar. And he curses in an offhand, indifferent way. How old is he, exactly? What’s the date?
“Six of January.”
“January 6 of what?”
“No, sorry, fuckin’ ’ell, 1986, of course you need to know that.”
And I’m reminded of what an ex-girlfriend of his told the press: “He was a lovely lad.”
The Monkeys’ fractured mix of styles has been appealing from the start. Even given the headlong oomph of the hit “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor,” there’s no monolithic single sound but a slew of influences, changing from song to song, from verse to chorus, whatever the tune seems to demand, some big-beat Gang of Four, some Clash “London Calling” chords, a touch of ska, all reinforced by their flair for melody.
But the binding agent — the roux for this particular gumbo — is Turner’s lyrics, and “the way a line falls,” as Dylan once said of his own work. Love songs, yes, but no vague metaphors — scenes and characters, story songs with folk-lyric narratives and street-level detail, delivered with rock-and-roll kick. In Turner’s singing, the lyrics cross bar lines, verse, and chorus like one of his characters sauntering across the street or running away from the police: “Last night these two bouncers/And one of ’ems alright/The other one’s a scary ’un/His way or no way, totalitarian.” Or the observation of a hooker with her pimp (“Cause he’s a scumbag, don’t you know”), and her john (“Look here comes a Ford Mondeo/Isn’t he inconspicuous”), and she all glad to see him “because she must be fucking freezing/Scantily clad beneath the clear night sky.”
