I remember 2001; great summer with friends, driving 200 miles to see the shins play in a smaller venue with about 80 or so other listeners. They were great back than and still are! The way Jame’s voice and lyrics dance over the guitar and rhythm is consistently pleasant.
More like how does he consistently write such excellent melodies? I am amazed and want to quit at the same time. Same reaction when I listen to Raymond Hubbell's melodies.
There used to be an acoustic version, I believe it was with another guitarist alongside Mercer, both on Acoustics (and even an acoustic bass? dunno), but anyways it was named "The Shins Phantom Limb Acoustic Radio 101.7" (not sure about the Radio Number, mit as well be 101, 107, or 107,1, something along these lines) Anyone remember it? Can't find it for the life of me.. it was superb to all the versions!
I think this and most of his other songs are so musically strong and have such structural integrity, that they can endure being arranged for / transformed by / covered by a wide variety of different type musical ensembles. In this regard, I think he comes closest to all of a vintage pop songwriter or at least a musical sensibility and quality level of an earlier day, even while not sounding dated. That is a rare feat indeed.
Shnooter I'm aware of that. But I can tell you that if you come to the point where you can sing and play simultaniously this shouldn't be a difficult song to play.
@@19TheJohn93 Having learned this song and New Slang for guitar and uke, I feel qualified to weigh in... The chords that comprise both songs are very easy, but it's the unique way they're cobbled together that sometimes seems disorienting/counterintuitive. In New Slang, the last chords of each verse (F, Am, G) are alternatingly given different treatments: the first time through, F is sustained/plays longer. You can verify by the pause in the vocals ("only I don't know how[F]..... they got out[Am], dear[G]"). The next time through, before the chorus, F rushes to the Am ("I was happier then[F] with no mind[Am]set[G]"), at which point we linger on the G unlike the previous cycle. Couple this structural oddity with the very unique approach they seem to have towards melody, and the act of playing this song while simultaneously singing it has an obviously steeper leaning curve than, say, Dylan. As for Phantom Limb, again, the chords employed are dead-simple: (offhand) A, D, E, G, F#m, and F#. For this song what throws me off-balance is harder for me to nail down, but I think, as with New Slang, the trajectory of the melody seems very elusive. Not being able to instinctively guess my next vocal note based upon the chord I'm currently playing essentially requires that I learn two songs (the guitar chords and the melody) and then learn how to stack those layers together before I can produce the desired output. I like to think I'm an intermediate/moderately advanced "performer" despite that I've only played at home for twenty years, but my approach to learning a song is likely vastly different from yours or even the next person who comes along and reads this. Not everybody's minds grasp things at the same speed or even in the same way. Even when two people both "get" something, they likely have very different understandings of it. Also, everyone who plays an instrument is always at a different level of progress from your own, be it more advanced or less so. That's particularly why I feel it's unfair of you to read about one persons struggles with performance (however slight) and come in with what amounts to braggadocio and nothing constructive to add. It's like: why did you type a reply in the first place?
Don't give up- learn more, practice more and try harder. And do what you love. If I had given up, I never would have written my compositions. Playing the best of them, I'm happy I didn't give up 20 years ago. Sometimes you are just a year or two from a major breakthrough. I also have major quality control. In writing one of my rags, I had two themes I thought were pretty good. I ended up throwing out them BOTH and wrote three new ones which are better! The only thing that survived was the title and dedication. You need to be really self critical amd be able to spot everything that bothers you about your own music, so you can fix it. One of my other rags waited 15 years to be finished, since it took me that long to find/figure out ONE CHORD that I needed for part of it!!! It would be like two hours of banging out every chord I could think of to fill the gap, and modifying them, but it never being quite right, until finally eventually it fell into place.
Also I think Mr Mercer has stated in interviews that he usually composes the music first, and then comes up with lyrics second. It is to his credit that the lyrics are so thought-provoking. At first they seem random and nonsensical, but then once they are carefully analyzed, various layers of meaning start to be revealed. Finally, in interviews, once 'what the song is [originally] about' is revealed, then other things can fall into place, but it is also good that the lyrics are vague enough that people can create their own meanings.
