"Surgeon" begins as a hazy, delightfully lethargic ballad with lovely crisp vocals from Ms. Clark. This intro melody? I dig it. And then suddenly the song hits the one minute mark and into the chorus and I'm like "wHAt? Yes. No... Yes. YES." You simply can't deny the brain spasm that occurs when you hear her pop-y vocal harmonies over that silky, funky guitar riff - a bit of a genre-melter don't you think? The song becomes even weirder (and might I say prog-ier?) as it goes, although unfortunately rarely returning to that simple hook in the opening verse, but that's just personal preference. And just to screw with any drummers listening to the song, the drummer switches his right hand hi-hat sixteenths to the snare during one of the verses, shattering an unwritten rock drumming rule. Timbre is everything, my friends. And that little detail in itself, however unimportant it is to most people, is just a lil' example of why musicians try new things and new sounds... Just to fuck with you all. KIDDING. I'm sorry Aunt Maureen, if you're reading this. You're reading this.
Coming out of that first chorus you get the intro vocal melody again, almost breathing humid air down your neck with its density. Then, the bridge. Ah the bridge - like the listener having to eat his/her vegetables at the dinner table: because it's necessary for a balanced meal... and they really should take the time to hear Annie's nice flute, woodwind and string arrangements. Then things get even funkier. Then things get prog-funkier. Then Dave Longstreth of Dirty Projectors walks in and... wait, no. I refuse to make the same comparison that everyone is making about his sound and this song.
But guys, if I'd have to say what my favorite part of the song is... it would be at 3:10. Exactly. The three minutes and ten seconds mark is what I like to call a "Totally In The Pocket 'UHh'". The End. Oh yeah and I don't really enjoy the synth part at the end. I respect the level of "cool" that it reaches, but I do also suggest that it's more of a part added for novelty or just for the sake of it(?) Oh and by the way, just in case you couldn't already tell, I'm totally writing on an uncensored stream-of-consciousness. But... I think that's what Annie did when she wrote the outline and parts of this wonderful, dyslexic, mixed-race child of a song.













