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Regarding the Davenports’ tremendous new power pop number, “Leanne,” now playing in rotation on Pure Pop Radio, the following is mostly speculation. Well, it’s mostly speculation on my part, weighed down by many questions. A wigged-out, sneaky electric guitar riff, followed by a quickly-rendered, handclap-adorned bridge, leads into the first verse of this catchy, sneaky, almost anti-love song, and we’re off to the races.
For one thing: Is the dirty drip that’s referenced up top in the song a leaky faucet filling a sink with shmutzy water, deposits on a drip pan, or something else entirely? “In the spring we lunged for the dirty, dirty drip,” one half of the relationship spouts. “I kicked out your heel to make you, make you trip.” Question answered, then: The “dirty, dirty drip” is just the thing, the thing that this guy uses as an excuse to make his lady friend see the floor tiles up close and personal.
It’s a playful yet quite possibly tenuous relationship, one that survives the allegorical wrestling move detailed in the lyrics’ second verse: “After the final slat of sun/The violet volley cartwheel run/You held me on a mat of Monday mowings.” When the sun sets on Sunday night, and the last, partial rays peek through the vertical blind slats, closed but not totally, and the sky fades into a violet hue, it all comes out–the this and that and yes, that again, that she’s held in ever so tightly since the last time she mowed you down, and it all comes out on Monday morning in the shreds of emotion as if they were the product of a lawn mower’s chopped grass shards.
“I called you Buttercup,” the boyfriend lays out as a kind of gesture, “I called you Buttercup, Leanne/But now, now I just call you, call you Leanne.” Because the cute-as-a-button nickname that relates back to the time when isn’t realistic anymore as the couple sheds their outer skin and reveals their collective, inner sleeve. “…now I just call you, call you Leanne.”
And then there’s the standoff: “Then we swarmed around each others’ stares like bugs/And we sat securely in our mugs.” Sizing up the considerable situation, the two lovebirds find themselves in excelsis, boiling as the temperature rises higher and higher still, each relegating their ids to their respective corners, pushing and pulling and pushing and pulling again, still, not willing to budge.
“Then,” the guy sings, “we ate to excess after that/And we stole the others’ turn at bat,” because, well, one can only disagree on the same punctuated point so much. “And we said we should grow old and fat together…” Because, well, that’s their love: fiery one minute, I-love-you-lots-and-lots-with-strings-astride-but-make-no-mistake-about-it, we’re meant to be.
“I called you Buttercup,” the guy sings. “I called you Buttercup.” But now, in the springtime of our lives, I call you who you are: my love, my life, my Leanne. All the while, crunchy guitars, a steady 4/4 beat, and a determined bass guitar lead the way through the romance of two people obviously meant for each other.
“Sing along whether you’re a lover, brokenhearted, or some place in between,” say the Davenports. Sounds about right.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
by Alan Haber
Swoon with “Leanne,” playing as part of your Valentine’s Day soundtrack. Pick it up here.
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Image may be NSFW.
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Image may be NSFW.
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