A Year of Blind Spots: Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone?

Joe is working through a list of albums that he considers "blind spots," i.e. albums that he's never heard but feels like he should.

Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone?

Harvey Danger

1997

I generally don't have much to add to the general public understanding of music in this column. These blog posts are more designed to filter what I've learned through my week with a particular album and disseminate that learned information to a hypothetical readership who might be interested in what I've learned (either to learn something themselves or to confirm that I've been educated correctly about an album that they already know and love).

I would typically write about the ubiquity of "Flagpole Sitta," how it was freak hit in the mid-'90s and remains important today due to its catchiness and its political themes remaining evergreen and also, yeah, sure, nostalgia for a time when rock music like this even had a fucking opportunity to worm its way into young minds permanently via radio in the family minivan. Next step is to tell you about the deep cuts surrounding that perennial hit, how there are some songs that do manage to capture the manic energy of the hit ("Private Helicopter" is a good one), and some song that miss the mark (the last two songs, but possibly only because I've unfairly pegged Harvey Danger as a band that plays good music at a good tempo, and slow songs aren't what I've been made accustomed to). Then we can say "overall, good album," and leave it there.

But I want to add to the music criticism canon today. It's so rare that I get to do it in aYoBS that I might as well just make this the thesis statement, even though it really doesn't add too much to one's understanding of the excellent Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone?, neither making it better or worse. Here's my unique thought: I think that Harvey Danger frontman Sean Nelson sounds like Colin Meloy.

Maybe you need to squint to hear it, or maybe I only hear it because I've listened to the Decemberists 10,000x more than Harvey Danger. But it's there, and I can't undo this revelation after coming to it. It's not a bad thing, for the record. I don't know if it's a good thing, either. Meloy has a unique diction and Nelson matches it. It's almost a distraction but not quite. I know that they are separate people, Nelson and Meloy, but I can't help but begin to formulate bunk urban legends anyway. Something along the lines of "Sean Nelson and Colin Meloy are the same person." It might work.

Tarkio is Meloy's pre-Decemberists band (listen to the compilation Omnibus if you wanna check them out). They existed from 1996 to 1999. "Flagpole Sitta" was 1995. You can easily make the argument that Meloy was burnt out from the surprise success of Harvey Danger's big single that he retreated back to University of Montana to complete their graduate writing program and make some folk rock music, installing Sean Nelson as a Paul-Is-Dead-style replacement. And then finding surprise success again in the indie world with the Decemberists, and so on and so on.

This is all dumb, I'm sorry. I guess I'm attempting to poke fun at these sort of dumbass fan theories. If you took this seriously, all you had to do would be to point out the existence of the 2006 self-titled album from the Minus 5 (somewhat of an R.E.M. spin-off), which featured both Nelson and Meloy in supporting roles. Though what if that was all part of the plan...?

I'm doing it again. I'm spinning yarn because I listened to a really good album that I don't have much to say about beyond "hey, how about that big single, huh?"