Let’s face it: a lot of musicians sound like assholes. Music as a medium lends itself to mopey whining or egotistical displays of bravura and skill. Think of any breakup song ever written or any long guitar solo. This isn’t even necessarily a criticism, because it’s sometimes fun to listen to and I like my share of socially maladjusted artists. But I’ve also found in recent years that I really like it when musicians sound nice, even though that’s often associated with being boring.
That might all spring from “Come On Let’s Go,” which is the first Broadcast song I loved and Trish Keenan’s most endearing performance — one that shows how a single song can totally color your perception of a performer. It’s about a nearly taboo topic in music: being a kind, caring, generous person.
This is the second single off The Noise Made By People, and it’s quite a contrast to “Echo’s Answer.” While that song is inscrutable and bewildering, “Come On Let’s Go” is immediate. It’s the purest pop song the band ever made and it was easy for me to embrace the bouncy sound, Trish’s warm voice, and the straight-forward, relatable lyrics. The positioning of these songs as the first two singles that appear consecutively on the album has linked them together in my mind, and I believe it was a conscious strategy by the band.
Part of it is showing the range of the band in two songs, a way of saying “look what we can do” to the listener. They can make a perfect, catchy pop song, then follow it up with something strange and baffling that barely resembles a song at all. Functionally, “Come On Let’s Go” also serves as a gateway into Broadcast’s music. As a less experienced listener, this is the song I gravitated towards because it was so simple and got stuck in my head, and my love for it helped me get into all of their other songs like “Echo’s Answer.”
Once I got into those songs, there was a period where I didn’t listen to “Come On Let’s Go” much, and I’m ashamed to admit at times I felt like I’d “moved on” from it. Now I’ve come full circle as I’ve gained an appreciation the craft of a pop song, especially one that holds up as well as this one after almost 20 years. In fact, some of its lyrics might resonate now more than they did when the song was originally written.
No lyrics describe life in the social media age as well as “it’s hard to tell who is real in here” and “what’s the point in wasting time on people that you’ll never know.” Now more than ever, it’s really easy to get caught up in what other people think and to spend tons of mental energy endearing yourself to strangers who don’t actually care about you. Whenever I find myself doing that, this song echoes in my mind. It’s like a gentle pep talk from Keenan to stop being so stupid.
It’s not like these lyrics are revolutionary concepts, but there is something about Keenan’s delivery and the warm sound that makes them feel that way. She is just so matter-of-fact and sincere about it: “yeah, I’ll be your friend forever and I’ll always be here.” That is one of the deepest, most human feelings there is, and there aren’t as many songs about it as I feel like there should be. And this really shapes my perception of Keenan, who comes across in her music as such a caring, genuine person, which forms a contrast with so many other artists. “Come On Let’s Go” is one of the songs that separates Broadcast from other electronic/psychedelic bands who twiddle on their instruments but don’t make that human connection.
The ironic part of “what’s the point in wasting time on people that you’ll never know” is that it can apply so easily to the artists we listen to and obsess over. A lot of loving music is forming that one-sided connection with an artist, where they mean the world to you and have no idea who you are. I didn’t know Trish Keenan, and she wasn’t a very public person, but through songs like this I feel like I did. She felt real and I never sensed an ounce of pretension or acting in her music. If this isn’t who she really was, then she was an even more incredible and convincing performer than I realized.
The Noise Made By People 