Precisely Crafted
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart - Wilco (Blast from the Past Tuesday)
To me, Wilco is one of those bands that I’ve always been around. I’ve definitely seen their album covers on cds we have at home, and I know for a fact I’ve heard a good amount of their music. I came upon them again by chance — when looking for new music to listen to, I clicked on an album whose cover looked familiar just to see what it sounded like. That album was none other than Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” had me hooked from the very beginning.
This song in particular has a weird, spacey feel to it that’s not un-similar to what Apples in Stereo invoke on their album Fun Trick Noisemaker. I also got reminded of Death Cab for Cutie & Plans when listening further — and as you may know from my previous reviews, that remains one of my top albums of all time. I guess you could say it kind of felt like fate, finding this middle sibling that stood between Fun Trick Noisemaker and Plans, completing a trio I never even knew I needed to complete. If we’re going off stereotypes, I would say “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” does match that middle child category — it sings of a man feeling neglected, isolating himself yet still feeling forgotten. The vocals are absolutely perfect here, muttered with a sneer that makes the journal entry-esque lyrics stick out. We’ve got plenty of strange instruments adding to a pretty mellow mix — a triangle, synths, piano — it creates a surreal drone that continues throughout, the type that swims around your headphones in a really nice way.
“I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” is a cool-blue song that hurts a little but is so beautiful you can’t help but listen again and again. I think it’s a terrific track to start an album off with, proving to be powerful yet soft in one of the most masterful ways I’ve seen. It curses itself out with metaphors that are precisely crafted to do exactly what the title promises, then reassures you with one of the most alluring instrumentals ever created — and THAT is exactly why “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” is so darn great!
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