I’ve been completely bowled over by the Eversons EP today. I watched them last night, and I was impressed that, for a band that rules sonically, the stories still come through clearly, thanks to great use of space, and clear, direct lyrics. I feel like I’ve been waiting for local music like this.

In particular, I’ve been trying to work out what it is I like about ‘I’m a Conservative.’ I hope they don’t mind me linking to their bandcamp - and I hope if you like it you’ll buy the EP.

On first listen, it seems to follow a tradition of songs written from the bad guy’s perspective. Randy Newman is the master of this, singing songs from the perspective of warmongers, slave traders, and most famously (but probably least successfully - no one got it) people who hated short people. Don Maglashan does this a lot too - ‘A Thing Well Made’ is a classic example. The idea is often to empathise with the bad guy, and then condemn them with their own words.

But the narrator here is actually quite likeable - he’s just a respectable guy, as he says. He’s the guy who chose responsibility rather than an artistic dream. He works hard, and he gets things done, while his musician counterpart dreams and slacks off, and fails. Note the fitting undelivered rhyme on ‘good’ -

you couldn’t figure out school
but you still think that your smart
I majored in science, you sat through arts
you want to be a writer
but you’re not very good

If anything, this song starts to act as an apology for the conservative to a liberal audience. We probably know artistic types that sound like the one in this song (maybe we think of ourselves), and it’s easy to see why the conservative is a touch pissed.

The fact that the narrator notices all these things about our musician signals a touch of longing. You feel he would have loved to have gone on tour rather than have the kids. Where there’s jealousy, there’s something in common - and I feel these characters aren’t really that different from one another.

Which is why it seems a jarring end to the song when our ‘respectable guy’ wishes the hopeless musician a horrible death in the b section. It could have gone the other way. But this is an everyday tragedy that rings too true - the way that people from quite similar backgrounds can end up viciously divided by choices and politics.

The song could also be seen in another way - both characters are dimensions of the same person. Most artistic types I know have some sensible career growing on the side, and those that don’t have to endure the terror that they will live poor and alone and a failure (guess which camp I’m in). The liberal side hates the conservative side, but can’t seem to prove him wrong. As the conservative side grows, and a musician becomes a lawyer or a scientist, the conservative side of the brain is filled with longing for what could have been.

Any way you read it, it’s a striking and poignant song that struck an insecurity or three with me, which is just what I like to hear!