How To Carve A Carrot Into A Rose

After decades of couching the Australian accent in song, our country finally has a worthy – and unafraid – ambassador in Melbourne songwriter Courtney Barnett, writes JAKE CLELAND.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] There’s no musical thrill greater than hearing your own little hometown invoked and imprinted for all eternity within the grooves of a record. It doesn’t happen here all that often, although that just makes records like Skyhooks’ Livin’ in the 70s or The Smith Street Band’s Sunshine & Technology even more special. Melbourne’s not exactly a backwater but, bloody hell, we’ve sure got a complex about it, don’t we? Why else would we soak our panties any time the prom king Pitchfork deigns to glance our way from across the seas?

And yet it’s not just a sense of validation which gives the international thumbs-up so much weight. It’s the idea that we might have a little of ourselves shared with a world which, for too long, has been tragically, ignorantly indifferent. With How to Carve a Carrot into a Rose, Melbourne singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett has a shot at changing that, wearing her heart and hometown on her sleeves.

“Twentysomething suburban poetry, each line a laser-guided missile to the heart.”

First it’s the Australian accent, that distinctly nasally twang which has been so unfairly maligned and rejected for decades as Australia struggled to define its place in rock history through assimilation instead of identification. Barnett’s obviously not so afraid, singing sombrely on opener ‘Out of the Woodwork', and sometimes just dryly talking over the band, but always in her native accent.

Then it’s the arrangements: solemn and affecting guitar-pop in a similar vein to The Go-Betweens and Paul Kelly but with less rock and more swing. The warped chords of ‘Avant Gardener’ set up a mundane morning gone horribly wrong, the warm hum of ‘Don’t Apply Compression Gently’ underscores a song of Barnett’s contentment amid perceived inferiority and the meandering piano slow-burn of ‘Out of the Woodwork’ opens the EP with a feeling of resignation, Barnett singing, “Do you know you’re not really good at listening/But you’re really good at saying everything on your mind.”

It’s the lyrics which make Courtney Barnett stand out; her twentysomething suburban poetry, each line a laser-guided missile to the heart. Barnett doesn’t exactly make you work for it, either. Her plainspoken lyrics leave little room for misinterpretation. Most of the time, you get lines like ‘David’s “I don’t really like any of your friends/But it’s not that hard for me to pretend” over a stomping ba-dun ba-dun rhythm or “I may not be 100% happy but at least I’m not with you” or clever turns like “You have made your bed/I know better than to sleep in it.”

“‘History Eraser’ is as epic and dream-like as any Ke$ha song.”

Barnett’s narratives are like diary entries, full of mundane details which give her world a precise identity. On ‘Avant Gardener’, it’s waking up late and full of ennui on a Monday, only to meet a 40-degree day with a yard full of hard rubbish. Her neighbour’s chatting over the fence about her plans for her garden, which prompts Barnett to think about planting some tomatoes of her own. No doubt you’re familiar with what happens next: she goes into anaphylactic shock and the ambos rock up. “My throat feels like a funnel filled with Weet-Bix and kerosene” … “The paramedic thinks I’m clever cos I play the guitar/I think she’s clever cos she stops people from dying” … “I take a hit from an asthma puffer/I do it wrong/I was never good at smoking bongs.” These tiny details are all emblematic of how Barnett adds realism and colour to her songs.

On ‘History Eraser’ she wakes from a dream in which she wrote the best song she’s ever written like she’s the sixth member of One Direction, before making out a little and jumping aboard the Epping line (now the South Morang), ending up next to angry footballers, dancing with sweet senoritas and then singing Triffids songs in the taxi ride home that night. ‘History Eraser’ is as epic and dream-like as any Ke$ha song, but Barnett’s specificity grounds the live-fast-die-young story in a very familiar reality.

“The Grace Darling or The Tote: pubs in which kids congregate to see folks like Courtney Barnett sing their lives back to them.”

In Melbourne’s northern suburbs, it’s easy to forget you’re in a big city. The buildings rarely top three storeys; in fact, most of ’em are two-storey terrace houses surrounding strips of kebab shops and tiny ‘hotels’ like The Gaso or The Evelyn or The Grace Darling or The Tote, pubs in which kids congregate to see folks like Courtney Barnett sing their lives back to them. Hang around long enough and you’re guaranteed to see the same people over and over again. You could walk into dark bandrooms alone with the guarantee of seeing at least someone you know there already. It’s all real neighbourly.

That vibe of inclusiveness, community and ownership over a particular lifestyle pervades How to Carve a Carrot into a Rose but, although the place is specific, the feelings are universal. Australians have been listening to songs about New York and Chicago and Minneapolis and London for decades, subconsciously swapping in our own signifiers. Now it’s the rest of the world’s turn, and it’s hard to imagine an ambassador better suited than someone as acutely insightful as Courtney Barnett.

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‘How to Carve a Carrot into a Rose’ is out now through Milk!. Courtney Barnett launches the EP on Friday, November 8 at Abbotsford Convent’s The Shadow Electric series. Many more gigs here, including support dates with Billy Bragg next year.