Nice Day for a Sulk

I think this song reflects the affect that friends can have on you when you're down. It follows the passage of a day where the speaker starts off pretty depressed, bumming around some bar or caf with a mate and trying to avoid people (nice day for a sulk/the girl smells of milk). He starts perking up as more of the close friends come over and in the end they decide to have a jam, drink too much down by the river on a summer's evening and laugh at Bobby when he falls in the lake. Just a nice song. 'fold your hands' is a really underrated album imo.

This song is amazing. I love how the sound and the title are incongruous-- the song chugs/marches along kind of with a feeling of being carefree/oblivious to everything going on (if that makes sense?) The sound has a feel of being at your grandma's house as a little kid and she's making you a sandwich and all you can think about is how content you are with your grandma and your sandwich in her happy kitchen without awareness of the world's troubles. However, the title is somewhat jarring "nice day....for a sulk" sounds like it is something someone who is jaded with life would say. This hypothetical cynic is no longer excited by life's little pleasures (like sunshine and sandwiches) and would rather be sour to prove a point.

Now onto the lyrics themselves... Honestly, I think the lyrics are mostly nonsense/fun/silly. They seem like they could have been lyrics formed by filling out a Mad Lib (those stories where you fill in parts of speech and the end result is often hilarious and nonsensical). I think it's pointless to read too much into these lyrics, but I do think they paint vivid and entertaining imagery for the listener. Seriously, just picture the first stanza...

My favorite line is "There's no way you will ever be misunderstood by me." I think there's comfort in knowing someone intimately for a long time (like your best friends in your "gang") and having a deep understanding of eachother and knowing that your intentions/meanings/thoughts will always be understood by at least someone. It certainly is an awful feeling going somewhere where you don't know anyone or only know people on a superficial level and being misunderstood by them. Often, strangers or acquaintances don't really understand what you're saying because they have not spent enough time with you to genuinely know you, but with a best friend/parent/significant other, etc. you can depend on them to "get" you and likewise. The last stanza is less abstract/silly, but describes a carefree summer, listening to Brit bands (The Fall--also referenced in Jens Lekman's "Maple Leaves" and Manfred Mann) dancing the summer away.

I could listen to this song on repeat for hours (and I have). It is light and silly and yet still has a bittersweet nostalgic feel to it that betrays the (at times) nonsensical lyrics.