Big Thief, “Shark Smile” — Quiet as a rose’s sting
“Shark Smile” carves out a small slice two people’s shared life in the moments immediately before tragedy. It’s the first song I’m writing about in this space because I think it’s pretty much perfect — leaving you with just as many questions as it does answers in the best way possible.
Although a half-dozen lines jumped out off the bat, I was mostly captured by its melody/tone/vibe on the first few listens. The track is relentlessly smooth and steady save for an ambient flutter of nervous, shimmering guitar before the last verse.
But once I finally sat with the lyrics, I realized there’s not a throwaway line in the song. It’s specific to its core, and even the subtlest moments advance the narrative or build out the two characters. There’s a dangerous attraction about the driver, Evelynn, but our only real descriptors are a shark smile, a vampire and roses sting as she moves 85 mph down the highway. The narrator in the passenger seat is in a bad way, and she/he is more than ready to embark on this dead-end drive. By the second verse they’re going 90 through Winona and we’ve got a pile of money fluttering on the dashboard, which manages to tell us nothing and everything at once.
The start of the third verse, “Evelyn’s kiss was oxygen / I leaned over to take it in / as we went howling through the edge of south Des Moines,” is a standalone piece of poetry. You can feel that scene even if you’re inventing your own idea of the Des Moines landscape. The lines are made all the more powerful by the sudden end that awaits just a few lines down the page.
Verse one gives us a moonlight line, verse two a dotted line, and by verse three the car is burning over a double line into the jaws of a tragedy that the narrator bypasses entirely, skipping directly to the impaled driver and the passenger reaching for the guard rail.
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SHARK SMILE (Capacity, 2017)
She was a shark smile in a yellow van
She came around and I stole her glance
In my youth, a vampire
Evelyn shown quiet as roses sting
It came over me at a bad time
But who wouldn’t ride on a moonlit line?
I had her in my eye, 85 down the road of a dead end gleam
I said ohh, baby, take me
I said ohh, baby, take me, too
It came over her at a bad time
Riding through Winona down the dotted line
Held us gunning out
90 miles down the road of a dead end dream
She looked over with her part smile
Caught up in the twinkle, it could take awhile
And the money pile on the dashboard fluttering
Evelyn’s kiss was oxygen
I leaned over to take it in
As we went howling through the edge of south Des Moines
It came over me at a bad time
She burned over the double line
And she impaled as I reached my hand for the guard rail
Ooh the guard rail
Ooh the guard rail
