Kevin Barnes - Lyrics

Lyrics

Kevin Barnes' writing has encompassed many styles over the years. Of Montreal's first album Cherry Peel dealt mainly with personal issues of unrequited love, as in the songs "Baby" or "Montreal", or humorous mundane situations, as in "Tim I Wish You Were Born a Girl". His style then shifted to story-telling, often involving dialogues, as in "Good Morning Mr. Edminton" from the album Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies: A Variety of Whimsical Verse, or fictional characters, such as Rose Robert or Jacques Lamure, or even fictional mythological creature, like the Efeblum.

The albums The Gay Parade, The Bedside Drama: A Petite Tragedy and the referred Coquelicot are constructed as concept albums, reminiscent of the works of some progressive rock icons of the 70's, such as David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust or Genesis' The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.

By 2004, though, Barnes was starting to revert to more personal lyrics, even incorporating the names of the people close to him and using them as characters in his own songs, similar to what John Lennon or Ray Davies used to do:

• His daughter Alabee, in "So Begins Our Alabee" and "Miss Blonde Your Papa Is Failing".

• Eva, a friend of Montreal's and resident of Athens, in "Bunny Ain't No Kind of Rider".

Kevin Barnes explained the reasons why he felt compelled to change his writing from personal to fictional and back to personal again in an interview with the music blog You Ain't No Picasso., claiming the bad reviews his first album got prevented him from writing anything from a personal point of view until he got married and his wife gave him the strength to tackle his own issues again.

His lyrics, though mostly concerned with dark themes, often portray a certain fondness for:

• French literature, especially the works of Jean Genet, Guillaume Apollinaire or Georges Bataille;

• Avant-garde cinema, mentioning Luis Buñuel's Phantom of Liberty in "Lysergic Bliss", Jaromil Jireš' Valerie and Her Week of Wonders in "St. Exquisite Confessions", or Wong Kar-wai in "Rapture Rapes The Muses";

• Greek mythology –"Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse", "Rapture Rapes the Muses" with references to "antediluvian Troy", or his frequent use of antonomasia (Petrarch and Dido in "So Begins Our Alabee", "Cato As a Pun").