Let's Pretend

Cathy Davey- Clean and Neat

(copy and paste from the properties, but you knew that already.)

I suffered through this atrocity looking for lyrics to Cathy Davey's "Clean and Neat," but no luck. Not having a copy of the lyrics to read along to feels annoyingly incomplete, but I'll make do with the disclaimer that it's given me the chance to make my interpretation even more cross-eyed and solipsistic than usual.

The song opens with a line of percussion that sounds like someone stomping up a flight of stairs in flappy sandals, like an indignant entrance. But I like Davey most for her sweet encapsulation of a day's anxieties and petty little disppointments, and for her voice, which crashes through into willful exhilaration in spite of all that, as if she's jumping up and down during the song's coda, plugging her ears, shouting " la la la la la la la", wearing a sparkly tiara and cleats. There's almost a spiteful joy to the sound, in the airy, uncomplicated satisfaction of the undefeated. I suppose that's part of the title's irony; taking a problem, that's really just the problem of living, and wrapping it in under three minutes of tidy, nearly perfect pop that just barely fails to convince you she's got it all solved.

It's the kind of melody you could never dance to, but you'd be compelled to try, only to have your movements dissolve into happy, formless bouncing. That's its charm really.