I know this may sound strange, but this is the song I wish I wrote. There are so many fantastic songs, this is the one I would've had the most fun writing, if that makes any sense.
This song is 11 minutes long, and it is slow. That alone is insulting enough for me to have enjoyed producing it.
The song is astonishingly ugly too. The melodies are rotting with chromatic dissonances and spliced into jagged rhythmical fragments. The instrumental voices are clashing, with bass drum thuds over a tiny guitar, dinking bass, and nostalgic strings. The chorus guitar and vocals have similar effects on them, doubling the same melody, cancelling each other. There are three verses and the guitar solo equivalent of graffiti before the song's halfway point.
Five minutes in, the chord progression finally changes. Not only that, it's a key change. Five and a half minutes in, the full drum set finally enters the song. The singing here starts with unintelligibly clashing parts that I will term "harmony." There are video game laser sound effects.
Guitar solo number two is a sarcastic imitation of a Great Solo.
There are another verse and chorus to go. The final chorus slants all the original supporting chords while keeping the original singing melody, drawing new, demented contexts with each change.
And then we end with an '80s-esque synth denouement.
I think I hear hoofbeats in the background.
The lyrics are sprawling, opaque expressions of depression and regret, apologizing to someone we could only guess. It's more important to Julian Casablancas and the object of his apostrophe than us. If only all of us were acclaimed enough to be able to settle personal scores in the form of public craft.
I first heard this song while I was typing at work, so I wasn't listening extremely hard. There came a point where I was conscious that it was still the same song playing, and I chuckled.
Usually, long songs make amends to the audience by being varied, even a bit bombastic. They give us something to help pass the time. "Bohemian Rhapsody" moves through wildly shifting modes. "Stairway to Heaven" builds to a masterful climax. "Hey Jude" gives us a fun, catchy line to sing a billion times along with a pre-recorded crowd. "Free Bird" gives us a classic open, an stirring endless closing guitar solo, and a contact high.
"Human Sadness" gives us four identical chords for five minutes.
The dismembered vocal melodies are still so beautiful. The four chords are a classic, catchy pattern, and synth strings add a truly haunting ambience. The key change and new attacking guitar progression are strangely welcome the more times you hear the song. The big drums busting up the song's idleness provide a cool element just when needed. The second guitar solo, for being essentially a joke, is still marvelously performed. And I can't repeat enough, I love beautiful ugliness well-performed.
After first hearing the song, I tried just ignoring it. Who has eleven minutes to throw away on something as plotless as this? And then I kept coming back, hungering for its music ideas, despising and reveling in my shattered expectations. Now it's weaseled its way onto this list. I'm not responsible.