Defrocked
Recorded October 4, 1997 and April 1999
Release history
Credits
- Written by Harvey Danger, © But Mom I Love Music (ASCAP)/Famous Music
- Aaron: bass
- Jeff: guitars, Optigan, cello
- Sean: lead and backing vocals, organ
- Evan: drums
- Terri Benshoof, Rajan Krishnaswami: cellos
- Joe Gottesman, Shari Link: violas
- Grant Lee Phillips: backing vocals
- Strings arr. by Jeff
- Produced and mixed by John Goodmanson
Lyrics
Away from order
but mind the border
I can’t bear another perfect sunrise
A wretch like me, before sleeping
Give me haze displays for days and days on end
Find direction, exit place
Insert a fractured space
A bird or something else with wings
To make the guests unsettled when he sings
Try to be true to what teachers taught you:
a solitary music for the lonely
solitary music for the lonely
I know my place
is in between
my graces left unseen
Clouds blocking the light
that’s all right
‘cause thugs stole my shadow and left me
Defrocked, defrocked
blocked
sent before my time
Clouds blocking the light
that’s all right
Thugs stole my shadow
It’s the global block rising
a chemical flaw
an infiltration, congratulations
a domination, congratulations
a saturation, a temporary fascination…
Quotes
Sean: Very late one night after an unmemorable HD show, I got mugged a few blocks from the apartment where I lived with Evan. For months after, I had trouble sleeping for more than an hour or two at a time, and my waking thoughts were filled with images of violent retribution and chronic, ungovernable depression. I don't know exactly how this experience translated into the words of this song, but it did, directly, if abstractly; "Defrocked" is a hazy state of the union address from my 23-year-old psyche, accompanied by the most structurally and dynamically ambitious music we had yet made, a major leap forward for us, unreleased because King James Version couldn't contain both it and "Underground"; nevertheless, my favorite Harvey Danger song, lyric, and recording, the true, elusive sound of our soul.10A
Jeff: Most of this recording was actually finished in late 1997 and rather than try and re-create the whole thing, Sean re-cut the vocal and Grant Lee Phillips added his backing vocals over the old tracks during the King James Version sessions. Originally there was an idea to put this song as the "hidden" track on King James Version, but "The Same As Being in Love" seemed to work best as the final track, without something following it.CDR