Sometimes you hear a catchy song and bop your head a bit and think, “Well, it’s a nice little melody, but something’s strange here.” And then you listen a bit closer to the lyrics and go, “Say, that sounds like a metaphor.” Finally you get a look behind the curtain at the meaning of the song and go, “Ohhhh. Well, that explains the feelings.”
Hence “Bury the Dog”, the debut single from Grant Cheval, a songwriter from the warm climes of North Carolina but now in the just-as-warm-if-not-warmer air of New York City. A bit grungy, a bit folky, it’s got an early-2010s slacker rock vibe to it, somewhere in the same camp with Yuck, Cloud Nothings, and Ovlov. Cheval said he wrote the song for his girlfriend’s movie, and it sounds tailor-made for film: Lots of deep bass that can rumble through theater speakers and dips in volume where actors’ lines can duck into the soundtrack.
But like most songs written for movies, “Bury the Dog” quite literally has a lot to do with the plot. In the film, a couple is on their way to an abortion clinic, worrying about their fate and grappling with others judging their situation, when they suddenly run over – you guessed it – a dog. At that moment, nothing about their dilemma matters. “They say we’ll be judged by the eyes of God, and they say we shouldn’t give a fuck at all,” Cheval sings, naming the two sides of the argument beating against them. But they can’t care about politics or even their own bodies or minds while they tend to the immediate dead. As Cheval sings: “We’re just worried about burying the dog.”
Unfortunately, I don’t have a link to the film for you. However, I assume if the song provides any hints, it makes one think a lot about life, death, and humanity. I’m not sure about the slant of the film. But I’m sure it got people talking. Hell, the song alone’s a surefire way to strike up a conversation.
Take a listen to “Bury the Dog” below.
Written by Will Sisskind
