搬運自：微信公眾號【評論搬一堆】（在原文基礎上添加了英語原文與排版調整）

翻譯：JenniferC

校對：Lynn Liu

推送：Lynn Liu

Music briefly deserted me last year after a boy?kicked my heart in the ass. No song was capacious enough for all that I felt. Not a fists-in-the-air empowerment anthem, not a fuck-you punk tirade, not even a gently masochistic ballad. Obviously, the happy stuff was out, too: the grand swoon of?Wolf Parade?that had scored my daydreams; the?Taylor Swift?hook he sang to me that one afternoon, our legs swinging from the highest platform of a children’s playground. It was a little like that stage of grief where food turns to cardboard on your tongue. Nothing tastes good; nothing sounds good. You starve; you sit in silence.

去年，一個男孩兒傷透了我的心，此后我的音樂世界一片荒蕪。無論是激情澎湃的頌歌還是叛逆冗長的朋克，甚至連溫柔虐心的民謠也不能撫慰我的心靈。而且，一切的歡愉也棄我而去：我不敢回想，那時在 Wolf Parade的演唱會上我如癡如醉，做著快樂的白日夢；我不敢回憶，那天下午我們倆坐在游樂園高高的平臺上，快樂地甩著腿，他給我哼著 Taylor Swift的歌。我很難過，所有的食物都味同嚼蠟。對于我來說，沒有饞人的美味也沒有動聽的樂音，因此我的世界饑餓無比，一片寂靜。

Free Company?is an album I wish I’d had last autumn. Taylor Vick, an Oakland songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who performs as?Boy Scouts, has made a generous and gorgeously empathetic chronicle of the aftermath of love. Through sunny arrangements and spare songwriting, Vick compresses the dust of her romantic disappointment into a glittering jewel. She loves the subject of her songs, but she loves herself, too—loves herself?more, enough to step away and carry on, alone, with her head held high.

如果去年秋天就有《 Free Company》這張專輯，那該多好啊。Taylor Vick(藝名Boy Scouts），這位精通各種樂器的奧克蘭作曲人，按時間順序為我們呈遞了一段豐富曼妙的羅曼史，展現了愛之傷痕。這張專輯編曲輕快明媚，詞曲慵懶愜意， Vick借助音樂，一掃愛情中的失意與陰暗，并把它們重新熔鑄成一顆鉆石，熠熠生輝。她深愛著前男友，還給他寫歌——不過，她更加自愛，她的自愛讓她重新爬起來，昂首挺胸，獨自大步向前走。

Though Boy Scouts’ backing tracks are hazy and dreamlike, calling to mind tour mate?Jay Som, Vick’s writing is direct, sharp, more bee-sting than butterfly.?Free Company?lulls the listener with short sentences and single syllables, until a tripwire of a lyric—“And now you’re mad at me/And I’m no longer twenty-three”—sends you sprawling headfirst into her perspective. Like the prose of Sally Rooney, Vick’s lyrics explore the vast complexity of human emotion by reveling in the simplicity of its expression. The indelible chorus of “All Right,” for instance, makes a meal out of a mere eight words: “I’m all right, I swear/I’m all right, how dare you?” In a song that explores weighty, existential questions—the existence of heaven, the permanence of souls, the mortifying ordeal of being known—Vick’s verbal economy keeps her feet planted firmly on the ground.

Boy Scouts音樂的背景音朦朧又夢幻，和Jay Som一個風格，仿佛她們倆就是靈魂摯友。Vick的歌詞犀利直接，就像蜂針扎在心上?！?Free Company》的歌詞簡短，音節(jié)簡單，但一句“And now you’re mad at me/And I’m no longer twenty-three（你現在對我不耐煩了/我也不再只有二十三歲了）一下就能觸發(fā)內心的情感，讓你立馬陷進她的經歷中。和Sally Rooney的散文詩一樣，Vick的歌詞試圖通過簡練的言語摸索人類復雜的情感。其中的一段合唱深入人心：“I’m all right, I swear/I’m all right, how dare you?（我發(fā)誓我很好/我真的很好，你怎么能這樣？）”有一首歌還探討了一些沉重的存在主義問題——天堂是否存在？靈魂是否永恒？以及自我存在被認知后的窘迫。Vick簡潔精煉的語言讓她腳踏實地，牢牢扎根。

This is not Vick’s first album as Boy Scouts. Her substantial?Bandcamp?output stretches back nearly a decade, studded with bedroom recordings and borrowed instruments. (On 2016’s “Homeroom Breakfast,” she offers endearing thanks to “rosie’s piano,” “scott’s guitar,” and “ben’s bass.”) What is clear in the arc from those records to this one are Vick’s substantial gifts not only as a writer, but as an editor. A throwaway line from “Homeroom Breakfast”—“Everything great has an expiration date”—resurfaces on “Free Company,” sharpened to a sad, subtle point in the service of a stronger song. A kind of emotional editing is evident, too. Vick has always contended, in her music, with rejection and resentment. But on “Free Company,” the woman who once wrote, “The world doesn’t need me like the world needs you” now writes from a position of hard-won, sober self-respect. “I don’t know why you’d fall through,” she sings. “I never did for you.”

Vick化名為Boy Scouts發(fā)專輯，這也不是頭一回了。大概十年前，她就開始在 Bandcamp（譯者注：一個匯聚了大量音樂人和樂迷的網站）發(fā)了很多歌，都是在房間里錄的，連樂器都是借來的。（在2016年的歌曲“Homeroom Breakfast（教室早餐)”中，她還特別鳴謝了“rosie的鋼琴” “scott的吉他” 還有“ben的貝斯”）。而這張專輯和之前歌曲的不同點在于，這次才華橫溢的Vick不僅作詞作曲，還參與了編曲。“Free Company”用了 “Homeroom Breakfast”中一句不經意的歌詞“Everything great has an expiration date（好東西都有保質期）”，但聽起來更悲傷，更戳中心中微小的痛點，和這首情感更強的歌曲相得益彰。除此之外，我們也能看到樂曲的情感也得以加工。曾經，Vick忿忿地同拒絕、怨恨斗爭，寫下 “The world doesn’t need me like the world needs you（這個世界不像需要你那樣需要我）”。但現在，她擁有來之不易、清醒的自尊，現在她唱的是“I don’t know why you’d fall through,I never did for you.（我不知道你為什么失敗了，但我做的一切從來不是為了你。）”

The arc of?Free Company?is shot through with tender compassion, even for those who’ve wronged her. On marvelous opener “Get Well Soon,” she offers her best wishes—but “no balloons, ’cause they just die, too”—to a former love. She doesn’t apologize for asserting herself: “Hardly a fight when you know I’m right.” In the depths of her grief, on “In Ya Too,” she likens herself to “the desert sprawl—empty, but still forceful.” She is still adjusting to aloneness, but she is learning to love its strange rhythms, its small pleasures. On “Momentary Love,” perched in her “favorite place,” she lets her thoughts wander to an old love during a moment of solitude. The memory still makes her ache, but that’s okay, she sings: “This doesn’t keep me sane/But the views up here lessen the pain.”

即使是那些曾經傷害過她的人，Vick在《 Free Company》也對他們抱有柔情。專輯的打頭曲“Get Well Soon（早點好起來）”動人無比，在這首歌里，她給前男友致以美好的祝愿——“不要像氣球一樣，因為它們最終也會爆裂”。但是她也從不后悔堅守自我：“如果你明白我是對的，就不會有爭執(zhí)了?！?“In Ya Too（你也是）”展現了她內心深處的悲傷，她把自己比作“無邊無際的沙漠——空無一人，但潛藏能量?！?strong>Vick還需要時間慢慢適應自己的孤獨，不過她已經開始愛上孤獨之中的奇妙韻律和小小歡喜了。?在“Momentary Love（短暫之愛）”這首歌中，Vick獨自坐在她“最愛的地方”，思緒流連于舊愛之中?；貞涍^去，她的內心仍舊隱隱作痛。但沒關系，就像她唱的那樣：“This doesn’t keep me sane/But the views up here lessen the pain.（雖然我不太清醒，但這里的景色好歹減輕了痛苦）”。

We’ve devised no end of performative mechanisms to distance ourselves from our more unsavory emotions. But on “Free Company,” Taylor Vick dares to feel everything. Reflecting on the death of a friend, on gorgeous closer “You Were Once,” Vick sings, “I knew I’d never be the same again/I know it now and I knew it then/There is only so much you can pretend.” Vick wants her listeners to know both the fullness of her grief and the strength and spirit with which she freed herself of it. She renders each subtle swell of anger, embarrassment, and regret with something almost like gratitude, the retreat of each wave only affirming the solidity of her place on the shore.

所有人都使勁渾身解數來擺脫不良情緒，但在 《Free Company》中， Taylor Vick卻敢于體驗任何情緒。?“You Were Once（你已離去）”這首歌是在她好朋友去世后寫的，她唱道：“I knew I’d never be the same again/I know it now and I knew it then/There is only so much you can pretend.（我其實知道我已不復往昔/那時和現在都明白這個道理/但這是唯一能偽裝的東西了）。Vick想讓歌迷明白，她確實很悲傷，但她精神足夠強大，強大到能擺脫痛苦。她懷著一種近乎感恩的心情去體驗心中涌動的每一絲憤怒、困窘和悔恨。浪潮來了但終將退去，退去的浪潮終究敵不過岸上巋然不動的她。