Notes on the New Rufus 1.0
"Between My Legs," the fifth entry on Release the Stars, starts out as a driving rock song with a motif rather than a tune, and the sardonic iteration of its title. The thrust of the verse seems to be that the singer and the person whom he is addressing are out of sorts, mismatched, never in the same place at the right time. Rufus's tone is world-weary but his singing is fairly straight.
Then comes the puzzling chorus, which promises that, when the world comes to an end, all the addressee has to do is to call Rufus, who will arrange an "exit as it all is happening." The language of the chorus is far more poetic than is that of the verse, and it is set to a series of rising phrases that also suggest a hymn, even though the insistent rock beat continues unimpeded. Arpeggiated chords suggest a playful halo, and backup singers contribute a gospel note.
There is a second verse, and a second chorus, and then the song opens up into something completely different. Rufus describes his exit strategy thus:
'Cause there's a river
Running underground.
Underneath the town towards the sea,
That only I know all about.
On which from this city we can flee.
The music to which this is set is exalted and anthemic, even though the first three lines are accompanied only be noodling guitars and reverberation. On the word "sea," the driving rhythm recurs, utterly transformed by the new atmosphere. In the background, trumpets and horns flourish regally. As if all of this weren't far enough away from the song's beginnings. the actress Sîan Phillips - Reverend Mother in David Lynch's Dune - recites the exit lines with unabashed staginess, as if to faux-scare little children. When she gets to the last line, Rufus sings it overhead. The ending, scored to sound something like a carousel organ, and swinging majestically and uncomplicatedly between tonic and the augmented fifth, is as massive, in its way, as the finale of Mahler's Resurrection Symphony.
What it all means, I have no idea. But what interests me is the way that Rufus has of transforming songs by taking them off in unforeseen but absolutely convincing directions. The most brilliant of such songs is "Memphis Skyline," from Want Two: when the main part of the song is over, a dissonant note on the piano heralds the shimmering apotheosis of the Orphic lyrics. Here in "Between My Legs" as well, the songwriter strikes the note of apocalyptic metamorphosis.
