Unmade Bed

The second song on the LP Nurse is called "Unmade Bed."

I love the opening chord to this song. It's comes of very spooky and soothing at the same time. The opening portion of the song is very relaxing and allows you to just slide into the song with an undying familiarness. A familiar feeling you don't want to give up.

That's exactly what this song is about: Comfortable Familiarness That You Can't Let Go Of No Matter How Miserable You Are.

The band does a great job painting the picture of two lovers. The female in the relationship is miserable and the male comes and goes as he pleases. "Look whose come back home again." The female knows she must get out of the toxic relationship but he manages to "sucker her back" every time. "Now that you're in arms, know that you're just in his way." All she wants is him to be there physically and mentally. Even when she gets what she wants, she doesn't. The song ends with the line "now its time to fade away." We are left wondering if she realizes her woes and leaves or just falls back into the routine of the toxic lover. You decide.

Dripping Dream

The third song on the LP Nurse is called "Dripping Dream."

Lately I have been in a mood that wants to remember the summer of 2004. Nothing reminds me more of that summer than the album Nurse.

One of the disappointments of the 8/25/2004 show was that Dripping Dream was not played. It remains one of my favorite songs on the album.

The song is slow to start and features classic sonic arpeggiations that go from light picking to a muted riff. These parts signify the changes in verse but the song picks up during the "caught shadows, sex meadows" part. The song builds in tempo slowly and erupts. The difference in noise eruptions is that this time the chaos is controlled and Lee's guitar noise still retains the riff and melody. The song ends a lot like "Rain on Tin" from Murray Street or the dream-like intro to "The Sprawl" from Daydream Nation.

According to the tour archive this song was only played 4 times during the 2004 tour. It also specifies that Thurston had problems remembering the words and the melody. This makes sense because there are lots of words to this song. Most of them don't make sense, but its just another great example of Thurston putting random lines together that flow like poetry and not song.

I Love You Golden Blue

The second to last song on the album Nurse is called "I Love You Golden Blue."



The album Nurse came as a surprise to me. I had no idea the band was working on a new record, even when I got a sneak peek at some new tunes in at a show in June 2003. In 2004, I was very oblivious to many things around me and the fact that a new Sonic Youth album was coming in May, I was all the more happier, and it made the summer of 2004 even more memorable.



A promo copy of Nurse came to the WTMS radio station sometime in April or March. A freind of mine at the station was kind enough to burn me a copy a month before it's release and the last track was "I Love You Golden Blue." To my surprise on the release date in May, "I Love You Golden Blue" was the second to last song, followed by "Peace Attack." Other promo versions of the album had "I Love You Golden Blue" as the first song. Strange huh?



Oddly enough, when the band spent May through October on tour for the record, "I Love You Golden Blue" was the set opener. This song features Lee on the organ, which he would eventually do in the live set.

Like many Sonic songs, I think this one is about death. Or the death of a friend.

This is a strange kind of song. It features a sound scape opener for a good 2 minutes before any guitar comes in. The entire song acts like a soundscape and sounds like something that could have been on the NYC Ghosts and Flowers album. Nonetheless, it falls into a category of forgotton songs that only really existed to compliment the time period. It would be weird if they started doing this one again.

Peace Attack

The last song on Nurse is called "Peace Attack."

I was there the night this song was debuted on June 17th 2003. It was the first song in the setlist and was played along with a few others that would end up on Nurse. Thurston cam right out and announced this song was about the war in Irag, that had just began on Feb. 3rd of that year. It was Sonic Youth's small statement of protest. It was done right, and they did not get preachy. You have to love that about Sonic Youth, they just say what they need to say, and then they are finished.

"Peace Attack" is slower number. It has chimy and very bright chords with a clearly defined verse/chorus. By the time the band came around to making Nurse, they had been trying to get away from the free-form songs that had been so prominant on the previous 3 albums. Debuting this song during the Murrary Street tour was a clear indication of the direction that would be taken for the next few years.

This has been rarely played live. Just a handful of times. Its one of those mysteries of that band that probably won't be solved. "Peace Attack" is a song that came at the right time and is a subtle protest song. Maybe the band did not want it to become an anthem for the anti-war of the time. But here we are, 6 years later, and the war still continues.

Promo copies of Nurse had Peace Attack listed as the opening track to the album. Others had "I love You Golden Blue" as the opening track. Weird huh?

Stones

My favorite song from the album Nurse is called "Stones."

This song is a stand out for some odd reason. It could be that when I saw the band on the 2004 tour, this was the second song. I had the entire summer to get acquainted with Nurse, and this was a stand out track. Enough to get me going at the show.

I have always felt that this song was about ghosts, even if the lyrics use the word from time to time. But what about stones? I did some digging a fews ago, and found that in Death Valley, there are mysterious shaking stones. There are countless theories as to why they vibrate, but many believe its the ghosts of Death Valley.

I have always wondered why Thurston has such interest in deserts, and even in Death Valley. Does he long to live in such a desolate place? It has also been said that the song refers to Jerry Garcia or "The Dead." I personally don't think so, but you never know.

This song was debuted with all the other songs from Nurse at a secret gig in 2003. It was played nightly in 2004, saw some more play in 2005, and got sporadic in 2006. It has not been played since sometime during the Rather Ripped 2006 tour. I hope they pull this one out again for the upcoming summer tour.