Thousand Lee Machine
 

Is it just me, or are the Lee songs on Washing Machine and A Thousand Leaves the greatest fucking songs on Earth? Seriously, "Saucer-Like," "Skip Tracer," "Hoarfrost," and "Karen Koltrane" are the best songs ever.

"Saucer-Like" is about as "fun" as Lee gets in Sonic Youth. Have you ever noticed that his songs are usually really serious? The beginning of that song almost sounds silly -- but it's this weird silliness that builds in intensity until it breaks with the main verse riff. And holy shit, when he starts singing, it sounds like it's the absolute truth.

"Skip Tracer" is incredible, at that. Can you think of a more quote-able Lee song? "Eric's Trip" and "Hey Joni" can come close, but I don't think they hit quite the mark. Every fucking line in "Skip Tracer" is one for the ages, it seems. "Twister / dustbuster / hospital bed! / I'll see you / see you / see you on the highway!".... "LA is more confusing now / than anywhere I've ever been to".... "Hello, 2015!" You want to listen to it now, don't you?

Then you get to "Hoarfrost." My god, that song's beautiful. I always a little disappointed that they didn't go with its original name ("Woodland Ode"), which I thought sounded much nicer. But either way, it's an incredibly beautiful song. The music itself... there's just this unbelievable timeless sadness to it. But then all of Lee's lyrics and the tone of his voice sort of offset the melancholy, like he's trying to comfort you.

And then, oh my fucking god: "Karen Koltrane." The song sounds, I'd say, nearly as sad as "Hoarfrost," but it has this extremely odd quality to it. It almost doesn't make sense until those noise bursts happen. And then the song gets all fucking noisy and suddenly it makes absolute sense. They make these noises with their guitars that are so mechanically violent, I can't understand how it's possible to do that. It's like the guitars are malfunctioning, but Sonic Youth is perfectly controlling every second of it. I was in high school when this record came out and I still remember the day my dad walked into my room and asked me "Is there something wrong with your stereo?" when he heard me listening to those noise bits. I laughed and told him, "No, nothing's wrong at all." No, 'cause Sonic Youth knew what they were doing. They got it right completely.

I'm with you man. "Skip Tracer" is probably my favorite. Like you said, just talking about it gives me the urge to listen to it.

It's not just you.

I really have no words to say that you didn't.

I vote Lee for Jesus '06.

lol schizo. "Skip Tracer" is definetly a great Lee song. You can tell how passionate he can get when SY plays it live.

Hell yeah....but Wish Fullfillment will always be my favorite no matter how I shake it.

Yeah, Karen Koltrane is probably my favorite Lee song.

My Lee favorites:

Eric's Trip (couldn't ya tell?)
Hoar Frost
Wish Fulfillment
Pipeline/Kill time

But really, my favorite Lee songs change a lot. They are all so fucking great. Skip Tracer; I'm a little burnt out on. I did a project/powerpoint thing where I had to play the song and have a powerpoint to go with it. It sucked ass, but making it required a lot of listening. I'd be listening to a 20 second segment like on repeat.

Did you ever post that up somewhere for us to see?

No...it is at my old school now, probably deleted already. No way of recovering it. It was just a bunch of clip art and google images that went along with the lyrics. A friend and I also liked putting random crap that has little to do with anything in the powerpoint for fun. Like for " SHOUTING THE POETIC TRUTHS OF HIGH SCHOOL JOURNAL KEEPERS" I put this dude that was crying. And " THE EDGE OF THE BLADE PRESSED TO THE THROAT OF YR REFLECTED IMAGE" There was a mirror a neck and a knife and I animated the knife to go all crazy on the neck, and drew a bunch of red lines squirting onto the mirror.

It was a computer class were pretty much all we did was powerpoints. People were so slow at them, I did a bunch of extra credit ones and ended up with 130% in that class.

My favorite Lee songs are

Wish Fulfillment
Hoarfrost
Pipeline/Kill Time
I Dreamed I Dream
Rain King

kym's backing vox in saucer-like are quite beautiful as well. i made up a compilation of just lee's songs which i listen to quite a bit, i love it

Mote Mote Mote

dude
you should work for a music magazine, i couldn´t agree more
nice review

You're right. Those songs are of my favorites with Lee at vocals, along with Rain King.

I liked the review too.

I love Hey Joni, for when he hells "HEY!" and "Kick It!".

Karen Koltrane it's my favorite song on "A Thousand Leaves".

Yeah. Mote too. I forgot it :(

It's one the best Sonic Youth tracks I think

Nobody has mentioned In the Kingdom #19

Wrong

I didn't know for a long time that Skip Tracing is an actual job. I thought it was just some awesome title Lee came up with.