“Mine’s Not a High Horse” by The Shins, Sunday, May 1, 2022

You could say that The Shins were served their fame on a silver platter. The Albuquerque, New Mexico-based band released their first album, Oh Inverted World, in 2001 on a label that was shifting from producing Grunge to lo-fi-styled Indie Rock, Sub Pop Records, a label that was famous for bringing the world Nirvana. The Shins’ first record sold modestly, and in 2003, they released their follow up, Chutes Too Narrow. However, a year later, the band blew up when their music was featured in Garden State, an indie film that instantly became a cult classic. When Sam (played by Natalie Portman) tells Andrew (Zach Braff), “You got gotta hear this one song [by The Shins]. It will change your life,” The Shins’ career was off to a great start. 

THEY OUGHT TO DROWN HIM IN HOLY WATER. This explosion in success split the band’s promotion for their sophomore album as many new fans came to the band because of the two songs from Oh Inverted World featured in Garden State. Unlike the band’s first record that mostly featured songs written and preformed by the band’s frontman and founder James Mercer, Chutes Too Narrow features a full band, though still highly managed by Mercer. The driving acoustic guitar followed by the brush-sticked drums and an often pounding bass line with a stray electric guitar flavoring the mix helped to become a rubric for Indie Rock in the early 2000s. The band’s first three albums helped to pave their status as legendary in the Indie Rock scene. Wincing At Midnight was their highest charting album, peaking at Number 2 on the Billboard Hot 200. However, after Wincing, Mercer dropped the band line up as an “aesthetic decision," releasing several albums afterwards. With many songs on Chutes Too Narrow about relationships there's speculation that Mercer isn't easy to get along with.

ONE FINGER PARALLEL TO THE SKY. Even though Chutes Too Narrow was released in 2003, I didn't start listening to the band until junior year of college, the year I had one of my biggest shifts in musical styles. The Shins was the cool band during an explosion of Indie and Alternative. The acoustic rock focus of the band was both familiar and novel. Mercer’s vocals were high like the popular rock/emo bands of the time. But his voice was common enough and the band was simple enough to make hipster college students feel like they could create a band that could tour with them. Mercer’s “whining into the microphone” sounded like the guys singing in the dorm showers. I think what really sealed the deal for this album for me, though, was that simple style of rhythmic music with Mercer’s sarcastic lyrics strung throughout the album. Using clichés throughout the songs but inverting them slightly, “When your high horse died” and evoking religious imagery “drown him in Holy Water” without taking the song, to what I thought, to a blasphemous level. To summarize my feelings about the mood this album gave me I would say “I’m right. You’re wrong. I’m more eloquent than you, but rather than getting into a conflict with you, I’d rather complain about you to my friends.” Oh yeah, and at least I don’t need a high horse to compensate for something.

 Read the lyrics on Genius.