1. Trailer Trash

February 1st, 2008 · No Comments

Song: “Trailer Trash”
Artist: Modest Mouse
Album: The Lonesome Crowded West
Year: 1997
Length: 5:49
Label: Up Records
Rating: 8.9 (out of 10 on Pitchfork)

Lonesome Crowded West came at me like a shot to the head back in 2001, the year of my oft described renaissance-like discovery of indie-rock music. I owned The Moon and Antarctica - it was one of the first albums I bought in the spring of that year, following the Neutral Milk Hotel-led awakening, but under the crush of new albums I’d purchased around that time, the Modest Mouse offering fell initially through the cracks. In fact, I don’t think I ever listened to the entirety of the nearly 60 minute recording, enjoying the opening “3rd Planet” and the blistering eighth track “Alone Down There”, but finding the in-between songs not particularly appealing and stopping after of the 9-minute epic “The Stars are Projectors.” It wasn’t until later that summer when I was busy downloading tracks off the Internet for the first time that I stumbled upon Modest Mouse’s “Birds vs. Worms,” their first ever single, recorded back in 1994, and fell in love with the simplicity and excellence of the 2-minute masterpiece. That’s when I remembered that hey - I had an album at my home of this so-called “Modest Mouse” band and maybe I should give it another spin… this time I made it all the way through The Moon and Antarctica and found “Paper Thin Walls” and “Lives” on the latter half of the album - wonderful tracks that I’d never heard before - and realized, finally, that maybe this Modest Mouse band was something special. I eventually bought both Lonesome Crowded West and This is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About later that summer and Modest Mouse went on to become my favorite artist of 2001 and my 3rd favorite band of all-time. And for the next three years as I listened to and loved everything the Issaquah, WA, natives represented, all my friends relentlessly made fun of my interest in “Mighty Mouse”, this band they’d never heard of. When “Float On” elevated the Mouse to major recording status in 2004 and every high schooler in the country began to recognize Isaac Brock’s spastic yelps, I didn’t hear any mea culpas from my friends, but I was satisfied nonetheless. I may have been late to the Modest Mouse party, but it didn’t take me too long to fall in love.

The Lonesome Crowded West was a cult favorite for the band after its release and is now considered a defining record of the late ’90s. From Pitchfork’s initial review, without hindsight…

Thematic glue binds the musical sprawl, with stream- of- conciousness lyrics touching on the familiar Mouse topics of suburban decay, the lonely road, confusion and dislocation. Frontman Isaac Brock’s lyrics are like a glass table at an SNL cast party, with finely-chopped lines pointing in all directions: “My brain’s a cliff/ and my heart’s the bitter buffalo” (”Heart Cooks Brain”); “I’m drowning upside down/ my feet afloat like Christ’s” (”Styrofoam Boots”). When a band’s oldest member is twenty-three, the active word is usually “potential.” Modest Mouse, however, have arrived.

But what of the song itself? “Trailer Trash” beat out a cast of thousands to take over the #1 slot on my all-time list, both this time and the last time I did a similar list a couple years ago. It is the centerpiece of the album, the quietly beautiful ballad in the midst of all the caterwauling destruction surrounding the song. The lyrics are, at best, a little cheesy, and a little too rhyme-happy, the story of, well, people who might be referred to as “trailer trash.” Brock delivers the lines with such profound earnestness that it’s tough not to be affected by the sad tragedy of the people in question, especially on the repeated second verse. The music swells and builds and Brock’s voice perfectly captures the essence of a moment in time and a majestic beauty in dirt.

And that’s all well and good, but what makes this my favorite song of all-time doesn’t appear until three and a half minutes into the song, when Isaac’s singing fades away and this slowly building melody explodes into a cacophony of guitars and drums and rhythmic jamming that marks the very best of Modest Mouse’s work, and this is the very best music they’ve ever made. Before 2001, and before this song, I mostly loved songs with actual singing, valuing lyrical brilliance and melodies more than anything (hence, the presence of all The Smiths songs on this list). But as you can see from the appearance of several songs in my top 10 that are either entirely or partially instrumental masterpieces (”Mogwai Fear Satan”, “Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven”, Modest Mouse’s other track “Whenever You See Fit”), my musical interest has changed dramatically since the time when I first fell for the Mouse and first realized all the beauty that could be contained without a single spoken word by simply listening to the last two minutes of “Trailer Trash.” I really don’t think there is another two minutes of music that can ever be made to top it. That’s why it’s the #1 song of all-time. Thanks for reading the entire list.

#1 Favorite Song of All-Time

Eating snow flakes with plastic forks
And a paper plate of course, you think of everything
Short love with a long divorce
And a couple of kids of course
They don’t mean anything
Live in trailers with no class
Goddamn I hope I can pass, high school means nothing
Taking heartache with hard work
Goddamn I am such a jerk, I can’t do anything

And I shout that you’re all fakes
And you should have seen the look on your face
And I guess that’s what it takes
When comparing your bellyaches
And it’s been a long time
Which agrees with this watch of mine
And I guess that I miss you,
And I’m sorry if I dissed you

Modest Mouse perform “Trailer Trash” at the Southgate House in Newport, Kentucky, on October 6th, 2001..

Source: 1. Trailer Trash