- Album: History Books (Expanded Edition)
- Artist: The Gaslight Anthem
- Year: 2024
- Spotify link
It took a year or so, but this album has really grown on me. The Gaslight Anthem hold a special place in my heart. And when I first heard History Books, I was... disappointed. I was excited for it coming out, and felt a bit deflated when I heard it. And it was a good album, with some catchy music and great lyrics.
Sound
But it just didn't sound right.
I started writing about the original version of this album last year, and this is what I wrote about the sound:
There’s a really rough, distorted quality to the sound, which I hate. It’s really off-putting, and makes it sound like a bunch of amateurs in a garage found an old 8-track recorder and then accidentally plugged a distortion pedal into the microphone when they used it. Springsteen sounds good on the title track, and it really highlights the clash with Brian Fallon’s sound.
As it turns out, they didn't like the sound either, at least on streaming services. They loved how it sounded on vinyl, but remixed it for streaming, and the updated recording sounds much better. It's the album I was hoping for in the first place.
I hear it most on Spider Bites, which goes from "okay" in the original mix to "wow I love this" in the "Expanded Edition". And as I mentioned above, I noticed a clash between sounds on the title track featuring Bruce Springsteen. I really liked the song "History Books" when I first heard it, but the more I listened, the harder it was to ignore the sound. Happily, the new version sounds amazing.
Lyrics and Themes
History Books
I love the themes throughout this album. Especially in the title track. As we get older, we have more experiences, more memories, and they don't all age well.
"They were beautiful some time ago, but time keeps rollin' us on."
Nostalgia is hard, and people change as they get older.
"But these history books, full of haunted looks, from people I don't want to see again."
Autumn
Autumn is another favourite of mine on this album, and again it resonates strongly with me.
"There's too much traffic in my head."
The singer is maturing, is thinking a lot about his feelings, and his past, and it hits home hard as someone doing the same thing.
"But all my feelings, they kinda seemed so out to get me."
and this line especially:
"I wish I could do my life over, I'd be young better now."
And then I listen to it as a husband and as a parent, and it hits differently again. It's a strange mix of gloomy and happy, like a lot of this album.
"And I know someday, you're gonna make me lonely. And maybe someday, I'm gonna make you cry."
Part of having these strong feelings for another person is knowing that things won't always be the same forever. (Mortality feels like an ever-present in History Books.) Another part is knowing that because the feelings are so strong, when hurt comes, it's amplified.
"And I know love goes longer than this lifetime. And I know time goes faster than my mind."
Love is something that doesn't end with death (hey, there's mortality again). It's bittersweet, again like a lot of this album. And love makes time fly past, which is something that really hits me as my children age and my marriage passes anniversaries so quickly that I struggle to keep track.
Autumn is wistful, happy, and reflective, about the future as well as the past. Much like the whole record.
Spider Bites
I read Brian Fallon talking about Spider Bites, saying that the song, and especially the line "And I'll love you forever till the day that I don't", was about loving someone until you die. What I love about art is that even though they're his lyrics, and I know his intention, I interpret the song completely differently, and I still love it.
To me, Spider Bites is gloomy. It's about how from the singer's perspective, the world is a mess, and everything ends.
"We circle round the sun until someday we don't."
It's full of dark metaphors:
"My teeth are crumbling structures, my thoughts are spider bites."
and
"Somewhere along, all the masks came down, and their faces were something unkind."
and
"It's like this world was bitten by its own kind of venom, and it's gone too deep to suck the poison out."
And when it talks about relationships, it has the same feel.
"And so we struggle for each other."
When I hear that, in the context of this song, I hear "I love you, and it's hard work in this hard world". And then that line:
"And I'll love you forever till the day that I don't."
To me he's singing: "Right now I feel like I'll love you forever, but I know that this world doesn't work like that. I'm aware that it'll end, like everything else does, but that's life, and it's fine because now is good."
And that's art. It's evocative, it resonates with the listener, and even when it was created with a particular thought or feeling in mind, it's open to interpretation, and can be enjoyed in many different ways.
Overall
What I found curious about History Books is that I needed the sound to be resolved before I could properly fall in love with the lyrics. I think that's partly my history with the band, I was disappointed that it sounded so amateurish, and it was hugely distracting.
But music is a combination of so much. Melodies, lyrics, styles and recording all make a big difference to the overall piece. History Books (now) nails all of these for me.