Album Info

A Song Is a City

A Song Is a City

By Eskimo Joe

Rock - 2004

The specter of Eskimo Joe’s home city, Fremantle, looms large over their second album. Penned during a fertile period in... more

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About A Song Is a City

The specter of Eskimo Joe’s home city, Fremantle, looms large over their second album. Penned during a fertile period in the region’s musical history, much of the LP was demoed in Eskimo Joe’s jam room in Baker Street, which they shared with contemporaries such as Gyroscope, End of Fashion, The Sleepy Jackson, and Little Birdy. Indeed, the song “This Room” reflects on the mess bassist/vocalist Kav Temperley would often find when arriving there following other bands’ sessions. That mess, however, is also a metaphor for his crumbling relationship (“All I know is [she’s] never impressed by me”), which informs much of the album’s lyrical content, particularly the title track (“I think I’ve had an affair,” he sings). While 2001 debut LP Girl cataloged the beginning of Temperley’s first longterm relationship, A Song Is a City is the breakup album, an emotionally raw collection of classic indie pop with a lyrical honesty that might make you flinch: “I chose to take this moment,” sings Temperley in “Older Than You,” “to tell you I’m leaving.”