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Dutchess And The Duke, Nothing To Fear But Happily Ever After
By Julianna Boggs
This is an album for those of you who are moving right along in your life. You’re anywhere from 25-32 years old and you’ve got a pretty cool job. You exclusively sign 1-year leases for places in “nice” neighborhoods (note: “nice” when you were 21 meant its proximity to liquor stores and bus lines, “nice” when you’re 26 is proximity to a brick-oven pizza place with an extensive wine list [and bus lines]). You’ve been together with your boyfriend/ girlfriend for some time, and as of late they’ve been making suggestive comments about how it could “be like this forever” and they would be “totally happy”. Then one day, maybe you see it coming maybe you don’t, your boyfriend/ girlfriend is pregnant. What the fuck/ congratulations!
It’s this essential crux of adulthood that really makes you a man/ woman. It’s also the time when the fearful adolescent in you longs for the freedom you see quickly slipping away. Suddenly the good old days of impromptu binge drinking and unprotected, bisexual orgies never seemed so sweet. But that’s all behind you now. You’ll soon be a mother/ father, and in order to avoid all the mistakes your parents made it’s time to say goodbye to 40 oz. of Old English and tag-teamed Craigslist Casual Encounters, no matter how prematurely it seems that time has come.
Seattle’s own The Dutchess and The Duke take the essence of this situation very seriously, confronting it head on in their most recent release Sunrise/ Sunset. With 30 minutes of sing-songy commiseration, rock veterans Jesse Lortz and Kimberly Morrison outline their very serious considerations of getting the hell out while they still can, as they concurrently attempt to minimize offense to their proverbial (or miraculously) pregnant significant others.
With “Scorpio”, Lortz wastes no time pussy footing around the issue. “Listen to me baby/ got to tell you something and I don’t know where I’m gonna start.” As Lortz expels the details of a relationship where things are going well- they kiss, walk down to the beach, and spent time snuggling as they look up at constellations (hence “Scorpio”)- the listener soon realizes that he’s just not that into it. It’s not a breakup song because things aren’t that bad; he simply wants to level with his partner that things aren’t as good as he/ she think they are, so won’t he/ she please stop acting like a twinkly-eyed fourteen year old girl/ boy who told his/ her parents he/ she was going to the football game when he/ she really snuck off to make out in the parking lot of Baskin-Robbins (adlib inferred). “I know that I should never fear to walk with ghosts that haunt me with you by my side…but I’m a long, long way from you/ in my heart.” Can’t fault honesty there.
The theme moves right along with “Let it Die!” in which one presumably hopes he’s referring to his insecurities and not his unborn child who lays unseen in the womb of his sweetly sleeping lover. “I could run from the warmth of the sun now/ I can hide from the life I chose/ Let it die/ I can keep what’s left of me/ I don’t want to be here no more,” Lortz and Morison croon in a soothing harmony as they debate what they ought to do: stick around to blossom into the responsible adults they’re fully capable of being, or revert to a life that’s already run its course. “I could stay the same forever/ but it wouldn’t be too much fun,” they surmise.
While their 2008 debut release She’s The Dutchess, He’s The Duke had the duo channeling the Rolling Stones while “laying naked on the bathroom floor”, Sunset/Sunrise swaps their jangly classic rock appeal for a more mature, dramatic folk sound. Delivering a solemn message of desperate hopelessness in a way that hardly conflicts with their upbeat harmonies, one could hardly tell by melody alone what the album holds in store. Track after track, it becomes apparent that neither Dutchess nor Duke are there to offer solace so much as heavy-hearted companionship through the timeless ordeal of staying or going. Who knew self-defeating doubt could sound so good?
With “Scorpio”, Lortz wastes no time pussy footing around the issue. “Listen to me baby/ got to tell you something and I don’t know where I’m gonna start.” As Lortz expels the details of a relationship where things are going well- they kiss, walk down to the beach, and spent time snuggling as they look up at constellations (hence “Scorpio”)- the listener soon realizes that he’s just not that into it. It’s not a breakup song because things aren’t that bad; he simply wants to level with his partner that things aren’t as good as he/ she think they are, so won’t he/ she please stop acting like a twinkly-eyed fourteen year old girl/ boy who told his/ her parents he/ she was going to the football game when he/ she really snuck off to make out in the parking lot of Baskin-Robbins (adlib inferred). “I know that I should never fear to walk with ghosts that haunt me with you by my side…but I’m a long, long way from you/ in my heart.” Can’t fault honesty there.