【搬运】【译】叉婊Pitchfork评Courtney Barnett 2021年单曲《Rae Street》

搬运自：网易云音乐专栏【Music Online Zine Courier】（在原文基础上添加了英语原文与排版调整）

翻译：Beans_Beans

It seems only fitting that the hook from Courtney Barnett’s new song “Rae Street”—“Time is money, and money is no man’s friend”—echoes words that her father said. The first single from the observational Australian singer-songwriter’s upcoming third solo album (the cleverly titled Things Take Time, Take Time) feels like a return to her roots. For all the punkish blasts of 2015’s Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit and the puckish sloganeering of 2018’s Tell Me How You Really Feel, Barnett is most at home as a daydreaming chronicler of the everyday—a shrugging standard-bearer for an Aussie songwriting tradition that stretches from former tourmate Darren Hanlon to recent successors like Camp Cope, Alex Lahey, and Stella Donnelly. As Barnett herself deadpanned on her 2013 breakout “Avant Gardener,” she much prefers the mundane.

在 Courtney Barnett 新作 “Rae Street” 中的高亮一笔——“Time is money, and, money is no man's friend”——作为她父亲曾经言语的回音出现在这首歌曲中再恰当不过。这位善于观察的澳大利亚歌手兼词曲作家，在她即将发行的第三张个人专辑（精巧地命名为《Things Take Time, Take Time》）的第一支单曲中回归本源。从2015年《Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit》的朋克轰炸，以及2018年《Tell Me How You Really Feel》的痞式呐喊中可以看出，Barnett 最擅长的是作为日常生活的白日梦式执笔者——无论对于她从前的巡演伙伴 Darren Hanlon 亦或她近年来的“后继人” Camp Cope 、 Alex Lahey 和 Stella Donnelly 等，她都毋庸置疑是作为澳大利亚词曲创作传统的标杆人物而存在的。正如 Barnett 自己在2013年的突破性作品 “Avant Gardener” 中所说的那样，她更钟爱于平凡的生活。

Channeling a parent's weathered bromides allows Barnett to sidestep self-consciousness and surrender to the flow of life outside her window. She spent most of 2020 in self-quarantine at a friend’s empty Melbourne apartment, and it's easy to imagine her scribbling down the fragmentary images—a passing garbage truck, a kid learning to ride a bike, a couple painting bricks, a weary parent yelling — that come together to form a compelling portrait of day-to-day existence, like a “22 Short Films About Springfield” for pandemic life and beyond. In an appealing, characteristic turn, she goes from singing about needing society-wide change to musing about changing the bedsheets. Musically, the song is a comforting return, with easygoing guitar strums and rudimentary drum machine programming, guided by co-producer (and Warpaint drummer) Stella Mozgawa. The two previously played together on Barnett’s collaborative album with Kurt Vile, 2017's Lotta Sea Lice, and “Rae Street” recalls that record's languid, ambling pace; Barnett's nonchalant drawl sounds like she's describing her afternoon over coffee. Time might be no one's friend, but this is the most amiable four-and-a-half minutes I've heard in a while, in a while.

从父母饱经风霜后娓娓道来的箴言中，Barnett 回避自我意识困境，拥抱窗外缤纷的生活流。2020年的大部分时间中，她都在墨尔本一个朋友的家中居家隔离，很容易想象到她如何记录下那些支零的生活剪影——缓缓驶过的垃圾车、正在学骑自行车的孩子、一对正在为房屋刷漆的夫妇、来自疲惫不堪的父母的无能狂怒——这些画面汇聚在一起，绘成一幅引人驻足的日常生活画卷，好似新冠风潮期间记录民生生活的“22 Short Films About Springfield”*。在一个极具特色的转折中，她从唱到需要全社会观念做出改变转而唱到今天要不要换个床单。音乐性上，这首歌是一个令人欣慰的回归，在联合制作人（乐队 Warpaint 的鼓手）Stella Mozgawa 的指导下，用轻巧的吉他弦和简易鼓声制作乐曲。这二人在之前 Barnett 与 Kurt Vile 的合作专辑 《Lotta Sea Lice》中一同演奏，“Rae Street”让人回想起那张唱片慵懒而又费尽心血的节奏韵律；Barnett不紧不慢的语调听来更像是一日晌午她正喝着咖啡，缓缓道来。时间可能不是任何人的朋友，但历经这段时间来这可能是我经历的最和善的四分半钟。

*译者注释：“22 Short Films About Springfield”是动画《辛普森一家》于1996年4月14日播出的第七季第二十一集，在这一集中动画通过一系列小插曲讲述了辛普森一家所居住的地方“Springfield”中居民的一天生活。