In which we anticipate the Pains of Being Pure at Heart's set Sat, July 25th at the Capitol Hill Block Party by appreciating their self-titled Slumberland Records debut one song at a time in order of album sequencing (with perhaps some discussion of b-sides/pre-album cuts come Saturday). Previously here.

Track #2: "Come Saturday"

The second song on The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, "Come Saturday" was the first one I really fell in love with. (The first one I listened to, fwiw, was "This Love is Fucking Right," which I skipped to first because I was taken in by the profanity.) I've written here before about "Come Saturday," specifically about how impossibly romantic I found the lyrics of its chorus: "Come Saturday/you'll come to stay/you'll come to sway in my arms/who cares if there's a party somewhere?/we're going to stay in." Of course, this is typical twee indie-pop love—an affection so consuming that you just have to skip the party, stay in, and have bed-head all day (when indie-pop isn't rejecting romance from a perspective of permanent childhood, it's at least still endorsing an anti-social, introverted version of it). Anyway, the song rouses the album from fainting opening track "Contender" with another peal of feedback and a snare roll like a machine gun burst. The guitars are so fuzzy and gauzy and enveloping of the stereo field as to be almost difficult to make out; they're everywhere, bleeding over everything, but they're somehow hard to pin down. Meanwhile, the bass is bouncing, the tempo of the whole thing is ideal for polite pogoing, and keyboardist Peggy Wang chimes in before the first verse with some echoing "ooh-ooh-ooh"s. The lyrics are all about the joy of reuniting with a lover gone long distance, and the song is every bit as ebullient as such a scenario suggests. The bridge, which lands at minute 2:21 of this nicely concise 3:17 number and which is announced with asweetly toned but and endearingly under-achieving little guitar riff, has singer/guitarist Kip Berman just almost raising his voice from a whisper to an encouraging whine. The whole thing runs on at full, reckless speed for another half minute or so, drums tumbling over themselves, guitars lit up, "oohs" oohing, before fading back into feedback. Staying in bed never sounded better.