Musically, the album fairly consistently follows a basic model. Nearly all ten songs are structured around a simply strummed acoustic guitar and a modest rhythm section that’s generally light on bass and sometimes amounts to little more than handclaps or tambourines.
Each song then has two or three unexpected embellishments. I’m generally not very strong at instrument identification so here are some of my best guesses: a synthetic horn from the closing credits of a 70’s sitcom ("I’m Not Talking"), a mermaid ringing a dinner triangle in the middle of the ocean ("Do Your Town Time"), a spaceship’s computer while it’s idling through a star field ("You Could Get Lost Out Here"), a harpsichord? ("There’s Money in New Wave"), a banjo being played in a cavern ("Strings"), Link’s ocarina ("Hostages"), a cartoon mouse playing an accordion ("Wasted English"), and a string quartet that’s starting to get a little drunk at a renaissance fair ("The Troubadour").
Each song then has two or three unexpected embellishments. I’m generally not very strong at instrument identification so here are some of my best guesses: a synthetic horn from the closing credits of a 70’s sitcom ("I’m Not Talking"), a mermaid ringing a dinner triangle in the middle of the ocean ("Do Your Town Time"), a spaceship’s computer while it’s idling through a star field ("You Could Get Lost Out Here"), a harpsichord? ("There’s Money in New Wave"), a banjo being played in a cavern ("Strings"), Link’s ocarina ("Hostages"), a cartoon mouse playing an accordion ("Wasted English"), and a string quartet that’s starting to get a little drunk at a renaissance fair ("The Troubadour").
The musical direction of the album sounds like Newman wrote a series of straightforward folk songs and then gathered an arsenal of instruments and synthesizers with which to invade them. The underlying songs, in their relatively humble simplicity, are repeatedly undercut with complications. Newman treads this path while simultaneously singing about the various parts of his own life that, while he seemingly wishes were effortless, are inevitably shot through with difficulties. Ideals constantly hedged and explained away.
The album begins with the self-referential "I'm Not Talking," a statement that, similar to "I'm sleeping," can never actually be true. Newman insists he won’t become confessional before immediately going on to sing another nine songs because it’s just not that easy to stay quiet. An escape from everyday life only presents the opportunity to go astray ("You Could Get Lost Out Here"). Trying to be creative only results in accidentally copying someone else ("Encyclopedia of Classic Takedowns") He “wants” to tell his daughter there’s money in making music, seemingly implying that he’s not so sure ("There’s Money in New Wave") You finally get what you want in life, and have no idea what to do with it ("Hostages").
It's not until the final song on the album, "They Should Have Shut Down the Streets," that we get some kind of answer as to why we’re hearing about all of this uncertainty and what the title of the album might really mean.
Newman describes the public reaction to a recent death. Foreign dignitaries attend a funeral. Schools and roads are closed and the streets are lined with people clutching their caps in their hands and fighting back tears. Newspaper headlines are plastered with tributes and the family of the deceased struggles to balance their desire for privacy with their appreciation of the, understandable, sentiment that everyone wishes to share in their grief. The final verse goes so far as to state that in the aftermath of the death, bouquets of flowers are piling up on the family’s doorstep while a second-grade teacher, seemingly at a loss for how to carry on with lessons per usual in the face of such insurmountable anguish, instructs her class to make crayon-drawings as odes to the departed.
It’s the type of scene that you really can’t imagine occurring after anyone’s death other than, perhaps, Queen Elizabeth. (I learned on a field trip to the Tower of London that it’s treason to speculate about the death of Her Majesty but as I am not one of Her Majesty’s subjects, I believe that I’m exempt.) It’s only presidents, royalty, and absurdly popular celebrities that demand that sort of attention upon their passing. However, there’s something cluing us in to the fact that none of the events in this song have actually happened: Newman’s repetition of the song’s title: “they should have shut down the streets.” He’s only added three words to the title of the album but this has completely changed its meaning: “they should have.”
In other words: “they didn’t.”
The reason they I didn’t, I presume, is because the song isn’t about the head-of-state of one of the world’s oldest monarchies, it’s about Newman’s mother who passed away in 2010. I am guessing that newspapers did not run headlines about that. Strangers did not clamor to share in his family’s grief. Second-grade children that had never met his mother did not make crayon drawings and pile them on her porch. They did not know and they did not care. You (probably) and I (definitely) did not know and did not care. Whichever day she died was, more likely than not, a normal day for everyone other than Mama Newman’s close family and friends. Nobody shut down the streets for her.
Thematically, what we’re looking at here is the difference between subjectivity and objectivity and that’s not just something that applies to the end game of life and death. There are infinite moments in our lives, ranging from significant to minute, that mean a great deal to us and nothing to anyone else. To turn this theme back to the context of the album, one of the most relatable examples might be music. Certain songs that carry negative or positive connotations for you could mean nothing to someone who has never heard them. The feeling that you have when someone starts loudly talking over one of your favorite songs is really just the feeling, in miniature, that A.C. Newman might have felt upon realizing that everyone on the streets was carrying on obliviously while he drove to bury his mother.
In that sense, going back to the title of the album, Shut Down the Streets could simply be read as “you should care about the thing I care about.” Of course there’s a certain degree of selfishness that comes with demanding that others value your subjective feelings as highly as you do. Obviously, we all feel like our loved ones are every bit as deserving of reverent treatment upon their deaths as royalty but in practice, it’s just not possible. There’s too many of us, and we’re all going to die. We can’t shut down the streets for everyone. I think Newman is probably aware of this and it forms the thematic backbone for the album. There’s an inherent conflict between naturally feeling like everyone should care about your subjective feelings and knowing that they don’t, and also knowing that, honestly, they shouldn’t, because you yourself don’t know or care about their subjective feelings.
It’s interesting to note that though this is a “solo” album for Newman, he’s eventually joined, without fail, by a choir of female backup singers (whom I presume are some combination of Neko Case and/or Kathryn Calder) on every song. Echoing, embellishing and accenting his every word. Maybe just a way of taking one man’s feelings and making it the many. Maybe there’s just not much you can do but accept that we can’t shut down the streets for everyone and make an album about it instead.
Newman describes the public reaction to a recent death. Foreign dignitaries attend a funeral. Schools and roads are closed and the streets are lined with people clutching their caps in their hands and fighting back tears. Newspaper headlines are plastered with tributes and the family of the deceased struggles to balance their desire for privacy with their appreciation of the, understandable, sentiment that everyone wishes to share in their grief. The final verse goes so far as to state that in the aftermath of the death, bouquets of flowers are piling up on the family’s doorstep while a second-grade teacher, seemingly at a loss for how to carry on with lessons per usual in the face of such insurmountable anguish, instructs her class to make crayon-drawings as odes to the departed.
It’s the type of scene that you really can’t imagine occurring after anyone’s death other than, perhaps, Queen Elizabeth. (I learned on a field trip to the Tower of London that it’s treason to speculate about the death of Her Majesty but as I am not one of Her Majesty’s subjects, I believe that I’m exempt.) It’s only presidents, royalty, and absurdly popular celebrities that demand that sort of attention upon their passing. However, there’s something cluing us in to the fact that none of the events in this song have actually happened: Newman’s repetition of the song’s title: “they should have shut down the streets.” He’s only added three words to the title of the album but this has completely changed its meaning: “they should have.”
In other words: “they didn’t.”
The reason they I didn’t, I presume, is because the song isn’t about the head-of-state of one of the world’s oldest monarchies, it’s about Newman’s mother who passed away in 2010. I am guessing that newspapers did not run headlines about that. Strangers did not clamor to share in his family’s grief. Second-grade children that had never met his mother did not make crayon drawings and pile them on her porch. They did not know and they did not care. You (probably) and I (definitely) did not know and did not care. Whichever day she died was, more likely than not, a normal day for everyone other than Mama Newman’s close family and friends. Nobody shut down the streets for her.
Thematically, what we’re looking at here is the difference between subjectivity and objectivity and that’s not just something that applies to the end game of life and death. There are infinite moments in our lives, ranging from significant to minute, that mean a great deal to us and nothing to anyone else. To turn this theme back to the context of the album, one of the most relatable examples might be music. Certain songs that carry negative or positive connotations for you could mean nothing to someone who has never heard them. The feeling that you have when someone starts loudly talking over one of your favorite songs is really just the feeling, in miniature, that A.C. Newman might have felt upon realizing that everyone on the streets was carrying on obliviously while he drove to bury his mother.
In that sense, going back to the title of the album, Shut Down the Streets could simply be read as “you should care about the thing I care about.” Of course there’s a certain degree of selfishness that comes with demanding that others value your subjective feelings as highly as you do. Obviously, we all feel like our loved ones are every bit as deserving of reverent treatment upon their deaths as royalty but in practice, it’s just not possible. There’s too many of us, and we’re all going to die. We can’t shut down the streets for everyone. I think Newman is probably aware of this and it forms the thematic backbone for the album. There’s an inherent conflict between naturally feeling like everyone should care about your subjective feelings and knowing that they don’t, and also knowing that, honestly, they shouldn’t, because you yourself don’t know or care about their subjective feelings.
It’s interesting to note that though this is a “solo” album for Newman, he’s eventually joined, without fail, by a choir of female backup singers (whom I presume are some combination of Neko Case and/or Kathryn Calder) on every song. Echoing, embellishing and accenting his every word. Maybe just a way of taking one man’s feelings and making it the many. Maybe there’s just not much you can do but accept that we can’t shut down the streets for everyone and make an album about it instead.
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