I rarely get so excited about an artist or album that I pre-order it. In fact, until the release of “The Forgotten Arm” I had never seen the point. “Just go out to the store and buy it” - whatever. I wanted this cd on my doorstep the day that it came out, and they promised it would be. And so it was.
Aimee Mann is, hands down, an amazing artist. She has come so far from what was known as ‘Til Tuesday (you may remember their song “Voices Carry”). Her lyrics and music have both evolved into intellectual marvels. Something she, with a laugh, curses Elvis Costello for, who took her under his wing.
Mann’s latest album “The Forgotten Arm” is a concept album. If you are not familiar with the term, it is just as it sounds. Usually the entire album would paint a picture, tell a story. All of the songs go hand-in-hand. It’s one of those albums where each song relies on the next to continue the tale. At the same time, though, the album holds up beautifully by itself. I could listen to three songs in particular at any given time in my life. Since I pre-ordered the album, I received a “story book” with it. Laid out like a children’s book, it displays the lyrics on every other page and a drawing depicting what is going on.
The story is about a doomed relationship. A couple. The man is a boxer, which is where the album title derives from. Two people who just can’t seem to make it work but just keep trying and trying. They only seem to be together to make each other happier, and yet seem to continue to make each other more miserable. Each pleading with the other or themselves. Apologetic. Pathetic. Human. You ride the entire length of their story - from when they meet until the end.
This album is raw. The lyrics are simple, and yet, complex. A lot of the choruses are one-liners that leave a huge impact - and even if they don’t, she repeats it enough to get her point across (but no more than that). Examples including: “Baby there’s something wrong with me - that I can’t see”, “You’re just going through the motions, baby.” and “That’s how I knew this story would break my heart - when you wrote it.” The song “Little Bombs” leaves one of the most artistic impressions on the listener with it’s depressing motion slowly moving you towards nothing, and depicting the view of trees in the distance from a hotel window - paralleling them with bombs and the way “life just kind of empties out, less a deluge than a drought, less a giant mushroom cloud than an unexploded shell; inside a cell of the Lennox Hotel.”
The songs flip-flop perspective. On one song she will be singing as the guy and the next she may be singing as the girl.
The music parallels the lyrics. There is a lot of variety in the sound of the songs. They don’t all sound the same (like R. Kelly’s latest endeavor). Some songs are more upbeat and contain drums, electric guitar solos, etc., while others only contain Aimee’s voice, a piano, and slight background ambience.
One of my favorite songs on the album is “Video”. Opening with piano that makes you yearn for the first line: “Tell me why I feel so bad, honey.” It is the most obvious song about the two characters, and at the same time it is the easiest song to relate to. In the chorus, the character is pleading “tell me ‘Baby, baby, I love you. It’s non-stop memories of you. It’s like a video of you playing. (It’s all loops of seven-hour kisses, cut with a couple near-misses). Back to the scene of the actor saying: tell me baby, baby - why do I feel so bad?’” Everyone wants to be a part of a movie, and this description of the relationship really hits home. The desperation described in the lyrics and the need for acceptance plainly lays out the nature of this relationship.
Then you come to “That’s How I Knew This Story Would Break My Heart”, which is the girl’s ballad to the end of the relationship. She’s looking at him - painting him - and realizing everything that is wrong with the picture. The inevitable break-up because he couldn’t be “tamed” and could not change from the boxer he was inside. To “I Can’t Help You Anymore” in which the character is trying to describe what is wrong and why it really will not work: “I’ll get a pen and make a list, and give you my analysis; but I can’t write this story with a happy ending. Was I the bullet or the gun? - or just a target drawn upon a wall that you decided wasn’t worth defending?” She blames herself saying “baby, look what I have done - the ruins just go on and on. I’ve got to let it go now, or it will drag me under.” The second-to-last song on the album “I Was Thinking I Could Clean Up For Christmas” is a song of realization for the boxer. He realizes that he needs to make something happen. He makes the excuse that “I can’t live loaded and I can’t live sober”. He apologizes for his mistakes.
Then “Beautiful” comes on. The song heralding the so-called happy-ending. They are together and happy, but he is still the same as he always was. “’Baby, it’s scary when it’s so beautiful. Why does it hurt me to feel so much tenderness? Beautiful - you little wonder, you.’ Maybe then I held your hand and kissed you. I know once I just hauled off and hit you. Because I can’t even stand it. Because I don’t want to end it.” but he still rectifies himself with the last line: “Beautiful - baby, I’m dazzled by the view. Beautiful… you don’t need to tell me, I’m completely powerless. Beautiful - I wish you could see it too. I wish you could see it too - baby, how I see you.”
This album went straight to my heart. I don’t normally like concept albums because there is nothing to relate to. They usually are very specific. This one is not. Like I said earlier, each song holds up well on its own. You don’t have to hear the previous song to get what the current one is about (it is still safe for my iTunes shuffle). I knew when I heard Aimee was doing a concept album that it would be nothing short of amazing, and she did not let down at all. It’s hard to stay on the pedestal when you have built yourself so high, but Mann does it gracefully.
