Friday, November 21, 2008

Cross The Breeze

The 4th song on Daydream Nation is called "Cross The Breeze."



After the 8 minute opus of "The Sprawl," Daydream Nation is amped up into hyperspeed with "Cross The Breeze." This song is a masterpiece in the sonic catalogue, it features 5 very distinct parts, all with different sections and varying tempos. This song seems like it would difficult to pull off live.But they did, always, even 17 years later....



The song begins the same way it predecessor does, only it launches into a two chord punk riff backed by a galloping drum beat. Is it possible to have a punk song thats over 6 minutes? Does that defeat the purpose? The song can be divided up into 5 parts A B C D.



Here's how it breaks down:

Part A: Intro
Part B: Upbeat intro/lead in main section instrumental
Part C: verse/chorus "lets go walking on the water....i want to know"
Part D: "running cross the breeze"
Part B
Part A

The band began a reginment of labeling ever portion of every song with letters. Kim claimed they would lay them out on the floor, some songs would go up to Z!

Cross The Breeze's multi sectional approach made the song very difficult to pull off live especially with all the time and tempo changes. It was played nigtly on the '88-'89 tour and got some play in 1990 but was not dusted off until 2006 when the band began slowly placing Daydream Nation songs in their set to ultimately be played in its entire form. Cross The breeze shared some extra stage time on all the scattered 2008 dates.

Video to come soon....

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