ballboy
I Worked on the Ships
(Pony Proof)
By Todd Lavoie
I’ve never kept this a secret, but here goes: I’m a lyrics guy. Little surprise, I suppose, given my stats. I work in a bookstore. I’m a voracious reader. I’ve been known to throw words upon the page from time to time. I geek out over silly things like etymology and colloquialisms. Not only do I own several dictionaries, but I also have a shelf full of books of slang, quotations, and various other word-nerd delights.
Not to sound all Hallmark card about the whole thing, but words – well, they mean a lot to me. I am, after all, one of those saps who immediately yanks open the liner notes upon getting a new CD, scanning to see if the artist included the lyrics in the pages. As much as I love to lose myself in dense guitar washes or crunching synth riffs or blaring trumpet fanfares, ultimately I’d be lying if I didn’t say that the thrust of whatever is leaving the vocalist’s lips didn’t matter the most to me. As a lover of books who admittedly doesn’t read too much verse, I’m a sucker for lyrics probably because they’re the closest thing to poetry in my life. Hell, some might even argue that certain songwriters out there – Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, maybe even Joni Mitchell at times – are bona fide poets as well.
Now, I wouldn’t necessarily say that ballboy’s Gordon McIntyre is a poet, but he does have a knack for penning engaging, lexicon-loving lyrics. Ever since arriving in a shower of wordplay in 2001 with their EP-collecting, snarkily-titled full-length Club Anthems (SL/Manifesto), the vocalist has pulled listeners close to their speakers with absorbing tales of love, sex, and the burning desire for something bigger and better.