“Springtime Can Kill You”
from the album Springtime Can Kill You
2006
Download an MP3 of “Springtime Can Kill You” from Anti Records
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Rather than killing you I believe that spring is the perfect time of year for, among other things, a song this ripe and unhinged. Sounding like a lounge-based, accent-free Björk, Holland skates, slides, and flutters through the tune, all but deconstructing its wonderful melody — and making it all the Tom Waits-ishly more wonderful in the process. Holland by the way is actually making the opposite point her title implies, itself a neat songwriting trick: “If you don’t go get what you need/ Something’s going to break on the inside”; springtime kills the part of you that needs to be killed, in other words; in other words, the blossoms and colors and scents and breezes force you to be as alive as you actually are all the time without realizing it, or at least try.