It's manic. Snapped wires. Screaming at the boxcars as they go by. Kid listened to too many Joy Division records in high school and not only did he pick up an attraction to crazy, but he learned how to freak out to that crazy in melody as well. And freak out he does. But he'll tell you why he's freaking out, he'll make you feel it too. And turns out, he has good reason to freak out. Dude's in deep with a bad chick who's, well, she's pretty bad. He waits until the chorus before shrieking for help, "She can't read!" There are those intimate little details that make you realize he's caught in this relationship, he's in love, he loves crazy, he's not getting out any time soon. "It's in the way she pulls it." and the amazing line, "Her stories are boring and stuff /she's always calling my bluff." Sears my frickin' heart.

There's something about Devendra Banhart you can't put your finger on. Becuase your finger's turned into a talon or a claw or a hoof and the song you were trying to pin down has squirmed away under the table, or has turned into a gaseous dream vapour and floated out the window. He's got a scattered, witchy, completely original voice that whispers little kid secrets, then belts passionately with a heart been done-wronged, then tries to put on the withered seduction of a wrinkled hag lost on an island for years. Then comes the workaday little chorus. La dee da dee AH! How does this song still remain so allusive, so cooool, after so many listens? I got no clue. Do you?