234. Song No. 3,522: “For Sale,” Matt Pond PA
Deer Apartments, 1998

I have been so excited about getting to this song, mostly as another excuse to play it on infinite repeat a couple more times. I historically struggle to identify one favorite band and lately seem to waffle between The Decemberists and Matt Pond, but I tend to settle on the latter more often than not (objectively, it helps that Matt is just the nicest, most gracious dude, and I appreciate people who demonstrably lead with kindness more and more all the time). Plus, getting a chance to gush about my favorites here feels not unlike getting partnered with your best friend on a school project.

I downloaded Deer Apartments, Matt Pond PA’s first album, eons ago, listened to it a few half-hearted times and decided that the band’s definitive sound really began with their follow-up album Measure, so that’s where the catalogue would begin for me.

Thing is, Younger Me usually had no idea what she was doing but forged confidently ahead anyway, and was just far, far more possessive of and bitchier about music, a combination of flaws that I’m learning made for some unreliable assessments, snap judgements and tons of missed opportunities. Finally hearing “For Sale” like it was meant to be played and then going back to revisit Deer Apartments proper was nothing like any other listening experience I’ve had with either prior: This time around, the former made damn sure I finally learned to appreciate that there is nothing quite as fascinating and, somehow, even rewarding as spending some time with your favorite contemporary musician’s early stuff, where the raw and undeveloped version of their music is still actively searching for itself but the beginnings of all those coming hallmarks that made you fall in love are already plainly on display.

And I don’t know when I became such a sucker for lofi, but the muddier production quality here just melts my heart with the authenticity and unpolished musicality of an ur-band on its way to becoming a fully realized force of nature that has been so easy to love for more than two decades. That raw, stripped down vibe, to me, makes a song feel so lovingly wrought and deeply felt; whether my interpretive imposition is right or wrong, I do think there’s a kernel of truth in it, given how badly you have to love an art to succeed in it, and there is no more earnest exertion than those earliest efforts standing at the threshold of Making It In The Industry that could go either way in the uncertain, unpromised future ahead. (Also, hearing the typically intricately orchestrated and unlike-anything-else MMPA sounding more akin to the then-contemporary scene’s distinct DIY feel that I’ve never previously associated with his songs at all is trippy as hell and I loved every second of that unexpected joy.)

“For Sale” is the introduction this comparatively unrefined gem of an album deserves, a see-sawing ride through differing tempos and stripped-down instrumental accompaniment and scorcher lyrics. It was the escalating refrain’s first half of “Which side are you on? / I won’t be here that long” that caught my attention first, not so much for the emotional strength of the words themselves but for the way Matt sings them, letting the thought not so much resolve as having the section’s final line of “I never thought that I’d turn down the offer to fail” just kind of hang in the air.

One of the things I’ve always loved best about any Matt Pond project is the quietly contemplative nature he brings to every single one that acts as such a beautiful foil to the lushly layered magic he and his musician chums summon from the ether together. To have that turned on its ear and deconstructed just to its foundational elements in a way that reminds me of early-career Knapsack or Braid any emo/indie/&c. outfit starting out in the mid- to late ’90s is a joy not only as a fan of the scene but as someone who is so thrilled that Matt Pond doesn’t seem like he’ll ever stop singing.