fiction and creative non-fiction from Brennan Quenneville
“Sucker’s Prayer” is the classic rock song buried on the synth-fever-dream that is the Decemberists' I’ll Be Your Girl, and it hides an extremely clever bit of thematic harmony. When the chorus comes in, supported by a literal chorus, it subverts standard tropes of unrequited or failed love by describing a non-existent one: I wanna love [...]
Few songs mix joyous sound, crushing heartbreak, and subtle humor more deftly than “14th Street,” the pinnacle of Rufus Wainwright’s Want One (2003). Wainwright’s show-tune-ready tenor sets the stage for dramedy from the song’s opening lines; honestly, I’m struggling to think of a more hilarious way to describe a lover than what Wainwright gives us: You’ve got [...]
She was born on a Monday in October. The weekend before had been bright and unseasonably warm and utterly heartbreaking. We carried our grief into the hospital, where our days and nights decomposed into the two-hour cycles of our newborn daughter. Each time a nurse or doctor came into our room, which was often, we strapped [...]
A couple of weeks ago, when I ended up writing about the only Dave Matthews Band album that I actively enjoy, I had intended to write about “The Frame I: Betrayal in the Watchtower,” the finale from I the Mighty’s 2015 album Connector. I love “Betrayal in the Watchtower.” It’s narrative and epic and overwrought in all [...]
50 years ago today, Paul and Linda McCartney released Ram and more or less invented indie-pop which, as origin stories go, seems definitionally impossible given that Paul was arguably the most famous member of the most famous band of all time,1 but if you disagree, go and listen to the catchy, weird, aggressively lo-fi Ram and come back to me. [...]
As some bands age they become parodies of themselves, a problem that Coheed and Cambria can never have because, since their inception, the band has been too ridiculous to parody. For the better part of two decades, Coheed songs have been telling the story of … honestly, I’m not quite sure. A massive intergalactic war, maybe? [...]
The Execution of All Things isn’t the first or only record to open with a bait-and-switch mix that comes in low, tricking you into turning up your stereo, only for you to get blown away when the proper levels finally kick in. But it may be the only one that has the courage to see the bit [...]
There were six of us in the basement at first. It was a party, so far as a half-dozen high schoolers aimlessly lounging around an adult-free house is a party. The others were drinking vodka sodas; they would haphazardly pour water into the depleted fifth and replace it in the liquor cabinet before we left [...]
To the left of a pair of bookshelves, there’s a print of a fox’s head hanging on the wall. Embedded in the silhouette are words from The Little Prince. “If you tame me, then we shall need each other,” it reads. “To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be [...]
When I reviewed OWEL’s third full-length, Paris, in March of 2019, I could feel the energy of springtime humming throughout the album. It’s bright and vibrant and delicate and brash. It makes me want to go outside, to bloom and breathe, if you’ll accept the cross-scene metaphor. A year later spring was canceled. I packed up my [...]
Songs & Stories 