Some months ago, after returning to uni from the Christmas holiday me and my housemate were sat in his room listening to music one night, when this song started playing, I asked him what it was, because I liked the sound of it. It was a song called 'Numbered Days' by an alternative sounding band called Eels. I'd never before heard of the band name Eels, but he continued to play me some of their other songs. I really liked what I heard, and recognised the obvious 'My Beloved Monster' who many will know from its brilliant use in the film Shrek, as well as 'Souljacker Part I' which was apparently in the film Hot Fuzz but I don't really recall hearing it. But anyway, I decided to go out and buy some Eels albums, half knowing what to expect, so I picked up their first four releases:
'Beautiful Freak' 'Electro-Shock Blues'
'Daisies Of The Galaxy' and 'Souljacker'
I went through them each on a long coach journey home one weekend, and at first I thought, "Hmm, these are pretty good, there's a lot I like." and I sort of set them aside for a while and forgot they existed. When I saw Souljacker lying on my desk one long night at my uni house as I was cleaning my room, I thought "Might give this another listen." and this time it absolutely blew me away. The sheer cool and talent this guy possessed was amazing, and this prompted me to go buy his entire back catologue, almost all of which was genuinely not disappointing is the slightest.
Which finally brings me onto this album:
'Hombre Lobo: 12 Songs Of Desire'
(Link below)
This is the seventh album in the Eels discography, released June 2009. It was described by frontman Mark Everett as a sequel to the Souljacker album, featuring the protagonist 'Dog Faced Boy' who is now grown up and experiences 'various types of desire throughout the songs'.
When I played this for the first time, the first few seconds of the first track, 'Prizefighter' instantly made me feel, "Yes, this is going to be a good one." and so the song went on, and turned into this heavily electric guitar led rock and roll jam, and I loved every second of it, the blustery sound of the guitars the heavy grain on E's voice to personify this grown up character now appropriately and assumingly named 'Hombre Lobo', it was just purely awesome.
So it moved on to the next song 'That Look You Give That Guy', it took a few listens for this to grow on me, but now I feel really connects with me, listening to the lyrics more closely. It's a fragile, hopeless romantic song about wanting a girl or a guy to pay attention to you instead of this other person they like instead. You feel you're semi intimidated of them because maybe you think they're better looking or they're more interesting than you, whilst at the same time wanting to be someone else to get this guy or girl to notice you. I've been there, it's a horrible feeling being stuck in the background of someone elses flirt sesh, to the point that I've just had to walk away, because it's been unbearable. "Why can't I be like that and have her/him like me instead?". It's a hard place to be, but the underlying moral is that if you have to change yourself to be with someone. They're not the one.
'Lilac Breeze', the next song on the album is a short, punchy number. The protagonist sings about being desperate for sex, very subtly hinted to in the lyrics, but sung in desperation nonetheless. I've never really 'wanted' sex in my life. Mainly because I was a little nerd in secondary school in stayed in every night playing video games and listening to music instead of being out with the popular kids having sex up trees in the park. This meant I was never really exposed to that sort of thing, and didn't grow a 'desire' for it. I really love the arrangement in this song, it sounds very 90's indie in the verses with the short stabs of very gainy electric guitar, although it could be a bass guitar, I'm still not entirely sure. I love how it works with the punchy drum beat, as E's rusty voice fills the gaps inbetween. Seems somewhat poppy in a sense, and strangely feels like it would fit in a musical, but maybe I'm thinking too much into it...
And then we flow back into another more gentle track, 'In My Dreams'. I really related with the lyrics in this song. In the verses, 'Hombre Lobo' sings about these wonderful times he has with this girl, in some detail, but the final line of every verse ends 'In my dreams', implying it never happened, and it was all obviously a dream. I spent two years liking a girl, who told me about three times, she didn't want to be with me, but I could never take the hint. I was literally obsessed with her, I would try and call her and hang out with her every single day, and it was extremely unhealthy, and like the protagonist, I would dream about her most nights, have these times where I was just simply 'hanging out' with her, and feel so happy in this dream, but then reality would rip me away from it, and I'd wake up, really really depressed. It's happened recently with someone else I spent a long time liking too. But that's what dreams like to do, remind you what you really want, get you feeling so close to it, and then pull you away at the last second, as if your brain has just flipped you the bird and had a mild chuckle to itsself. We've all been there when we've loved, or thought we loved someone.
Back to the hard stuff, the next song 'Tremendous Dynamite' comes in like the slam open of a door. This right here is 'Hombre Lobo''s rightful theme song. Beginning with the howling first line 'I am, El Hombre Lobo', E's, again, very gainy voice brings this character back to life, singing about his strong desire to find a girl on this very night, 'On the prowl for a restless night'. The verses being sung in this creeping tone, as he describes his attempts to get her as a full blown 'fight'. When the electric guitars come in to a blustering frenzy as he screams 'She's Dynamite', clearly having a great degree a lust over this woman that he can't control. The arrangement of songs on the album at this point seem very similar to that of Souljacker's. These big loud rocky tracks, intersperesed between more mellow songs of heartbreak and desperation.
Again, we move into a more downbeat mood, with 'The Longing'. This is a simple, confused song, again about obsession with somone you think you love. A feeling I've had for certain people as I explained before. 'Surely there are other things to life, but I can't think of one single thing'. This was exactly my attitude for a good couple of depressing years of my life. Trying to find more to life, but wasting all my time, and efforts, and energy on this one person that there was no hope with because I was again, quite literally, obsessed with them. I was constantly thinking about them, everything I loved about them in detail, it was seriously unhealthy, and it's not a good place to be in. Obsessing over the wrong people is dangerous.
Now this next song, 'Fresh Blood', takes on a slightly different sound, with some electronic sounding elements, maybe a low synth or something, but this has most recently become one of my favourite songs on the album. Another song of heavy lust, 'Hombre Lobo' sings of his desire to find this mysterious woman, I'm guessing the same woman referred to in previous songs, especially 'Tremendous Dynamite'. She seems to be this all powerful figure, that he is desperate to sink his teeth into. This song had me literally head banging the other day when it started really growing on me, the "Whoo!"'s and "Howl"'s gave me genuine chills, as the real 'wolf-man' was beginning to show in the protagonist.
'What's A Fella Gotta Do', fades slowly into a sharp rocky riff, setting the tone for this next track, as a fast drum beat kicks in, one of my favourite drum beats. This song lyrically is very similar to the second track 'That Look You Give That Guy', another song about not wanting to be your 'worthless' self, and wanting to be different to get this person to notice you, but this time set against more aggressive sounding music, almost like a part two to 'That Look...', maybe after trying so hard to subtly try to make this person want you, and then getting frustrated, even angry and trying everything you can to get on their radar.
Nearing the end of the album now, the protagonist is beginning to accept, that he can't have everyone, he realises that he cannot change someone's heart. 'My Timing Is Off', is about his realisation that maybe she's not ready to love him yet, and maybe, he's not ready to love anyone else either. I've been in a similar position where I've thought I was ready to have a girlfriend or whatever and could totally handle a relationship with someone, but it turned out I was just desperate, because everyone else was in a relationship, and I was just stuck with the 'single crowd', depressed and alone. But I realised I just wasn't ready, and wasn't mature enough for a serious relationship with someone. It's never good to rush into a relationship with someone if you know you need to sort your own life out first, I've decided to be single for a long time, because I have my own personal problems to sort of myself, and if I tried to force myself into a relationship any time soon, it would not go down well at all, because I'd still be riddled with esteem problems that would not ensure a healthy relationship, and cause it to crash and burn.
'All The Beautiful Things', is another song I strongly related with. The protganist is losing hope, wondering why nobody wants him. 'I know I'm a lovely guy', he sings. I've always thought I was a reasonably nice person myself, I don't start fights or arguments with people for no reason, I'm not violent, or a jerk, I respect everybody for who they are, and I've learnt all of this from watching people throughout my life do the exact opposite. I know how to be a genuinely nice person, but being like this sometimes just gets you nowhere, which I think a lot of guys and girls have found. You have to be all flirty and sexually aggressive to get someone to like you I've found in most cases. A lot of you will have found this, and might agree with the whole 'Girls just want bastards' theory. I can't speak for all boys and girls, but it is very common, and it sucks. There are genuinely nice people out there, who are ready to love someone, but it seems no-one is interested in them.
This next track is one of my favourites, 'Beginner's Luck'. 'Hombre Lobo' has found someone new, someone he has new hope in, and he is ready to spend his life with, he just needs her to know he loves her, and hopefully make her realise she loves him back. I really love the bass line in this song, reminds me of an 80s indie rock/pop group like The Smiths or The Housemartins. But the chorus is the really great part of this, E's rusty yet passionate vocals again against the blustery guitars make an incredible final rock moment, and the final hint of hope for the protagonist.
Overall, to me, on the surface this is just an album about a guy wanting a girl, but as well as this, it's about people's need for love. Love is a basic human need. This character thinks of himself as lesser than everyone else, further illustrated by his name 'Hombre Lobo' meaning 'wolf man' or 'werewolf'. He's this misfit 'weirdo' in a 'city of cold hearts' who in the end just wants to be loved, and this album shows that even those seen as lesser in society need and deserve love. Everyone does.
Thanks for reading.
Ben
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