The Sunday Listen: 'The Secret Seven' by Owen Pallett
Hello pianists,
Tendinitis is really annoying, you know? So I’m coming at this a day late again…
I don’t share enough pop music in these mailouts, so this week’s Sunday Listen is going to look at a solo piano version of ‘The Secret Seven’ by Owen Pallet.
Owen Pallet is probably better known as a composer and string arranger for many big indie bands and pop artists, like Arcade Fire, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, and lots of others. But they are a fantastically interesting solo artist in their own right.
The Secret Seven is fifth song on In Conflict, Pallett’s fourth full-length album. This moving ballad is about the suicide of gay violin student Tyler Clementi, Owen’s own experiences with mental illness when they were a 19-year-old violin student, and the It Gets Better Project (which the chorus alludes to and inverts – their main point being it doesn’t necessarily get better).
In one of my favourite lyrical gestures in recent memory, at the song’s conclusion, Pallett includes the number of an actual helpline (the elusive ‘secret seven’ mentioned in the song’s title).
Pallett said in an interview, “One of the things I was hoping to remedy with this song was the one-way nature of communication by YouTube video, the inability of people to make a proper response. So I thought putting the number at the end would open that up.”
You can hear the original below, which is quite a contrast and really shows of the piano’s strength as a tool for condensing larger arrangements into a single instrumental voice. I mean, listen to that mid-song breakdown!
Personally, I think the studio version loses some of the emotional potency; there’s something about the simplicity of piano and vocals and no other frills that creates an atmospheric sense of vulnerability which is more captivating. See what you think!