No. 26: Tegan And Sara Put Their Heads Together

noah | December 13, 2007 12:00 pm
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And the song at No. 26 turns idle noodling on a piano into a frustrated depiction of love gone cold.

I was lukewarm on Tegan and Sara in the earliest stages of their career, but 2004’s So Jealous–which included the Jack White-beloved “Walking With A Ghost,” and the Veronica Mars-enshrined “I Know I Know I Know”–changed my mind, as it did for probably thousands of other indie kids thanks to its New Pornographers connection. The Con, which came out back in July, is even better, a smart, spiky album full of glimmering pop. After all these months, I’m still stuck on “Back In Your Head,” with its half-pleading, half-apologetic lyrics about a romance that’s lost its fire. The urgency of the song isn’t revealed as much by the lyrics as it is by the deceptively simple keyboard line that frames each cry of “I just want back in your he-eead“: In that context, those eight descending notes that, when played alone, would sound like someone fiddling around on a piano become a last-ditch attempt to defibrillate a flatlined love.

Tegan & Sara – Back In Your Head [YouTube] Tegan & Sara [MySpace] Idolator’s 2007 Top 40 List Of Awesomeness