Courtney Barnett- Sometimes I Just Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit

I first encountered Courtney Barnett in her song “Elevator Operator,” and was very impressed. This is the kind of songwriting I love, that uses little details to create an image of a situation and/or a person. “Oliver Paul, twenty years old/ thick head of hair worries he’s going bald.” Thanks to that little detail, we already have an image of this anxious young person, and that’s what good writing should do. Otherwise the images are too vague, and the emotional impact is less of a punch and more of a push. Now there might be a time and a place for broad strokes, but in general I find well selected details to be far more impactful.

Take as another example the description of a woman later on in the song: “Her heels are high and her bag is snakeskin/ hair pulled so tight you can see her skeleton.” Again we have an explicit image of a woman, so that when the man and she interact it feels more real. They meet on an elevator, and the woman thinks Oliver is going to jump off the top of the building, and she tries to convince him otherwise by saying “I’d give anything to have skin like you.” Which given the other information we’ve gotten is par for the course.

Barnett is really good at these story songs, even if they are less stories and more individual scenes. This is one of the benefits of well selected details. Take “Aqua Profunda!” which is about Barnett seeing a pretty girl at the pool. “I had goggles on/ They were getting foggy.” The double meaning of the girl being so hot she’s fogging up her goggles, and the goggles fogging up just because that’s what happens to goggles at the pool, is just so clever it needs to be appreciated. In the end we get a scene of a failed attempt to impress someone, which is a very human experience, meaning we get something that art is very good at delivering: empathy.

That’s not to say that Barnett is perfect. She’s good, very good. But she has a tendency to be a little fast and loose with the amount of words per line, leading to a rushed and rough effect. If you don’t mind that, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t, this won’t be a problem, but for me it’s just a little annoying, probably because the rest of her lyrics are just so polished.

3/5 If you like good lyrics, check this out, but I’m not going to be evangelizing about this album. Maybe pick a song at random off this album, listen to it, and if you like what you hear keep going. Odds are you pick a good one and will only run across the less good songs later on.