Time Machine: 2024 EP Review

If you've made it to this page, it's probably safe to assume that you're already aware of Hanson's fan club and the fact that they release an exclusive five(ish) song EP every year to fan club members. If not, well, now you are. You can visit this page on hanson.net to learn more, sign up, or renew. If you're already a member, there are two ways to listen. 1. You can stream the EP (and Hanson's entire catalog!) directly in their media player, or 2. If you're renewed through 2025, you can visit your order history page and download the song files directly to your device. Happy listening! 

Before I dive into each song, I want to point out that this year has provided a new challenge for anyone attempting a closer look at Time Machine. They haven't released the digital lyric booklet yet, which means I'm working off of what my own ears hear and a few crowdsourced fixes. I'd like to believe I'm a step up from some of the awesomely bad auto-generated youtube captions out there, but consider this your disclaimer that I've written these lyrics down as I hear them, and as of now there's no way to prove me wrong unless you can track down a Hanson and ask. Best of luck with that.

1. Every Time We Touch

At the end of each song segment you'll find my best attempt at transcribing the lyrics, and in the interest of transparency, I've made any text that I'm unsure about red. While "Every Time We Touch" is a contender for my favorite song on this EP, it's also the clear winner if we're giving a ribbon to the song with more red text than a King James New Testament. I really wasn't expecting an Isaac song to give me so much enunciation trouble, but this one had me going "What in the Taylor Hanson are you saying, sir?" on more than one occasion.

Good-natured heckling aside, the song is really fun. It has an 80s power-pop vibe that reminds me of songs like "Stop Me In My Tracks" (complete with similar car imagery) and "Somebody that Wants To Love You." Even without the complete lyrics, I can tell the general storyline is boy meets girl he likes and drives off into the sunset with her. I want to say that the "green lights, bright stars, and deep cuts" line is my favorite, but first I would need to be sure that's what he's saying. It just creates the perfect image of driving fast at night with a good sound track playing in the background, and I think the green light is more than just a traffic signal and is symbolic of the girl returning his feelings.

I didn't get to watch the listening party stream until I returned home from Tulsa, and I was shocked to learn that this song was born during an Isaac solo show at BTTI back in 2018. I was there in person and even briefly commented on how good his off-the-cuff writing was in my blog from that year. I can totally hear it now thanks to a little help from a clip shared on hansonstage, but I don't think I ever would have made that connection on my own. I'm glad to see it finally became a whole song and found a home on an EP.

2. Ahead of Your Time

This song immediately reminded me of the poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling, probably partly due to the fact that I had to memorize it in middle school, but also because I've heard Isaac bring it up a few times in passing. Without going full English teacher on you, I'll quickly say that "If" was published in 1910 and shares an author with The Jungle Book. The general premise is a father imparting wisdom on his son, and the structure is essentially a bunch of lines beginning with "If you can (insert responsible life lesson here)" and ending with a final line stating that if you can do all of these things, then "Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, / And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!" Basically, here's the formula for how to succeed in life.

I'm not suggesting that "If" was a conscious source of inspiration for "Ahead of Your Time," just that they share a common universal theme and a similar structure. And I PROMISE I'm not going to put the two side by side for a deeper nerd-level comparison, but if I did, I'd applaud the Hanson version for being more self-deprecating. Instead of implying "Here, son, learn from the master!" "Ahead of Your Time" takes a lot more subtle approach with a tone more along the lines of "I only know a few things for sure, but I'd like to share them with you." Honestly, I fall a little bit more in love with this song the more time I spend digging into it.

As for the sound, I think they nailed matching the melody to the lyrics. The chorus just oozes this sort of melancholy nostalgic feeling that's perfect for a song about the passage of time. Yes, it sounds like "Down" in places, but more than that I'm reminded of so many sad but catchy country songs of my childhood. It may not have the drawl or twang of a country song, but it feels like it has the heart of one.

On a less sappy, somewhat ridiculous note, between the "master of time" and "heart of a child," I feel like the wording in the chorus is a little bit Hocus Pocus, a little bit Doctor Who. If you mix the right ingredients: wisdom of elders, strength of your prime, and heart of a child, you can create a master of time. Were the Sanderson Sisters actually Time Lords?

3. I Don't Want To Work That Hard

"I Don't Want To Work That Hard" narrowly escaped the red letter lyric treatment, but only because re-watching the listening party stream corrected my misheard "Buddy, I'm sure" to "money off shore," and "Marry an influenza" just doesn't make grammatical sense even if it's 1,000% what he's saying.

In the stream, Zac mentioned that the character from this song is basically the same persona from songs like "White Collar Crime" and "Gold Miner" (he didn't say Seymour, but it sounds like Seymour, too). I love the idea of revisiting that guy from time to time with a new song updating us about his latest scheme or screwup. The song is pretty straight-forward and doesn't need an explanation, but I do love the bridge where you realize that maybe the guy is more than the lazy privileged tool he sounds like in the beginning. The mask of indifference slips off for just a moment, and you get a glimpse of a person who is incredibly overwhelmed and spiraling underneath all the fake bravado. But then the moment passes, and he goes right back to playing the role of the shallow guy who only cares about getting ahead and taking shortcuts to an easy life. It's kind of sad, but it makes for a better song.

4. Forever

"Forever" was giving me slightly religious vibes before I ever watched the listening party stream to confirm it. It sounds more like a romantic love than the type of love between a person and God, but it has several references to transcending the time we have on earth, so I think it's simply about a Godly marriage and spending the rest of your life with someone that you know is going to literally follow you into eternity. There's even a gospel choir in the background to tie it all together. Hanson left it all vague enough that you can take or leave the religious context and listen to it as just a love song if you want, but I do think it's there if you're looking for it.

This one has a few lyrics I'm unsure of, and ironically the one I'm least sure of is probably my favorite. During my first listen in my car, I was so sure I heard "You are the sixth string, the start of every daydream." I questioned for a moment what it meant. What has six strings? The answer I came up with was that a bass guitar typically has four, but a regular guitar has six. Musically, the sixth string brings the ability to play a melody and creates more harmony and depth in a song. It sounded like a great metaphor to me until I sat down to write out the lyrics, and after listening more closely, it sounds like "slip string." I asked a few friends and they echoed hearing "sixth string" and "slip string," but also added "sleep stream" and "sleep's dream." Whatever it is, I'm wondering if this is going to be that awkward moment where I wind up liking my own accidental lyric better than Hanson's.

P.S. I gave up transcribing the lyrics at the end because it kind of goes on, well, forever. I'll let you decide if that was a cleverly intentional choice.

5. Can't Stop Starting

I've already said that "Every Time We Touch" is a contender for my favorite song on this EP. "Can't Stop Starting" is its competition. I just love the ridiculously catchy tune, and it's the kind of song you can hear for 30 seconds and still be singing two days later. I also have to give it props for putting up a pretty good fight for my favorite cheesiest Hanson lyric of all time with a line like "I guess some just play with fire, 'cause pyros can't retire." (For now, first place is still held strong by "Have it sauteed, grilled or filleted, we're cooking up a backbeat, so pick up a plate.")

It also has a fun nod to their TTA song "Can't Stop" at the end, which led to a fun segue from "Can't Stop Starting" directly into "Can't Stop" at the Hanson Day concert.

The thing keeping "Can't Stop Starting" from taking first place, though? I can't get past the fact that the title/chorus sounds like a clever play on words at first, but when I stop and think about it, the meaning isn't immediately clear. Every time I hear it (which is plenty throughout the duration of the song), my grammar-trained brain begs "Finish your sentence! Can't stop starting WHAT?"

Obviously it's a song about a guy who can't help falling for a girl he meets, so I think logically the thing he can't stop starting is falling for her. Once those feelings get going, there's no putting it in reverse. It's already started, and he can't stop. There, it does make sense. But I still can't stop starting to wish there was one more word in there to make it a complete thought.

Do you hear any lyrics differently than I did or have any suggestions to fill in my blanks? Let me know!

Red Green Blue: An Album Review

This may be the longest blog post I have ever written, but I am so grateful to be weighed down by the burden of too many new Hanson songs at one time. It's the best problem to have, really.

I always struggle with writing music reviews because I can analyze lyrics and word choice all day long, but I don't have the right vocabulary or music background to discuss the sound, the instruments, the arrangements, the production, etc., at a similar level. Writing has always been such a powerful outlet for me because I often feel like I'm able to put exactly how I feel into words, and it's a very liberating feeling. Even just tackling this post, I feel like I already appreciate several of these songs more now that I've sat down and put feelings into words that I honestly didn't know I had until I was writing them down.

The flip side, though, is it can be very frustrating when I don't have the words, and music is one of those downfalls for me. It's strange to be able to listen to a song and form opinions about what parts I love and what parts I don't but not having the words to express them beyond a basic "I like how this sounds" or "I don't like how this sounds." As a result, this turned out to be a very lyric-heavy review more about song meanings than sound. I've been careful to avoid reading other fans' opinions and reviews, so if there are any similarities here, it's because obviously we're right and not because I borrowed anyone else's theories 😉. I can't wait to dive right in to what others think about the album as soon as I hit publish.

Song: 1. Child At Heart

What It Sounds Like: An inner-voice pep talk

Favorite Lyric: "You can just breathe / You are no mistake"

My Interpretation: We've heard enough in interviews about this one as the first single that I don't need to pretend I'm having any original thoughts about the meaning. "Child At Heart" is about holding onto the kind of innate optimism and hope that children have rather than letting the world beat you down and make you jaded.

What I will add from my own two cents, though, if you care to follow me down a rabbit hole, is that the line "you can chase a star" makes me think of the boy from "Reaching For The Sky." I don't know if the star imagery was an intentional allusion to String Theory or if I'm doing a bit of reaching myself, but I really like that you could read the lyrics of "Child At Heart" like they're advice to that optimistic boy who never stops reaching even when others try to tell him it's not worth it. Maybe the guy in the CAH music video is that boy all grown up giving himself a pep talk trying to hold onto that perspective he had as a child so that he can continue seeing the best in the world. Commence conspiracy theory-level conjecture, but I love making that connection even if Taylor didn't put it there intentionally.

Red Ranking: 2/5

Song: 2. Rambling Heart

What It Sounds Like: Tom Petty's "Wildflowers"

Favorite Lyric: "Wherever I go is my home sweet home/ Every note is my home sweet home"

My Interpretation: This is a love song to music and travel about feeling at home in the middle of both. It's obviously written from the perspective of a musician who has grown up on the road writing music, but I really like it because the same can apply to a fan like me who also feels at home in some place I've never been listening to a song that feels like home no matter where I'm hearing it.

For years, my bio on hnet said "I like to ramble, both geographically and verbally. Join me some time" and included a link to this blog. I liked the play on the word "ramble" because it has two definitions and can apply to both writing and traveling, and I think the same concept applies to this song. Taylor (and Hanson) certainly has a rambling heart with a drive to share his words and his music all over the world, and--cheese alert--I'm happy to report every note IS my home sweet home.

Red ranking: 1/5

Song: 3. Truth

What It Sounds Like: A poetic semi-spoken word folk song

Favorite Lyric: "So don’t hold on to bitter, it’ll come home to roost"

My Interpretation: "Truth" describes a strained relationship of some kind that has seen better days and a desire for resolution through honesty. It's vague enough that it feels universal and could apply to anyone--a romantic relationship, best friends, family members, even a musician and his fans.

The thing I really like about it is if you pay attention to the lyrics, the speaker/narrator of the song never actually places blame on anyone even though I think the human inclination is to do exactly that. Each time he mentions something the other person does wrong, he follows it up with another line that faults himself equally ("Cause I drive you crazy every other word that I say/ But I feel like you’ve been pushing me away"). And his suggestion that they need a little bit of truth? It's not clear if he means truth from himself or truth from the other person. It could easily be an angry song demanding answers with lines like "You owe me the truth," or a song about guilt that says "I need to tell you the truth," but it's neither, and I think the implication is that the only way to move forward is if BOTH parties come clean.

The song also doesn't make clear whether the end goal is to fix the relationship and stay in it, or if the "truth" is that it's time to let it go and move on. Sometimes the little bit of truth that we all need is simply being honest with ourselves, and with lines about bringing "peace" and being "set free," I think it could just as easily be read as a song about admitting the truth to yourself so that you can move on from a relationship that's no longer working. With lines like "we might miss what's still left from today" I think the overall vibe is a little bit more hopeful than that, but it leaves you with a strong sense that you don't know what the resolution is yet, but the only way to figure it out is to face the truth.

Red Ranking: 5/5

Song: 4. We Belong Together

What It Sounds Like: Andrew McMahon's newer stuff 

Favorite Lyric: "All this living has been taking your life"

My Interpretation: It doesn't sound a thing like "Carry You There" musically, but I think the message is the same. It's a song about recognizing when someone you care about is struggling and offering them support even if they're not up to fighting for themselves. It doesn't specifically mention mental health, but I think there is still a sense of awareness for it that suggests being observant and receptive to the people around us and making sure that they know you are a part of their support system. I chose "All this living has been taking your life" as my favorite lyric because I think it's a poetically tragic way to describe depression, but I also love the positivity in the line "You don't have to break alone/ You don't have to break, we can build something better."

Red Ranking: 4/5

Song: 5. Semi Hollow

What It Sounds Like: George Michael, Hall & Oates, and Taylor Hanson walk into a guitar shop...

Favorite Lyric: "Here downtown, standing in the ballroom now /You’re the one turning me on, while they have been posing/You and I were closing"

RGB Misheard Lyric Award: 
What Taylor said: You're damn sure fun to play.
What I heard at the listening party:  Redemption from the plague. (#foreshadowing)

My Interpretation: I don't know a ton about guitars, but it's impossible to miss that this song is basically a love song to one. Instead of being completely straightforward, the lyrics are written in this clever ambiguous way where it could also be a love song to a girl, albeit one who gets around and isn't all that deep. "All my friends, they know that you get around," "I know that I could turn you down," "You sure are fun to play/I can't stop turning you on" etc. For almost every line, you can ask yourself "Is it a girl, or is it a guitar?" and the lyrics fit for both.

As for my favorite lyric, I chose the lines above because they are the most perfectly ambiguous and potentially misleading part of the song. To anyone not familiar with Hanson or their hometown, those particular lines sound more like they're about a girl and it's harder to make the guitar connection. "Here downtown, standing in the ballroom now /You’re the one turning me on, while they have been posing/You and I were closing". The surface level image is of a guy standing in a ballroom at a dance with a girl that he's wildly attracted to, and he's writing off the other people in the room as posers while his relationship is real. But if you know Hanson and Tulsa? That ballroom downtown might be Cain's, the posers are other musicians, and he and his beloved guitar are the real deal.

Is it a deep song? Nah. But it sure is fun to play...and yes, I DO enjoy the way it resonates.

Red Ranking: 2/5 Yes, it's tied with Child At Heart.

Song: 6. Greener Pastures

What It Sounds Like: Joshua and the Holy Rollers...oh wait.

(Least) Favorite Lyric: I WANT to like "effervescent hues," I really do. I'm all for unique word pairings and creative descriptions, and this one is certainly inventive. Unfortunately, the usage is just not quite right to my ear, and I can practically hear someone asking "What does that line mean, though?" and being met with "I don't know man, but doesn't it sound cool?"

My Interpretation: I have to be honest. I had mentally turned this one into a skip song before I ever even heard it just based on the fact that it was a cover. That's probably unfair and dismissive of me, but it's an involuntary reaction that I can't alter no matter how much I rationally know that it's okay for 1/15 of the album to be a cover written by a blood relative that also has musical talent. That being said, it's not a bad song, it just isn't a HANSON song, and while it does sound good, I can't really make the lyrics mean anything to me. Sorry, bros! It gets points for being the first song to include all four Hanson brothers, and I'm sure they had a great time working on it together. Maybe it will grow on me.

Green Ranking: 5/5

Song: 7. Write You A Song

What It Sounds Like: A fun-filled summer day.

Favorite Lyric: "I see blue skies, sunrise, dandelions and conversations"

My Interpretation: This song needs no explanation; it's exactly what it sounds like--a song from a loving Dad to his little girl so that she'll always have something to remember their good memories together. It's super sweet and fun sounding, and it makes me just a little bit sad and jealous that I'll never have something so sweet to remember my own Dad. I'm sure Isaac's daughter loves it and will probably appreciate it even more when she's older.

Obligatory conspiracy theory connection to a past Hanson song: I can't help but smile a little bit at the line "You're my Oklahoma daisy" while thinking of 16-year-old Isaac singing about planting seeds and wondering what flower is going to grow. Twenty five years later, we have our answer: he's been growing a daisy!

Green Ranking: 2/5

Song: 8. No Matter The Reason

What It Sounds Like: Isaac Hanson gone country

Favorite Lyric: "God has made no better good than you for me"

My Interpretation: I've seen a few comments accusing this song of supporting the idea of staying in a toxic relationship, but I'm going to give Isaac the benefit of the doubt and assume that the perspective of this song is coming from someone who has never dealt with a true deal-breaker scenario in their relationship. I know he's saying he's staying "no matter the reason," but surely we can read an implied asterisk into it and take it as "*No matter the reason" with the understanding that of course there is an implied footnote full of toxic reasons to run far, far away and never look back--they're just not in this song. He's not condoning staying with an abuser; he's writing about not giving up when things get hard. He's talking about sticking around because the love you have for someone is bigger and stronger than the conflicts. It's an emotionally raw song that I can't personally relate to, but I can appreciate the guts it took to put it into a song and release it to the world.

Green Ranking: 3/5

Song: 9. The Gift Of Tears

What It Sounds Like: Isaac Hanson gone Contemporary Christian.

Favorite Lyric: "When all hope is dead and gone, pray on."

My Interpretation: Hanson doesn't often put overly religious messages into their songs, but I can't do enough mental gymnastics to make this one about anything other than seeking forgiveness and grace from God. The opening verse talks about a wedding "between your heart and your soul" and a time for new beginnings which sounds like a pretty effective description of salvation to me. The urgency behind "Pray it up, pray it down/ Get down on your knees, brother and kiss the ground/ We could be gone tomorrow, this life ain’t free" expresses a need to share this "gift" with others, and I think the "gift of tears" is really the emotional response to being given the gift of forgiveness and salvation. To me, this song is a profession of faith and a desire to share it with others.

Green Ranking: 4/5

Song: 10. Cold As Ice

What It Sounds Like: funk (n.)- : music that combines elements of rhythm and blues and soul music and that is characterized by a percussive vocal style, static harmonies, and a strong bass line with heavy downbeats

Favorite Lyric: "I'm a human jukebox, I play all the hits"

My Interpretation: This song is the #1 reason in this post that I wish I had a better music vocabulary because it has such a fun groove to it that I can't really describe. It brings back a little bit of the upbeat vibe that feels lacking in this album compared to others. As for what this song means, it's a fun kind of snarky/tongue-in-cheek description of a flawed but feisty and attractive woman. There are a lot of clever lyrics and turns of phrases here, and "She pawns my watches to buy me time" is an easy runner-up for my favorite line. However, I am at a total loss and cannot make sense of "every single word she says is frozen twice." What does this mean??

Green Ranking: 2/5. I realize my ranking system is flawed and I didn't choose a #1 for Green, but I can't and I don't have to.

Song: 11. Bad

What It Sounds Like: Angry synthesizers

Favorite Lyric: "The tight rope is frayed and it's wearing me thin." Hello there, allusion to "The Walk."

My Interpretation: My first reaction to hearing "Bad" at the listening party is that it must be in reaction to some of the backlash that Hanson and Zac have received over the last couple of years, but I think it could also apply to pretty much any situation where you feel wrongly judged by someone else. It's calling out that unfair judgment ("so many things you can't tell from just the scars on my skin") and the draw that some people seem to have towards conflict ("moth to the flame").

The line about not "measuring men by colors and flags" feels a bit cryptic, but what I get out of it is that you shouldn't judge someone based on what they look like, where they come from, or what labels they identify with. I'm a little stuck on the line "no one can change the worth of a life," but maybe it just means you can't devalue someone's life no matter what you think of them; no matter what you perceive them to have done wrong, they're still human. I think the interesting thing about this song is that as often is the case with any conflict, you could probably read these same lyrics from the opposing perspective and find that they feel the exact same way.

Blue Ranking: 5/5

Song: 12. World Goes Around

What It Sounds Like: Robert Frost, but make it Hanson.

Favorite Lyric: "Even the sun goes down"

My Interpretation: Time marches on. Good things can't last forever, but by that same logic, bad things can't either. It's up to you to be the optimist or the pessimist in how you choose to view the world and any given situation. "All we can do is endeavor/ to live by nothing bad can last for ever/ all our days." TL;DR Nothing gold can stay, but it's probably better to focus on the fact that the bad days can't stay either.

Blue Ranking: 4/5

Song: 13. Wake Up

What It Sounds Like: "The Circle of Life" meets "The Neverending Story" theme.

Favorite Lyric: "Would it change a thing to learn that you’re not real?"

My Interpretation:  The lyrics start out making you think that maybe the main character is just separated from his love by physical distance--"When you're not with me you're still always on my mind/ And you feel so close even when we're far apart." Maybe she's just away on a trip? But then you get lines like "Wherever you are" and "Every night I'm waiting just to learn your name" that make it clear that he hasn't actually met her yet. He's spending his time dreaming up this perfect girl that may or may not actually exist in real life, and it's both hopeful and depressing. "Why do you keep me waiting/When you know how I feel" suggests a belief that he has a soulmate out there who is dreaming of him in the exact same way, just two people separated by circumstance who are waiting for the moment where fate brings them together.

But then there's the saddest line of all: "Would it change a thing/To learn that you’re not real/." It makes me think of the way some people view religion as this empty emotional crutch, just a thing you choose to blindly believe in without proof because it's easier to do life if you have something good to believe in. That's not my belief, but I can understand the perspective and I think that's exactly how he's treating this dream girl. He's choosing to believe she exists and that one day they will be together, and it leaves us with a final question: Does it even matter if she's real as long as the idea of her existence keeps giving him hope and making him happy?

TL;DR: "Wake Up" is "Dream Girl" reimagined with a mild existential crisis.

Update June 1st: My mind is blown right now. Some fabulous anon in the comments bulldozed my theory with a single insightful sentence, and I'm kicking myself for not seeing it. I'm not going to alter my above interpretation because I do think it still fits and I don't want to take credit for a perspective that went right over my head, but please check out the comments section below for an alternate take that I think is probably right. 

Blue Ranking: 2/5

Song: 14. Don't Let Me Down

What It Sounds Like: Zac Hanson was tasked with writing "Eye of the Tiger" in 2022

Favorite Lyric: "No one can stop you until you decide that you're done"

My Interpretation: I don't need an interpretation because Zac has already told us that this song was written about the challenge of sitting down and tackling this album concept. He knew he had to handle the pressure of creating something worthy of a world release and not letting himself or his brothers down, so he wrote a song about just that. I know I already called "Child at Heart" an inner pep talk, but where that one is more of a subtle reassurance, this inner voice is screaming at you in sweat bands while asking you to drop and give it 20. Welcome to Zac Hanson tells Zac Hanson not to let himself down. Jokes aside, it's a totally universal song that you can apply to any situation where you need motivation to complete something that you know you're capable of. #dogobe

Blue Ranking: 3/5

Song: 15. Where I Belong

What It Sounds Like: The opening and/or closing scene of a musical theatre production that I want front row tickets to.

Favorite lyric: "Somewhere under the rainbow far away"

RGB Misheard Lyric Runner-Up: 
What Zac said: So that I can trade bitter tears for honey (honey honey honey honey)
What I heard at the listening party: Yummy yummy yummy yummy. Cue instant Edible Digital Pants flashbacks. And The Wiggles.

My interpretation: This is the most trippy theatrical sounding song Hanson has ever produced, and I love it for that. It has a longing to belong and find your place in the world, but I also see bits and pieces of religion in it as well, though much more subtle than in the Green segment. Think "E.T. phone home" but where E.T. is a prodigal son and "home" is definitely celestial, but we're not talking about another planet. My strongest argument for this interpretation is the line "Take me from this place/ So that I can trade bitter tears for honey (honey)." I'm not saying he's asking to be swept away in a chariot of fire straight up to heaven, but Biblically, the promised land is described as a land of milk and "honey," and I've already expressed my opinion that Isaac's "gift of tears" is actually the gift of salvation, so combine them into a single line and recurring images of weeping, and I feel decently convinced that this song can be read as a desperate prayer for deliverance from feeling lost in the world.

Despite having said that I'm not saying it's about wanting to go straight up to heaven...the very end of the song has me rethinking that statement. The final lines are so incredibly heavy:

And I weep
Hoping someone will hear me call
From where I belong
Somehow
And take me
Home  

There is so much pain in that statement, and if he's hoping that someone from where he belongs (aka heaven) hears him calling, I can't hear it as anything but a cry out to God to be taken "home." In some ways it's a little like "MMMBop" in that among images of rainbows and happy sounds there's actually a deeply depressing undertone. 

Blue Ranking: 1/5

P.S. For what it's worth, I changed every Blue ranking at least once and almost caved and just ranked them all as 3/5 for lack of a better solution. I am not built to pick favorites unless it comes to choosing a favorite band. I've got that one covered.

Against The World Release

It's official. Hanson's latest album/project/controversially labeled collection of songs, Against The World, is finally out in full. I tried to get on board with the unique release format and honor the band's wishes of giving each song the spotlight for a month by posting a separate blog about each, but I'm admitting defeat here in the 11th hour with the final two songs. I don't have it in me to write two full blog posts about "One" and "Fearless," and I'm not going to feign inspiration and write something that winds up terrible just to see it through. Please don't mistake this for disinterest; I like the music, I just don't like forced writing for the sake of meeting a deadline when the inspiration isn't there. I imagine a certain band feeling pressure to write new music would understand.

If you'd like to check out my posts about the first five tracks, you can find those here:

Annalie
Don't Ever Change
Only Love
Against The World
Stronger

Instead of talking about the final two tracks or the album as a whole, I mostly want to talk about the unique release method of Against The World and how much of an impact it has had on my consumption of this music.

Speaking of consumption, I don’t know what your Thanksgiving dinner traditions look like or if you even celebrate Thanksgiving, but let me start an excessive food analogy by telling you a little bit about mine. I LOVE food. I want a little bit of everything on my plate, and I don’t care if my foods touch. I’m not the kind of psychopath that mixes everything together into a cranberry-infused abomination, but I’m of the opinion that some foods are just better together and can enhance each others’ flavors when eaten in succession or combination. I would never eat my turkey separate from my dressing. None of that finishing all of one food before moving onto the next, and I’m sure if you told me I had to eat all of my sweet potatoes before trying something else, I’d be 1) sick of sweet potatoes by the time I finished, even though I love them, and 2) mad that I’m out of sweet potatoes later. Just let me sample everything and alternate bites so I can enjoy the variety. The best part about Thanksgiving isn’t that we get to have turkey or macaroni and cheese or pumpkin pie; it’s that we get to have turkey AND macaroni and cheese AND pumpkin pie. It’s the combination and the variety of options and the ability to gorge yourself on all of it at once that really makes it a special occasion and not just another macaroni and cheese Thursday.

Now replace “sweet potato casserole” and “turkey” and “macaroni and cheese” and “pumpkin pie” with “Don’t Ever Change” and “Against The World” and “Annalie” and “Stronger,” and my food analogy is complete. In short, I like the dishes. I like the holiday. But to me, delivering them course by course feels a lot like taking the magic of a full album and and dividing up the ingredients in a way that detracts from the overall enjoyment rather than enhancing it. It’s like I feel full but still hungry all at once, and I don’t really know how to digest that feeling.

I probably don’t need to explain that I was skeptical when the announcement of Against The World revealed that we’d be getting one single per month over the course of seven months. I know my music consumption habits just as well as my Thanksgiving ones, and there’s no escaping the fact that my favorite way to listen to a new album is all at once in my own little vacuum that doesn’t really exist, but that I try really hard to preserve anyway. If you’re lucky enough to experience it, there’s something magical about getting your hands on a brand new album that you’ve never heard before. That first listen is pure, full of potential, and untainted by critics and outside opinions. I suppose the same is true when you’re counting down the seconds to a midnight release of a single song, but there’s just something more satisfying about the sensory overload of being hit with so many new songs all at once, sorting through how they all flow together, and finding out which ones you’re drawn to from the beginning. I knew that I wouldn’t get that with Against The World, but after the initial shock of the announcement wore off, I tried to keep an open mind. It might not be my ideal way to experience a new album, but I wanted to give Hanson’s preferred process a chance the way that they intended it to be experienced.

Honestly, having a song to look forward to every month for the better part of a year was exciting (the book nerd in me really wants to refer to this as a “slow burn” experience, which can be an effective way to build anticipation). I don’t think we have ever in the history of Hanson had this level of frequent music releases, and while it was drawn out, it was almost challenging to keep up with at times. With real life happening between releases, a couple of trips to Tulsa, and other responsibilities in general, despite the lingering anticipation, some months seemed to go by in the blink of an eye and I would find myself yet another week behind in reviewing the latest song. If Hanson has ever struggled with fans jumping ship during droughts of creative silence and lack of content, this certainly seems like a solid way to keep the interest alive.

Which brings me to the simple fact that no matter how strong my personal preferences may be, I am not the average music consumer, and if you’re reading this incredibly niche super fan blog, spoiler alert: you probably aren’t either. We are simultaneously Hanson’s target audience and NOT Hanson’s target audience. The truth is while us die hards may be Hanson’s ideal audience, the type of fans that jump in and cling on for dear life and allow them the luxury of continuing to do what they’re doing, we are not the audience that they have to actively target. They’ve already got us. They know we are listening. Instead, I think you could argue that the real "target" is getting more fans. New fans. Casual music lovers who may be willing to listen to a random new single that pops up in their timeline but are not actually out there waiting on pins and needles for that vacuum-sealed magical music experience of an entirely new album that they may not have the patience, desire, or funds to listen to all at once. I really can’t fault Hanson for knowing this and for trying something outside of the box in a world where the music industry is always changing.

Though it has certainly been exciting getting new music constantly, I can't say it really feels like getting a new album (and I think I would feel this way whether it was 7 songs or 14). It still feels solidly "other" to me, like String Theory. Not bad, just not like a fresh new album, almost like if you'd given me short 10-minute mini episodes of a really good TV show once a week and then told me at the end that I'd just watched a full movie. It might be true, but it still doesn't feel the same.

What it comes down to is I think I really like the individual pieces from Against The World, but I've been a bit too distracted by the packaging and think I need some time to gain perspective and get over the lingering foreign feeling to truly appreciate it. There are some great songs in this collection, and I can't help but wonder if I had stumbled into this fan base five years from now, would I be raving about Against The World while going “What’s the big deal?” any time someone inevitably brings up the ATW era like it was some bad moment that fans made it past? Give it a couple of years and I will probably look back on these songs with a happy nostalgia and reread this entry and laugh at how extra I was feeling because boo hoo, my favorite band gave me good music but in a weird new way that challenged my dislike of change. I suppose not liking the package a good gift comes in is a first-world problem if I ever heard of one, but the purpose of this blog existing in the first place was to give an honest depiction of fan life, so here we are. In conclusion, I am still at this table and ready to dig in, but my personal opinion? It should've always been as one.

Against The World: Stronger

When Hanson announced Against The World, I committed to writing a blog entry per song. They chose this song-per-month release format to give each song the attention it deserves, and for better or for worse, I signed on to blog in that same format for the duration of the project. At first I kind of liked the idea of challenging myself to dig deeper into every song. There can be no skip songs here, and I was curious to see where that would lead.

While writing an entire blog post about a single song is not new territory for me, I have only ever done it when inspiration struck and I had some grand-feeling epiphany about a song. I have only ever done it when the words were already building up in my head and practically begging to be let out. Making an advanced commitment to write about a song I haven't even heard is a little scary. What if I don't like it? What if I don't "get" it and have nothing to say? What if I love it to death, but we're five songs in, and I'm just kind of over the concept of making myself do this thing that I have only ever done out of desire, and turning it into an obligation makes it not so fun anymore?

That's where I'm at now. "Stronger" is a truly amazing song, and I can already tell you it deserves better than this blog of duty when it might have been a blog of passion if I hadn't turned it into a homework assignment all those months ago. I sucked the fun right out of it, which is a shame because I do believe this is one of those songs that would have demanded my attention and my word count all on its own. I'll do my best to do it justice anyway.

So "Stronger." I want to take this one in a different direction and instead of forcing a close reading of lyrics that are already pretty self-explanatory, I want to take you through my first impression of hearing it. I accidentally watched a few seconds of a clip Taylor posted of his hands playing the piano on Instagram days before "Stronger" was released. When I heard the notes he was playing, I immediately thought "Dear God, PLEASE let this be from the new single, and if not, please don't let this beautiful piece of music stay hidden in the vault."

The first time I listened to "Stronger," I did it alone in my room at midnight with my earbuds in and my eyes closed. I didn't get distracted by all the pretty northern lights in the music video or the dramatic stage lighting (which is actually really cool and very well done). And when I pressed play for the first time and heard those opening piano notes, my grin was instant and involuntary. 

When the harmonies hit about 47 seconds in, I felt giddy. THIS is what good music feels like: adrenaline and butterflies and threats of tears regardless of whether you're experiencing it live in a symphony hall with the best acoustics or sitting alone in your room, completely transported by a pair of cheap headphones and the simple magic of stacked sibling harmonies. 

The 1:03 mark introduced strings, and with it, a subtle connection to String Theory. I found myself wondering if they ever play another String Theory show, would they consider reworking newer songs that fit the story and the style? "Stronger" is exactly the type of powerhouse that deserves to be backed by a symphony orchestra. (This is also the part where I admit that I initially thought this second verse was sung by Zac. It wasn't until I was watching the video for the first time hours later that I realized it was Taylor!)

At 1:16, we get five rapidly ascending notes from a harpsichord, and that was the first moment I went from fully on board and in love to suddenly unsure where this train was heading. Ten seconds before, I'd been imagining String Theory, and then suddenly I was transported to "An Evening At The Big Top," which is not a place I'm sure Hanson meant to take me. That minor introduction of a few notes on a harpsichord was all it took for me to hear the beat of the piano chords in an entirely new way, and I couldn't help but get this sudden cyclical circus-y feeling like someone was slowly turning the handle of a jack-in-the-box, and we're on a carousel inside. I didn't dislike any of it; I just no longer knew what direction this song was about to take. Maybe it wasn't the beautifully safe piano ballad I thought it was going to be.

At 1:47, an electric guitar sneaks in on top of those stacked harmonies, and I for sure no longer knew where we were headed, but man I wanted to go there anyway. The song progressively takes off from there with more guitar, more harmonies, and more Queen vibes before finally crashing back down to a single stripped-down note at the end. It leaves you feeling like that abrupt stop at the end of a great rollercoaster where you're already climbing out of your seat, but your mind and body still haven't caught up from the fact that you were hanging upside down at 80 mph just 20 seconds before.

"Stronger" is not the piano ballad I thought I was signing up for when I pressed play. During that first listen, it felt progressive and even experimental at times, not taking any of the safe, String-Theory-esque turns I expected it to take after such a simple and beautiful opening. After listening a few more times, I accepted the harpsichord and the guitar and the Queeny harmonies, and it no longer feels as "out there" as it did on that first listen. I still can't explain the circus feels and won't try to invent some conspiracy theory level explanation, but I'm curious if it was intentional, and if so, what was the intent?

Thematically, the lyrics are straight-forward and I won't bother with an analysis, but I will say that I like the overall sense that it's about someone striving to be better, and the song itself gets progressively "stronger" by adding in more voices, more instruments, and ultimately more support from others. Taylor also talked about this some in a speech he gave the first time they performed this song live back in September. He mentioned a special music teacher, Ron Anderson, who helped him at a time when he was struggling vocally to be strong enough to perform all over the world as a young band. It was a touching moment and I think one of my biggest takeaways from this song and from that bit of insight is that we are ultimately stronger when we work together and when we accept help from those who are willing to give it. 

I think if I had not roped myself into this series of ATW blogs, the blog I would have naturally written about "Stronger" would have been tying it to the themes in "All I Know" (and maybe also "Believe"). I would've talked about how "Stronger" feels like a progression of that utterly defeated person in "All I Know" waking up and feeling the slightest bit more hopeful that maybe he's not about to reach an end, maybe he can find his way, but all he knows is that he needs to be stronger to get out of that place. Maybe one day I'll feel like writing it, or maybe giving it one paragraph here is all it really needs anyway.

So final thoughts? Falling victim to the unavoidable wordplay opportunity here, I have to say that "Stronger" is the "strongest" song yet from ATW. The piano is breathtaking, the lyrics are powerful and full of raw emotion, and I never stood a chance against those harmonies. Despite its theme about not feeling adequate and striving to be stronger, "Stronger" itself is certainly not suffering from any of those shortcomings.

TL;DR:
Hanson: *writes song about feeling weak and inadequate*
Song: *is the strongest, most impressive release of the entire project so far*

Against The World

Welcome to another edition of ex-English teacher Hanson fan gets carried away analyzing lyrics and seeing connections between songs.

You don't have to read my past posts about "Tonight" and "Feeling Alive" to make sense of this review, but at the very least you'll need a TL;DR summary: "Tonight" is about a band that feels defeated and is struggling not to throw in the towel and give up. "Feeling Alive" is a continuation of said band having made it through that rough night to the next morning and feeling ready to fight together and push forward.

Thematically, I think "Against The World" fits nicely into a grouping with these two songs as well as "This Time Around." I won't draw you another Venn Diagram, but all of them have similar themes of going into a battle and being willing to protect something that's worth fighting for, regardless of the potential outcome.

I love, love, love the lyrics in ATW because they manage to tell the story of an underdog band striving to keep going in the face of difficulty (oh hi, Cliffs Notes String Theory!) while also being full of references to Hanson's past work (which in itself feels like some meta connection to all the Hanson references in "Tonight." What can I say--Hanson aren't the only ones who like to reach). The word nerd in me is in love with the first line of the song which somehow manages to be an entirely new lyric while mashing up references to two past ones:

"If tonight we reach, it won't be for the first time." = "Tonight is the first night, tonight is the last night." + "I am reaching for the sky."

They're saying that they're no strangers to "reaching" for something more, which is evident if you know anything about Hanson's history and past songs. The first verse talks about belonging with the "restless," the "rebels," and the "dreamers." It's vague enough to apply to just about any scenario where people persevere in the face of obstacles because they feel driven by a passion, but I think it fits well with casting them in the company of other musicians who have been cut by the metaphorical rock 'n' roll razorblade. "Only the good die young" is certainly a Billy Joel reference, and I may be reading too much into "Landslide" being a reference to Fleetwood Mac, but it definitely tips me in the direction of interpreting this whole verse as Hanson feeling a kinship with other hardworking artists.

The second verse reminds me the most of that drive to fight in "Feeling Alive" and also has connections to "Reaching For The Sky" with its mention of climbing a ladder despite having reservations. They're not that Broken Angel from pre-Underneath anymore--or rather, they're not going to allow themselves to be defined by it--and they aren't going to let some broken wings stop them from jumping in and giving it everything they've got.

The final chorus is the most reminiscent of "Tonight" with the subtle lyric change from "If tonight we reach, it won't be for the first time" to "But tonight we reach, it might be for the last time." It's a shift from saying "IF we reach" to a more definite "Tonight we reach," but shifts the uncertainty to the outcome. The line "Can't swear we'll still be standing at sunrise" means they know that they might not win, but they think it's worth the fight anyway. Know what else says that? "Tonight I won't stand still, even if we don't survive" and "Don't wait for tomorrow's daylight, 'cause it just might be tonight." And if they don't win? Well, you can't say they didn't give it their all.

One of my favorite parts is the very end when Taylor's singing "I hear you say, let me hear you say it's just you and me and us against the world." Even though it comes after about a dozen repetitions of that title line and might be brushed off as typical Hanson phrasing variation, I can't help but notice that for the first time in the song, it sounds like he's speaking directly to the audience. In all the other choruses it's easy to believe that "It's just you and me and us against the world" might be the band singing to each other; it's Hanson vs. the world. But that ending, that "I hear you say, let me hear you say" feels like tearing down the fourth wall and inviting the audience just like he calls for a lifting of hands and voices in "Feeling Alive." Suddenly we're invited to be part of the "Us," and we're a much larger force to be reckoned with than three guys on their own. It feels like a thanks for sticking by them even when it hasn't been easy and crediting a little bit of their drive to keep going to fans that have done the same.

It also hit me that "you and me and us" is lyrically parallel to "me myself and I" and further highlights the difference between giving up because you're feeling alone and soldiering on when you have someone to fight beside you. I have no idea if that was intentional, but it was a beautiful coincidence if not.

It's a great song worthy of its title track position. If only I didn't need Dramamine to accompany the music video.

P.S. I have no excuse for thinking the first chorus sounds like Wilson Phillips, but it was my first reaction the moment it started playing, and I am here for that sound. 

Against The World: Only Love

Lyrically, "Only Love" is my favorite single yet from Against The World. I swear I fell in love with it a little more every time I looked over the lyrics while trying to write this post. That's not to say I don't also love the sound, but the word nerd in me can't get enough of how much is packed into these lyrics. Each verse tells a different story but follows the same general format: a struggling character desperate to run away from something on a self-destructive streak.

In the first verse, we meet a "lost soul" that the speaker describes as "just another proud man still hiding from the vow on his hand." He leaves his three children and his wife to chase another woman and feels no guilt for leaving his family.

The second verse describes a different scenario and presented me with a grammatical crisis that is unfortunately going to lead to the following tangent before I get on with an explanation. As someone with a very literary/grammatical brain, I sometimes stumble over a set of words if they're not spelled or punctuated correctly. Throw a comma in the wrong place, and I will read that sentence exactly as you wrote it and not necessarily as you meant it, for better or for worse. So when I audibly heard that first line sans any visible grammatical cues, and with the knowledge that sometimes songs emphasize sentences differently for the sake of sound, I struggled with how to mentally punctuate the thing and make sense of it.

First, I couldn't tell if the line was:

I have weakness as she sings as her heart beats to the rhythm of the saints.

or

I have weaknesses she sings as her heart beats to the rhythm of the saints

Neither one quite made sense to me, but then I saw someone point out that "The Rhythm of the Saints" is the title of a Paul Simon album and song, and after Googling lyrics, everything fell into place:

"I have weaknesses," she sings, as her heart beats to "The Rhythm of the Saints." 

God bless well-placed quotation marks. Sometimes they're totally neccessary.

Grammatically induced tangent aside, "I have weaknesses" is the first lyric in "The Rhythm of the Saints," meaning the scene in verse two opens up with a woman singing along to Paul Simon, assumedly in a car on the run from some kind of "darkness" (another "The Rhythm of the Saints" lyric). She stops, robs a cashier at gunpoint, and keeps on running "without a care." 

The third verse is where we see an obvious change. We do get a new character, but it's not the same format anymore. The song progression goes from "he" in the first verse to "she" in the second verse to "I" in the third verse. Up until this point, the speaker has been telling us stories of other people, but this time he's getting more personal. He starts out with an admission of flaws similar to the previous two characters, admitting he is aware of his "demons and broken dreams and running headlong into false plans." But unlike the first two verses, this one doesn't end in a line describing how he kept running without feeling remorse. Instead, we get the best two lines in the song:

So whether hipsters or holy rollers, we find ourselves holding court on our knees./
But "broken" won't define you, 'cause love can always find you.

Instead of continuing his self-destructive string of bad decisions, he acknowledges them and stops to "hold court on [his] knees," a position that implies prayer. If you'd prefer to skip the religious context, I think you could also choose to interpret it as a man in a position to beg someone for forgiveness after owning up to his mistakes. 

Whether you choose to interpret his relationship as one with God or one with a spouse, family member, or friend, the answer is the same: only love (and its implied counterpart: forgiveness) can save him. 

Personally, I can't ignore 1. The church imagery from the music video, 2. Hanson's occasional tendency to include religious references in their music, and 3. The fact that just plain seeing Isaac in that collared white shirt in the promo images screamed "Preacher!" before I ever heard the song. When I think about Preacher!Isaac, I can't help but think about growing up in my own Southern Baptist church and how incredibly similar the entire message in this song sounds to some of the sermons I've heard. It's got parables, references to lost souls, and an uplifting encouragement to accept love and be saved from your past sins. It starts with a couple of cautionary tales, gives a personal testimony, and ends with a call to you personally. That's sermon formula 101.

And while that may be my personal takeaway from this song, "love" as a theme is such a big universal concept that leaves us open to make our own personal connections. No matter your perspective, it's a rock-solid song about how love and forgiveness are tied together. It's about looking for redemption and letting love save you from a self-destructive path, and that's true whether it's God's love, romantic love, familial love, or simply learning to love yourself. ❤

Disclaimer: Hanson has not released official lyrics for this song, so this analysis is based on my best take after listening and comparing what I heard to what other fans have heard. Sorry if there are any inaccuracies!

Against the World: Don't Ever Change

The first time I heard "Don't Ever Change" wasn't earlier this week on RollingStone.com or at midnight on Spotify, it was at a concert in Denver in 2019. The show opened with "Finally It's Christmas," "Don't Ever Change," "Rock 'n' Roll Razorblade," and "Lost Without Each Other." Four songs in, I turned to my friend and asked her "What kind of Benjamin Button setlist is this?!" Hanson had chosen to start the set with the type of adrenaline-inducing songs I had come to expect at the end of a show rather than the beginning, and there was no question that newbie "Don't Ever Change" belonged in that designated rock segment of the setlist.

Now that I have the official studio recording in hand and after a few (dozen?) video watches, I can honestly say for what feels like the first time in my history as a fan, I like the studio version better than when I heard it live. That's not to discredit basically every studio version of a Hanson song ever, but I mean it as a testament to just how much I normally love the feeling of a great rock song going straight to my ears from the stage without the filter of a computer or inferior car stereo. I LOVE this band live, and I love the rush of experiencing a killer rock song in person. To realize I liked this one better on my computer was a bit jarring and out of character. It's a very weird feeling to watch the music video, go "This rocks, I can't wait to hear it live!" then go oh wait, I already did. Four times.

My friend who attended the Wintry Mix tour with me even tried to tell me that she had never heard "Don't Ever Change" before. I had to show her video evidence on Youtube that we had, in fact, stood in a room with that song at least once. In our defense, it was really hard to make out the lyrics, none of the venues we went to had the best sound equipment, and it's challenging to fully appreciate any new song when it's accompanied by a cacophony of shouting and concert talkers. I've been to plenty of gigs with questionable sound quality where my brain effortlessly fills in the gaps for missing words or blundered guitar riffs-- mcuh in teh wya yuor brian cna sitll raed jmulbed wrods--but that's just not something you can do with a song you've never heard before. I hope I get to write another blog in a month or two and recall this moment and just how wrong I was after hearing it live again. 

As for a song analysis? I'm not sure I can give you the type I had in mind for this series of blogs. The lyrics (now that I've properly heard and read them) are straight-forward. If there's any hidden meaning in there, it's deep and my shovel is broken. "Don't Ever Change" is a song celebrating the qualities of a loved one who seems strong, independent, and unafraid to be themselves. It sounds like a vaguely British Tinted Windows song birthed in the early 80s, perhaps in one of the cars in Disney's Rock 'n' Rollercoaster ride. I mean all of that as an overly-specific compliment.

The bridge is phenomenally addictive, easily the Queen-iest part, and I would love to hear an entire song in that style. It also has my favorite lyric: "You're my first day's thought and my last night's prayer." The first time I played it in my car, I caught myself raving in my head thinking "I am LIVING for this bridge!" Then I did some kind of unintentional word association and suddenly found myself making troll puns (see notes below). Welcome to my stream of consciousness; at least there were no raisins this time.

I intended to share my hand-written notes on this one too, but I started doodling on it, and if you think you've had secondhand embarrassment from my dancing skills, just wait until you see the blob that is me drawing a candle. Thank God for free graphic design programs and that I write better than I draw...most of the time.

Against The World: ANNALIE

Against The World

Let's have an honest talk about Against The World for a moment. Since its official announcement, fan reactions have been varied somewhere between excited, disappointed, upset, and totally shocked. No matter where you fall on that spectrum, I think it's safe to say that none of us were expecting to be told that ATW would consist of seven songs released one at a time over seven months. I won't lie, I fell solidly in the shocked category at first, and if I had to choose my own three letter acronym the day of the announcement, I'd swap out the "A" for an "F" and reverse the order. Since then, I've thought a lot about how it made me feel and whether I had the right to feel anything at all apart from acceptance. To give you yet another unnecessary food analogy because it's what I do, here's the one I've landed on for an accurate description of my expectations vs. reality regarding Against The World:

Finding out the specifics about Against The World was kind of like having your aunt tell you that she’s bringing her famous sweet potato casserole to Thanksgiving. It’s your favorite dish and you’ve eaten it every year since you were a kid, but this year she shows up and it has raisins in it. Technically she did exactly what she said she was going to do—she brought the casserole—but you weren’t expecting raisins because you didn’t know raisins were even on the table as a possibility. Historically, there’s never been raisins, so you’re disappointed because you made what you thought was a safe assumption based on the information you were given. Basically, Hanson brought the raisins to Thanksgiving, and we weren’t prepared.

It's been a few weeks now, and after having time to digest the announcement--raisins and all--I've accepted the fine print and am excited and ready to hear the rest of the songs. But that still leaves me with a big question as a blogger: how does one properly review an album released in this way? Do I wait until November when we have the whole thing? Do I go song by song? Should I stop at the halfway point and review the first four? Since the announcement, Hanson has made it clear that they are proud of each song from ATW and that they want to give each one the proper attention it deserves. Taking that into consideration, it only seems fair that I try to do the same. I've done a few nerdy analytical posts about single songs in depth in the past, but I normally like to review a full album all at once. Since I also normally like to receive a full album all at once, we're going to try this Hanson's way: a blog post per song, per month, right up until the end.

ANNALIE

I loved "Annalie" the first time I heard it previewed at the Wintry Mix tour in 2019. I came home with it stuck in my head for weeks, and I can vaguely remember telling Hanson at some point that they better not scrap it from the Against The World track list. I gushed in my blog and said it was "destined to go down in Hanson history as a classic earworm of a Hanson song."

Now that we have the studio version and the music video, the thing that stands out to me the most is the train imagery. The initial teaser for the release was a cryptic invitation to RSVP with a photo of a train, and the confirmation email included a round-trip "ticket" to Memphis.

The music video followed shortly after and includes similar shots of trains and fields. 

But the most interesting part about the trains is that the lyrics themselves don't actually refer to trains, tracks, railroads, or anything of the sort, just lots of descriptions about traveling through Memphis. So how do I still come away from this song feeling like there were trains hidden in there anyway?

It's all in the sound. The drums, for lack of a better term, have that sort of "chug-a-chug-a" train rhythm where you can practically hear the wheels clicking on the tracks. And the background "ooohs" in the verses? Those are reminiscent of some impressively harmonic train whistles (Think "choo choo," but where the "ch" is silent). I'm a little surprised that they did this all without a single verbal train mention, but I'm also kind of impressed because the image still comes across so clearly that it can't possibly be anything but intentional.

As for the lyrics, if you take it at face value, it's a pretty straight-forward song about a guy searching for this girl, presumably having "lost" her and wanting her back in his life ("Annalie, come home"). He paints her this image of how they could be happy traveling around iconic places in Memphis, emphasizing that it's not really about what they're doing as long as they're together ("I don’t really care where we stop/Just as long as I get to go").

My favorite line is "empty pockets filling our hearts," which reminds me a lot of the feeling I get listening to Simon & Garfunkel's "Looking For America." The sound of the two songs is nothing alike, but there's this similar vibe of two people aimlessly wandering, enjoying their time together, but with a melancholy undertone of still being a bit lost. The difference is in "Annalie," she's not actually with him on the journey; he's romanticizing the idea of what could be if she came back.

Which leads me to the most ironic plot twist of this song that I did not notice until I sat down to write this post and made myself close-read the lyrics. Here's the TL;DR recap of "Annalie" in a single sentence, the bad book summary, if you will: Guy begs girl to come home, cites extensive examples of running away from home as support to get her there.

He's begging her to come home, but then immediately tells her they can run away, "try on someone else's clothes," and disappear in a new city. What? 

I know, I know, I'm reading too much into it. "Home" is simply by his side, and anywhere can be home as long as they're together. I still find it hilarious. "Annalie, come home. JK, here's a list of places I'll take you in Memphis."

Alternate interpretation? Zac has told us that they chose the name "Annalie" because it translates to "God's grace." Given that detail, you could probably argue that the song is about a guy who has lost touch with God and is wandering around trying to find his way again. I'm more inclined to believe that if the name is significant, then the girl--Annalie--IS the grace that God put in his life, and he messed up and lost her and is trying to win her back.

Continental Breakfast In Bed: Food For Thought

As someone who runs a blog about traveling to Hanson shows, I’m sure you can understand that 2020 hasn’t given me much material for content. I also enjoy reviewing new music, but there hasn’t been any of that up until now, either. Add in the serious issues going on in the world that are far more important than any fluffy filler post I could possibly write about my top five most amazing Hanson encounters, and you get a blog that hasn’t been updated in five months. Who cares about the time I (insert textbook privileged brag-sounding story from an expensive vacation) while people are hurting, struggling to cope with injustices, and literally dying all around us? And so as you may have noticed, I chose silence. If it’s as loud as some would suggest, then I hope the tone you have heard in it is not one of complacency, blind loyalty, or indifference. I hope you can understand that sometimes silence can be a mode of respect, a personal choice to allow room for things more important than yourself and your own opinions. Sometimes it means discreetly nudging your own soapbox away to allow room for the voices of others to be heard.

And while I’ve struggled these past few weeks with a constant urge to write but something inside telling me that the timing is all wrong, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s okay to embrace the things that make me happy, because we’re all struggling right now for a variety of reasons, and music is one of my favorite coping mechanisms. If you’re reading this, I’m guessing you can relate. Hanson has often been that thing to put a smile on my face in darker moments. They’re the song equivalent of a comfort food, the mac & cheese of my musical diet. Logging onto hanson.net this week to see a surprise release of their latest EP put a smile on my face and felt like one piece of normal in world full of crazy. I needed it.

So to serve up another course of normalcy, here’s my review of this year’s Fan Club EP, Continental Breakfast (In Bed).

1. “Dressed in Brown Eyes” is your typical earworm-level catchy Hanson tune. I’ve listened to it maybe four times total and have caught myself humming it several times despite the fact that it’s not my personal favorite of the bunch. The thing that takes it up a notch is the addition of a harmonica part, courtesy of John Fullbright. The lyrics are nothing particularly deep, just an upbeat story of a guy who really wants to be with a girl, and who is possibly implying that his favorite outfit is when she’s wearing nothing but brown eyes. Don’t quote me on that. Maybe it’s a little more G-rated and her eyes are so captivating that they’re all he can see when he looks at her. *sappy gag emoji*

TL;DR: The only part of me that feels moved by “Dressed in Brown Eyes” is my feet, which is a decent place to start.

Breakfast Food Equivalent: Straight syrup.

2. “Good Days” is like the followup answer to “Better Days.” Instead of pushing optimism and looking for something better, it’s saying take the time to notice that these are the good days here and now, so you might as well make the most of them while you can. “Don’t let a moment pass you by.” I really like the sound of this one and it feels like summer and outdoors and backyard barbecues to me. Also, I took just enough Spanish classes that I cannot unhear “huevo” every time he says “wave, oh.”

Breakfast Food Equivalent: Cheesy scrambled eggs.

3. “Miss You Like Crazy” is in an epic battle against another song for my favorite of this EP. It’s another surface level love song lyrically, but where “Dressed in Brown Eyes” might be moving my feet, “Miss You Like Crazy” makes me want to jump around and sing loud and put it all on repeat to do it again. I have absolutely nothing of substance to say here except I love the sound of it. I love Isaac’s guitar solo (and how ridiculously proud he looked of himself nailing it in the making-of videos), I love the “oh oh ohs,” and I love the line “you were perfect from the start”—not for the lyrics, but for that melody. The Billy Joel “heart attack-ack-ack” bit seems random, but it works.

Breakfast Food Equivalent: A stack of those Hanson symbol waffles and two shots of your favorite Starbucks drink. Filling, sweet, maybe not all that nutritional, but with a giant sugar rush.

4. “Everyday” is one of those songs I knew was unreleased but sometimes I forget it’s not already on an EP because I’ve heard it live a few times. For that reason, it doesn’t really feel like “new” music to me and I’m struggling to look at it that way, but hearing it fully mixed and with strings added is definitely an improvement over the times I heard it with inappropriately timed shouts and shushing. I love the cello and am curious if Isaac played those parts himself. The way the violin blends with it later in the song feels perfectly symbolic for a wedding song and the joining of two lives. I’m curious what made them decide to release it now and with this particular combination of songs, but I’m glad it finally found its home. It’s not a song that resonates with me personally, but I can appreciate the emotion that went into writing it and the beauty in its simplicity.

Breakfast Food Equivalent: The joining of cereal and milk into one perfectly dependable breakfast dish that you can eat...yes...everyday. With the nutritional value of Raisin Bran, not Cap'n Crunch.

5. My first thought about “Change” was that the title and the lyrics sounded somewhat relevant to current events, but a quick listen to the podcast assured me that while the theme may be applicable to a lot of situations, it was written at least several months to a year ago during the writing of “Against the World.” My second thought was how ironic it is that during that writing period, they wrote both a song called “Change” and a song called “Don’t Ever Change,” which they debuted during the Wintry Mix tour. (My third thought was to laugh out loud at myself because while writing thoughts #1 & #2, I totally blanked on the title of “Against The World” and found myself in some zombie autopilot mode writing the phrase “New Anthem” instead. Going forward, “Against the World” will now be referred to as “New Anthem”).

The truth is I *want* to like this song. The lyrics are fine, parts of it have been catchy enough to pop into my head uninvited, but I really, really don’t like the “oh oh, oh oh, oh oh oh oh oh oh” bits. It feels a little gospel choir-y to me and if you read my review of last year’s EP, then you might remember I just really don’t like that sound.

Breakfast Food Equivalent: Cinnamon rolls. Because no matter how good they look and how many other people love them, I just don't have a taste for them.

6. “Begin Again” has the opposite issue of “Dressed in Brown Eyes” for me. The lyrics outrank the sound by quite a bit. Since we don’t have a lyric booklet, I took the time to write down all of the lyrics as I hear them before writing any of this, and I’m so glad that I did. Sonically, “Begin Again” felt very familiar. It reminded me of “Make It Through Today,” “Everyday,” and “Bad For Me” at different moments, and I found myself not listening all that closely to the lyrics because I felt like my brain was labeling it as something I’d already heard before. When I sat down and wrote out the words, I had a moment of wow, I really didn’t get how poignant and meaningful these lyrics are the first two times I listened. If anything on this EP feels like a true reflection on current events, it’s this song. Though I don’t recall "Begin Again" being in any of the “making of” videos to give us an insight into when it was written, I’d wager that it, too, was probably written months ago and that we can thank the power of a good set of vague lyrics for its relatability.

I am curious to see the official lyrics because I spy a homophone and it could be either version and possibly a play on both:

We’ve lived together, we’ve walked alone
No destination, just a struggle to be (won? one?)

TL;DR: Caution: Deep. Flotation device recommended.

Breakfast Food Equivalent: Everything bagel with a side of apple juice.

7. All I know is that “All I Know” is top song material. I started this blog with a real fear that it would be two sentences about the first six songs and two novellas about this one. I listened to this EP for the first time on my way home from work with a significant portion of my attention reserved for driving rather than fully focusing on the music. About halfway through this song I found myself crying and then asking myself why I was crying when I wasn’t even sure I’d heard most of the lyrics. I was on day seven of eight in a row and had just finished a nine hour shift, and so I brushed it off and thought maybe that’s really not the best way to absorb emotional new music. I went home. I slept eight hours. I listened to it again the next morning and found myself crying on the way to work, because apparently that is just what this song does.

It’s vague enough that on the surface, plot wise, it doesn’t seem to be about anything in particular. It could literally be about anyone in any time period in a wide variety of situations, but at the heart of this song is a feeling anyone can relate to. It’s about struggling with self-worth and with not living up to one’s potential. It’s beautifully, soul-crushingly bleak. And I’m not sure there’s any Hanson lyric in existence quite as heart wrenching as the line:

“I’m done with living in the past
Anything I’ve done that’s good I doubt will ever last”

(The next line may be just as profound, but in true Taylor fashion, I can’t quite make it all out).

I am so awed by the ability to pair a couple of piano chords and well-chosen words to craft such a perfect replica of a feeling into a song that one moment I can be driving and feeling fine, and the next I’m transported to this place of anguish that suddenly feels like it’s mine. That’s the power of great music.

It makes me feel almost the same way the song “Top of the World” by the Chicks does. I may have to file it in the same drawer, right next to “I Lift You Up” and Relient K’s “Deathbed.” That drawer’s labeled “Don’t go there, but bring tissues if you do.”

Breakfast Food Equivalent: Gourmet omelet with a double side of bacon, grapefruit, and black coffee. Caution: load up on napkins; you're going to need them.

Additional Thoughts:

This EP ranges from light and fluffy and syrupy sweet to dark abyss levels of deep. The track list also seems to be in ascending order of seriousness from start to finish and makes for a smooth transitional flow between each song. Apart from my silly breakfast food analogies, I really see no connection between the songs and the E.P. title and think Hanson must have abandoned the original plan to have a song for each continent, unless they only ever meant that in a strictly numerical sense. It really makes no difference to the songs and their meaning to me, but I'm up for hearing an explanation if one exists.

I'll spare you any further hungry and now I'm full gag-inducing food analogies, but for what it's worth, I've been looking forward to new music and am happy to finally have this taste to tide me over until "New Anthem." You're probably already a fan club member if you've bothered reading this far, but in case you need to hear this, the membership now includes a digital download option which means you can renew or join right now and be listening to the new E.P. within minutes. Maybe it will brighten your day, too.

Months ago when we first started quarantining and places went into lockdown, there was a lot of positive encouragement to “wash your hands,” “practice social distancing,” and “check on your friends.” I don’t see as much of that last one anymore, but I think this is where I'd like to wind things up, even if it's a bit off topic. So whether you’re one of my close friends, an acquaintance I’ve interacted with in line or online, or someone reading a random girl's blog on the internet, I hope you’re doing okay. Whether we share all the same opinions or have nothing in common but a love for music, I wish you the best in navigating 2020, this year of dumpster fires, travel bans, and making plans for the future. I hope you're finding your own moments of happiness whether it's a song, a book that takes you away, or a ridiculous long distance midnight conversation about what type of breakfast food a bunch of songs would be.