“There Goes Our Love Again” by White Lies, Friday, April 15, 2022

The first single and second song from their third record "There Goes Our Love Again" sets White Lies firmly in synth-based post-punk. The Manchester-based band released Big TV in August of 2013. The lead single only charted in Belgium, where the album was produced, and the album's cover art was acclaimed by Pitchfork, which rated it as one of the best of 2013. But, if there's any consistent theme in my blog, I try to champion the underrated, and in my opinion, Big TV is truly one of the most underrated rock albums of the 2010s, and "There Goes Our Love Again" one of the most underrated pop-rock songs.

HOME IS A DESPERATE END. In The Guardian's review of Big TV, the critic talks about the concept of the album. The story tells of a young woman who has left her unfaithful boyfriend ("There Goes Our Love Again") to find happiness in running around in Europe. In a track-by-track audio commentary of the album in which the band talks about their inspiration for the tracks, one band member says that the song is "frantic in its energy and athletic in its demands live." The chorus builds each time, adding a layer of desperation as singer Harry McVeigh sings a little bit higher, but stays mostly within his baritone range, the synths flying high above McVeigh's vocals. The synths and guitar add to that "frantic energy" at the end of the song when McVeigh's vocals plead "But he said. . ." This vocal style reminded me of a tweet from @Manditorypal I saw earlier this week distinguishing the genres.

I remember seeing Anberlin live at Cornerstone and realizing that depending on where I stood at the concert determined my experience because of how the sound was mixed. Stephen Christian sings in a higher range, which sometimes competes with the guitars, which are also in the upper registers. McVeigh, though, is firmly a post-punk rocker, his vocals always somewhere above the bass and below the guitars and far below the synths.

'CAUSE I'M BROKEN AND BLIND. The final version for "There Goes Our Love Again" changed significantly from its demo version. The verses in the demo version vaguely follow the melody of the final version, but the lyrics changed significantly--the final version succinctly conveying the emotion of a relationship which has ended. In the album commentary, the band member talks about how the song was lyrically inspired by R.E.M.'s "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite," in that the lyrics of "There Goes Our Love Again" repeats as a "lyrical arrangement of words" rather than a traditional poetic approach. While the song is born out of the sadness and pain of a relationship that is built on a lie, the energy of the instrumentation leaves the listener with hope. The synth pulls us back in reflecting on the past, but the beat pulls us forward. The two elements in the song compete, shall we mourn the past or push forward? Whether it's a relationship or a past decision, that nostalgia vs. moving forward is what music is about and what life is about. It's that Charlie Brown/Never Take Friendship Personal thing that life is probably more downs than ups, but the ups kind of make it worth it. And the downs are mostly things that just kinda suck. Life is like the story I heard today on The Bad Christian Podcast: enduring a lengthy divorce process, being abused by the attorneys, but being able to stick it at them (spoiler alert: paying $5,000 in legal fees in cash--$1 increments to be exact). But that's enough ranting about life for one day. Seriously, though, check out this album if you haven't. And certainly listen to Daniel Dopp's divorce story.

Read “There Goes Our Love Again” by White Lies on Genius.

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