Saturday, January 14, 2012

36 Songs, 36 Days (2012 Edition), Day Two: California Sex Lawyer by Fountains of Wayne

And here we are yet again with what has to have become the Patron Band of Singalong Scriptures, my favorite modern power pop combo, The Fountains of Wayne.

This is a cut from Out-Of-State Plates, the two-disc collection of rarities, b-sides and unreleased tracks the band put out in 2005, and according to Adam Schlesinger, it's literally a load of nonsense inspired by seeing a copy of the magazine California Lawyer in the boardroom of the band's lawyer.

And to be fair, it is nonsense--the lyrics really are light-weight and borderline incoherent, the song boiling down to 'I'm going to Cali, I'm going to bust things up with my girl and my German Shepherd named Doug, then I'm going to sleep.' And at no point does Adam even hint at what being a California Sex Lawyer entails (outside of the obvious answer of being lawyer-ly and having sex). But what drives this song is not the lyrics but the arrangement, which is pure-d Left Coast. The band manages to create this laid back guitar rift that is occasionally punctuated by synth-twinks that seem to make our POV character's contentions seem entirely plausible. Hell, with that crunchy bridge, I'd be willing to drop everything for an L.A. position as a California Sex Lawyer.

Damn, that phrase just makes me silly every time I write it. Which may have been the whole point of the band writing the song.

(And incidentally, have I ever not done one of these yearly song cycles without a FoW song in the mix somewhere?)

I promise sometime soon to get back to my 'Me And...' series dissecting how I came to love this band so much soon. Until then, here's the song itself.

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