搬運自：網(wǎng)易云音樂專欄【Music Online Zine Courier】（在原文基礎上添加了英語原文與排版調(diào)整）

翻譯：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” 中的高亮一筆——“Time is money, and, money is no man's friend”——作為她父親曾經(jīng)言語的回音出現(xiàn)在這首歌曲中再恰當不過。這位善于觀察的澳大利亞歌手兼詞曲作家，在她即將發(fā)行的第三張個人專輯（精巧地命名為《Things Take Time, Take Time》）的第一支單曲中回歸本源。從2015年《Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit》的朋克轟炸，以及2018年《Tell Me How You Really Feel》的痞式吶喊中可以看出，Barnett 最擅長的是作為日常生活的白日夢式執(zhí)筆者——無論對于她從前的巡演伙伴 Darren Hanlon 亦或她近年來的“后繼人” Camp Cope 、 Alex Lahey 和 Stella Donnelly 等，她都毋庸置疑是作為澳大利亞詞曲創(chuàng)作傳統(tǒng)的標桿人物而存在的。正如 Barnett 自己在2013年的突破性作品 “Avant Gardener” 中所說的那樣，她更鐘愛于平凡的生活。

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.

從父母飽經(jīng)風霜后娓娓道來的箴言中，Barnett 回避自我意識困境，擁抱窗外繽紛的生活流。2020年的大部分時間中，她都在墨爾本一個朋友的家中居家隔離，很容易想象到她如何記錄下那些支零的生活剪影——緩緩駛過的垃圾車、正在學騎自行車的孩子、一對正在為房屋刷漆的夫婦、來自疲憊不堪的父母的無能狂怒——這些畫面匯聚在一起，繪成一幅引人駐足的日常生活畫卷，好似新冠風潮期間記錄民生生活的“22 Short Films About Springfield”*。在一個極具特色的轉(zhuǎn)折中，她從唱到需要全社會觀念做出改變轉(zhuǎn)而唱到今天要不要換個床單。音樂性上，這首歌是一個令人欣慰的回歸，在聯(lián)合制作人（樂隊 Warpaint 的鼓手）Stella Mozgawa 的指導下，用輕巧的吉他弦和簡易鼓聲制作樂曲。這二人在之前 Barnett 與 Kurt Vile 的合作專輯 《Lotta Sea Lice》中一同演奏，“Rae Street”讓人回想起那張唱片慵懶而又費盡心血的節(jié)奏韻律；Barnett不緊不慢的語調(diào)聽來更像是一日晌午她正喝著咖啡，緩緩道來。時間可能不是任何人的朋友，但歷經(jīng)這段時間來這可能是我經(jīng)歷的最和善的四分半鐘。

*譯者注釋：“22 Short Films About Springfield”是動畫《辛普森一家》于1996年4月14日播出的第七季第二十一集，在這一集中動畫通過一系列小插曲講述了辛普森一家所居住的地方“Springfield”中居民的一天生活。