With the engineering and production help of Adam Lasus (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah/Yo La Tengo), Thom Monahan (devendra banhart/Lilys), Mark Alan Miller (J Mascis/Dar Williams) and Elisha Weisner (kahoots), Spouse has captured stunning recordings of their music over the years.
1999's '1 Marvel To DC' and 'Focus' were hits on college radio, making enough of a stir to have the song Superman featured on National Public Radio's 'This American Life'.
2000's Nozomi was met with much critical acclaim and was widely broadcast through heavy internet radio play.
2003's Love Can't Save This Love broke into the College Music Journal's Top 200 through February and March 2003. The album included a video for the over-the-top electro-dance song Boots & Pants.
A single for the song Catch 22 was released in February 2004, including their much loved cover of Til Tuesday's Voices Carry.
The summer of 2004 saw the arrival of Spouse's third full length, Are You Gonna Kiss Or Wave Goodbye?, and Spouse's first tour outside of the northeast, with Chicago-based Millimeters Mercury. Over the next two years, college and internet radio play continued to spread Spouse's music around the country or world, with the songs Are You Gonna Kiss Or Wave Goodbye? and Army Song receiving much attention. MTV also took notice of Spouse and licensed the entire album of Are You Gonna Kiss Or Wave Goodbye? for their popular shows, 'Laguna Beach' and 'The Hills'. During this time Spouse began touring frequently, including doing a tour opening for their friends, the pernice brothers.
From the summer of 2005 to 2006, Spouse wrote and recorded a large body of work in a turn-of-the-century farmhouse, formally owned by nina simone's manager as a recording studio for her. The outcome was Spouse's fourth full-length album, relocation tactics, which was mixed by Adam Lasus and Mark Alan Miller and was released on April 10th, 2007. In support of relocation tactics, Spouse went on their longest national tour to date, spanning more than five weeks and hitting many of the lower forty-eight states, including a fun show opening for friends Dinosaur Jr. at the Cashbah in San Diego. In the fall of 2007, Spouse cut a video for the song Hangover Cure For Humanity with MetroSpace Media in Chicago, which has a fast growing viewership on youtube.
official website: www.spousemusic.com
myspace: www.myspace.com/spouse
* Spouse members...
(••• indicates a frequent live performer, •• regular live performer or • occasional live performer)
José Ayerve ••• – founding member, co-writer: N, LCSTL, K/W?, RT (v, g, b, k, d)
Liz Bustamante • – since 1998, co-writer: N, LCSTL (k, d, v)
John Cowden – founding member, co-writer: N, LCSTL (d, b, g, v)
Alisha Goldblatt – founding member, co-writer: N, LCSTL, RT (d, b, g, v)
Naomi Hamby • – since 2000, co-writer: LCSTL, K/W?, RT (g, k, v)
Ken Maiuri •• – since 1998, co-writer: N, K/W?, RT (k, g, b, d, v)
Don McAulay •• – since 2004, co-writer: K/W?, RT (d)
Michael Merenda • – original member, co-writer: N, LCSTL, K/W?, RT (d, g, v)
JJ O’Connell ••• – since 2001, co-writer: K/W?, RT (d, v)
Kevin O’Rourke ••• – since 2004, performer: RT (b, g, v)
Daniel Pollard •• – original member, co-writer: N, LCSTL, K/W?, RT (b, g, k, d, v)
Mark Schwaber – since 2003, co-writer: RT (g, b, d, v)
(key: d = drums, b = bass, g = guitar, k = keys, v = vocals; albums: N = Nozomi, LCSTL = Love Can’t Save This Love, K/W? = Are You Gonna Kiss or Wave Goodbye?, RT = Relocation Tactics)
Producers / Engineers...
Adam Lasus – LCSTL, RT
Mark Alan Miller – N, LCSTL, K/W?, RT
Thom Monahan – N, LCSTL
John Truscinski – LCSTL
Elisha Wiesner – K/W?
Extended Family (past or occasional live or recording players/vocalists):
Bart D’Alauro, Nick Lamberto, Gabe McElwain, Erin McKeown, Ruth Ungar Merenda, John Nunan, Henning Ohlenbusch, Anne Pinkerton, Peyton Pinkerton, Philip Price, Flora Reed, Jeremy Smith, Robert Voyer, and many others...
Androgynous
Spouse Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
When no one's home you try to fix the things you left behind unbroken with a message 'till you realize they're gone
(Until you realize they're gone)
Crush plastic cans and don't forget to roll the cardboard that you left inside the bag beside the girl with everything you've ever wanted but you couldn't really own
And don't try to beat a stick when you can pull the trigger on an automatic, leave your message at the tone
And defile a believer on the other end of your receiver, let it ring as if there's no one home
(As if there's nobody at home)
Androgynous, monogamous, I think there's something wrong with us so help me get my feet off of the ground
Polygamous, mysterious, it's somethin' really serious so help me get my foot out of my mouth
The lyrics of Spouse's song "Androgynous" communicate a sense of chaos and confusion that the singer is feeling. The opening lines, "Distantly scream into the telephone that rings inside your head above your eye, temporal lobe," suggest that the singer is feeling a sense of disorientation, as if they're inside their own mind, and that they're trying to scream or communicate something to someone, perhaps themselves. The lines, "When no one's home you try to fix the things you left behind unbroken with a message 'till you realize they're gone / (Until you realize they're gone)" suggest that the singer is trying to fix something that has already passed, and that they're doing so with no one to help them.
The second verse continues with a series of disconnected and fragmented images, including "Crush plastic cans" and "defile a believer on the other end of your receiver." These lines have a stream-of-consciousness feel to them, and suggest that the singer is experiencing a kind of dissociation, as if they're not fully in control of their thoughts or behaviors. The chorus, with its repeated refrain of "Androgynous, monogamous," is similarly disconnected, and might suggest that the singer is grappling with issues of identity or acceptance.
Overall, the lyrics of "Androgynous" evoke a sense of emotional tumult and psychological unrest. While the specific meaning of the song is open to interpretation, it's clear that the singer is struggling with some kind of inner conflict, and that they're trying to find a way to make sense of their experience and connect with the world around them.
Line by Line Meaning
Distantly scream into the telephone that rings inside your head above you eye, temporal lobe
Yell into your own head as if it's a phone, trying to solve a problem in your brain's processing center.
When no one's home you try to fix the things you left behind unbroken with a message 'till you realize they're gone
Attempt to repair unharmed issues from your past by leaving messages, only to realize it's too late since they're no longer there.
(Until you realize they're gone)
This realization doesn't come until it's too late.
Crush plastic cans and don't forget to roll the cardboard that you left inside the bag beside the girl with everything you've ever wanted but you couldn't really own
Crush empty objects while remembering a materialistic love interest whom you desired but didn't actually possess.
And don't try to beat a stick when you can pull the trigger on an automatic, leave your message at the tone
Instead of futilely hitting something with a stick, use a more effective method like an automatic weapon, and leave a voicemail.
And defile a believer on the other end of your receiver, let it ring as if there's no one home
Upset someone who believes in you through your phone, pretending to not be there by letting it continuously ring.
(As if there's nobody at home)
Appear as if no one is available to answer or deal with the issue at hand.
Androgynous, monogamous, I think there's something wrong with us so help me get my feet off of the ground
Feeling a sense of discomfort regarding gender norms and exclusive relationships, asking for help in navigating this confusion.
Polygamous, mysterious, it's somethin' really serious so help me get my foot out of my mouth
Encountering complexities with having multiple partners and a sense of enigmatic circumstance, asking for assistance in not saying something inappropriate.
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
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