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Stereo Embers’ TRACK OF THE DAY: Bye Bye Blackbirds’ Let Your Hair Fall Down

Stereo Embers’ TRACK OF THE DAY: Bye Bye Blackbirds’ Let Your Hair Fall Down

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Our Track of the Day today comes from one of our all-time favorite bands, the Bye Bye Blackbirds.

Led by Bradley Skaught, this Oakland outfit is one of the most tuneful, melodic and literate outfits you’re likely to run into.

The ‘Birds’ last album We Need The Rain prompted our very own Dave Cantrell to gush that, “…it refracts a lavish, unabashed, mash-note love for the concisely exuberant rock ‘n’ roll song, the type nearly no one seems willing nor capable of putting together anymore (the latter is strongly suspected).”

(You can read the rest of DC’s review here:)

Hard at work on the follow-up to their 2013 effort, the band now checks in with “Let Your Hair Fall Down,” a swaggering, sexy number that’s buoyed by hip-shaking horns, a proper dose of jangle and one of the catchiest choruses of this waning year.

Skaught’s phrasing is as sharp as ever–he knows how to lean on vowels and punch through consonants with the ease of everyone from Pete Ham to Alex Chilton.

“Let Your Hair Fall Down” already sounds like a classic–it’s summer at its slinkiest, youth at its most potent and love at its most exalted moment of tension and desire. It’s everything as it’s about to happen and it’s everything as it should. This is a pre-chaos pop song that captures the bliss before it breaks, romance before it ruptures. And in just under four minutes, Skaught reminds us what it feels like to let loose without worrying about what happens next.

And who doesn’t miss that?

Stereo Embers talks to Bradley Skaught:

Stereo Embers: Can you talk about the gestation period for this song?

Bradley Skaught: This song has actually been in our set a pretty long time — definitely back into early 2014. We recorded the basics at KC Bowman’s studio in Oakland and then got distracted, brought a new drummer on board, started work on more new material, had some setbacks that kept us from revisiting it. When I was thinking about something special to do for our 10th anniversary, it occurred to me that the songs we started at KC’s would make for a perfect single so we finished up the overdubs, added the horns, etc. It has also been a lot longer than I’d hoped for a follow up to We Need The Rain, so I wanted to get something out this year.

SE:  That’s a big right hook, sir–do you think it’s one of your catchiest choruses?

BS: Ha! Well, I never really know how to gauge the success of a hook because I’m too close to the song to hear it fresh like that, but I definitely have heard from a lot of people that it’s a stubborn one! I do know that it sort of instantly felt right when I was writing it — it moved in and set up camp and that’s a good feeling when you’re writing. It definitely feels like gold to sing it. Should be a hit, really, right?

SE: What can you tell us about the new album?

BS: The new album is going to be really diverse! I’m not sure I even really knew we had an album underway until I realized we had enough new songs for one. I think we’ll treat every song as it’s own little thing, you know? Instead of trying to squeeze everything into a cohesive whole. I’m sure they will play nicely together in the end. There will be some duets — Lindsay Paige Garfield (Paige & The Thousand/Or The Whale) has already come in for her cameo. The basics sound great, working with Scott Evans at Sharkbite and Anti-Sleep Audio has been wonderful. I’m excited for it — we just keep deepening and growing and discovering the new places that the songs want to take us.

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