“Colder” – Jo Davie
There are hooks in songs (sometimes!) and then there are what I rather limply call “moments”: specific places in a song that perk the ear up and alert you to something subtly special going on in the songwriting, the arrangement, or the performance, or any combination thereof. I hear such a moment in Jo Davie’s “Colder.” The song quickly appeals via its concise, suspended-chord introduction and a fast-opening verse flavored by lyrics angled onto the three beat; but then we get the moment: when the melody cycles to its third iteration (0:21), at which point it starts a sixth higher than previously, Davie’s voice briefly hitting a new, crystalline register. It happens quickly; it isn’t a hook but it is a place that solidifies the song’s easy appeal.
Another part of the appeal lies in the songwriting sleight of hand on display. The blurted, somewhat breathless verse that opens the song is actually never heard from again; neither is the one-line pre-chorus (0:29), which serves as an agile passage into the chorus with its contrasting half-time melody. Note too the shifting chords underlying the slower melody: on the resonant lyrics “In your arms/It’s colder than/It ever was without you,” the shifts accelerate from “arms” to “than” to “was” and “without” and then, staying there, leaves the “you” both musically and symbolically unresolved. The extended instrumental section, beginning at 1:46, likewise features some engaging chord progressions, and sets up a lyrical twist: when the chorus returns, the line is now: “In your arms/Was colder than/I ever am without you.” The story has progressed in real time; the narrator has left the relationship. Good for her.
Jo Davie is a singer/songwriter based in Brisbane. “Colder” is a track from her debut EP, Nothing Comes Free, released back in May. (Yup I can be a bit slow on the uptake.) Check it out on Bandcamp.
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