On Penny and Sparrow and Being a Creature for Their Love
It's been a month since I started this newsletter, so what better time than now to write about the number 1 band of my heart?
I am not a music critic. I barely understand how music works, honestly, on a technical level. I just listen and feel, because what I do understand is how to feel things. That's most of what I do, with writing, with reading, with living, with people, and with music. It feels like magic, the ability to come up with lyrics that somehow fit a particular melody, to know what melody would fit your words, to play instruments, to put it all together into something that can make a heart burst with joy or break with despair. And to do this again and again even when surely all the words and melodies have been exhausted by now. How do you keep finding new ways to make songs? My brain cannot comprehend.
I first heard Penny and Sparrow years ago, when Elijah was still in college, so somewhere in the mid-2010s. I was in the car with Spotify in my headphones and Duet came up on my Discover Weekly playlist. It's far from my favorite song of theirs, but it struck me enough to add it to one of my favorites playlists, and then it lived with me until 2021, when I found Eloise. This is also not my favorite, but it's closer. Those lyrics!
Hotter than a June kiss
I'm blushing a shade of licorice
Croon with your night lungs
That old Cicada love song
Here's the thing. Sometimes Penny and Sparrow's lyrics barely make sense. They straddle the line between beautiful exaltations of things we've all felt before and divine nonsense, and they're not always on the comprehensible side of that line. And here's the other thing. I do not care. They know how to use words in a way that combines them into phrases I would tattoo on my skin in a second. And I will, one day, if I survive my first tattoo experience coming up in April. When they sing "croon with your night lungs," if you ask me what that means, all I can do is shrug, but man, I feel it deep. It's just about vibes, sometimes, and I don't think that diminishes the artistry of it at all because there's a skill involved in creating those vibes.
When they released Adeline, which is my favorite song of theirs most days, if I'm really pressed to choose, they said this about it on Facebook:
We don’t know what happens when we die & We don’t think you do either. That’s ok. Actually it’s more than Ok, it’s beautiful. There used to be dread like a toothache about hell & sheep & goats & forever and now that stuff doesn’t keep us up at night anymore. It’s huge and unknowable and that’s totally fine by us. We sleep really well now.
The song “Adeline” comes from that place of good sleep. It comes from a place full of all the deep rest you can get when you aren’t scared of the afterlife. It’s a love song, it’s a cosmic shrug, and it’s an unexpected kiss from your hot agnostic friend.
This was the first time I realized how religious their fanbase was, because they did not react well to this explanation. There was a lot of "shame on you" in the comments, a lot of "actually we do know what happens when we die because the Bible tells us," a lot of "I'm so disappointed to see you getting so far from your roots." These are comments I've seen on other songs from Christian bands when they dare to step even a toe out of line, but it was especially frustrating here because how can you hear this song and have this be your reaction? It's so beautiful and so honest and so weird, like all their music is, and the explanation only made me love it and them more. I'm proud of them and their questioning and growing like I have any kind of personal relationship with them or influence in their lives.
Tough call, when you’re not sure if there’s a heaven at all
But dammit I hope so
Being with you feels good out loud
Afterlife comes after right now
And I’m fully here
Thinking this is mountaintop
Hoping that you would be caught
Dead with me
Dammit I hope so
Voodoo also came from a similar place. It was intentionally written in the style of the Beatitudes, but with lyrics most Christians would consider blasphemous, as with the lines, "Blessed be the pillow, muffling sound/What if roommates hear us/Blessed be the fearless/Let 'em bear witness." And I just love that for them. And, in this light, even the absurdly joyful Don't Wanna Be Without Ya feels subversive, the very suggestion that reincarnation might be a thing and that they might experience it.
I don't think I'm doing them justice here, or adequately explaining what I feel when I listen to them. Did you know that getting goosebumps when you hear music isn't a thing everyone experiences? I didn't, but this article talks about it as a difference in the brain. It's a reaction called a frisson, or, alternatively, a skin orgasm. I love this term, it's so evocative, and it's appropriate here because Penny and Sparrow have described their music as being sad and horny. Anyway, it happens to me with a lot of music, and not always the kind you would expect, the deep, soul-stirring, emotional kind. I'm being so serious when I tell you it even happens with songs like WAP, and not just because I think Cardi B's way of rapping like she's 2 seconds from killing me is hot.
Sorry, I got a little lost in the sauce there. What I'm trying to say is that almost Penny and Sparrow's entire catalogue gives me goosebumps, every time I hear it. This post barely scratches the surface of my favorite songs. There's also Cheyenne, a weird and sparse ballad about...dreaming that you murdered your girlfriend? I love it. Again, the lyrics!
Our tub is clawfoot
God, our love is all good
Naked with no falsehood
I can see you just fine
God, you're fine too
And there's Need You, which I couldn't begin to explain to you, but I'm 99% sure there are heavy references to Hereditary in it because Andy Baxter is the coolest human alive and he's a horror fan with great taste. Both he and Kyle are also so, so funny. I saw them live in 2022 and I was already in love with them, but that just cemented it because their onstage banter is so good, and Andy's voice is so much bigger in person, and they did their cover of Usher's Nice and Slow, and it was all a pure delight. I almost started crying immediately when they took the stage because Adeline was the first song they played.
I have to wrap this up, it's so long already. I don't know how to write about something so big, something that lives in every cell of me, something that occupies almost every day of my life in some form. I don't know anyone else who loves this band and that's so unfair, because I've never been the kind of person who jealously guards my favorite things and wants to be the only one who knows about or loves them. I want to share the joy they give me with other people. It's just my curse to fall in love with things that are kind of obscure and off-kilter and then spend the rest of my days begging other people to see and love them too. If I can convince even one person to listen to Penny and Sparrow after sharing this unhinged ramble, then it was worth writing. Please, if you like folk music even a little bit, or if you like gorgeous lyrics that only kind of make sense, or if you like sweet crooning voices, or if you like the tenderest love songs you've ever heard, or if you like me and want me to be happy, click any of the way too many links in this post and listen to them. And then come tell me about it.
Final thought, because I couldn't fit it in anywhere else, is that Recuerda is the ultimate example of a tender, yearning love song with lyrics that kind of make sense but also kind of don't and it's lovely.
Bury me underneath the tongue
Of some poet you're thinking of,
Recuerda, recuerda
"We'll see, cradle my cheek
Corazón y suerte", you tell me now
You are devout in a way that counts
I'll be your bloodhound,
Remember, remember