The Onion AV Club dislikes The Search

[dprice]

While the reviewer did take these lines out of context and ignored a plethora of good ones on the album, that "guns or education" verse is pretty stinky I think. Jus' sayin,' it's not up to Jay's standards. But whatever I can forgive him.

[seger_and_priest]

"More problematic are his lyrics, like in "Underground Dream": "Guns or education / the answer's larger than the Hollywood sign / bigger souls can see the writing / on the burning wall of eternity." The burning wall of eternity? Did a goth kid write that, rather than the guy whose songwriting once overshadowed Jeff Tweedy's? Things don't improve later on "Automatic Society": "Cash back heart attack you want fries with that?" Son Volt has long offered mixed bags on its records, The Search included. With everything it has going for it, it should be a lot better than it is."
"

honestly, i think those criticisms are fair, but also selective. the lines in question are a little bit "too easy," as somebody else put it. however, there are less of those lyrical growing pains, and more grown-up, integrated turns of phrase on this record than there have been since jay started writing in this new way.

[camaroheadus]

jesus what a bunch of crap on there. i am sorry i checked that site out at all.

[camaroheadus]

since that asshole from onionhead is such a great columnist and writer, he should venture into writing song lyrics. i'd love to see him try to write a circadian rhythm type song.

[Antelope850]

That is some serious selective lyric choosing. And those are actually good lyrics in the context of the songs. The commenter nailed it in his response - you could do that with snippets of anyone's lyrics.

The constant comparisons to Tweedy are beyond silly at this point.

[sturgeongeneral]

"The burning wall of eternity? Did a goth kid write that, rather than the guy whose songwriting once overshadowed Jeff Tweedy's?"

I was wondering why I had all that black clothing in the back of my closet. I thought it was for my Johnny Cash impersonation. Oh well, time to bring them out and try them on.

[danmen]

too bad they did not hear bicycle hotel...

Choice words for the pay phone that doesn't work
You can buy absinthe, cocaine and heroin
But You can't call home
Find sleep where you can
Situations to laugh about when its over
Its a long way from over

[sturgeongeneral]

I enjoyed this person's comments:

"You want to talk about lyrics
Uh..here's some recent lyrics from TweedyCo:

"Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh
Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh
I'm a wheel
I will
Turn on you"

Yes, Tweedy has some fine lyrics in AGIB. My point is that Kyle Ryan was very selective with the lyrics he listed from The Search. "

[Bozeman]

The Onion review of the Search is out, and it's not complimentary. Here's a slice:

"More problematic are his lyrics, like in "Underground Dream": "Guns or education / the answer's larger than the Hollywood sign / bigger souls can see the writing / on the burning wall of eternity." The burning wall of eternity? Did a goth kid write that, rather than the guy whose songwriting once overshadowed Jeff Tweedy's? Things don't improve later on "Automatic Society": "Cash back heart attack you want fries with that?" Son Volt has long offered mixed bags on its records, The Search included. With everything it has going for it, it should be a lot better than it is."

Read the whole thing here:

http://www.avclub.com/content/music/son_volt

The comments are also worth a read, seems like everyone is too busy swinging off Jeff Tweedy's balls to really listen to anything Farrar does:

"farrar vs. tweedy
by juan

his songwriting overshadowed tweedy's until their respective ages were 23 and 17, i believe.
"

"however
by Jason Heller

I do have to agree with Juan somewhat. As far back as Still Feel Gone, Farrar and Tweedy were neck-at-neck.
"