Probabilistic Jukebox: "Isn't It a Lovely Night?" by the Decemberists

Cover photo of Black Belt magazine Vol. 8 No. 4, April 1970

I was on the Decemberists bandwagon for a time - with my monocle and cravat, of course - but, to be fair, I came to the party pretty early. When I got Castaways and Cutouts in 2002, it was a refreshingly odd bit of indie pop, different from anything else that was cool at the time. And I enjoyed, to varying degrees, the three LPs that followed that debut full-length. But I didn't find much of interest in last year's The Hazards of Love. It seemed like the spectacle had finally fully triumphed over substance in the Decemberists' music, and "Isn't It a Lovely Night?" is a good example of this - it's also a song I only have on my Jukebox at all because the album was given to me as a gift.

Sung primarily by the lovely Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond, "Isn't It a Lovely Night?" has has a too-simple melody and a costume-drama lyric of the kind Colin Meloy could write in his sleep. And like much of the Decemberists' more recent work, it lacks any real emotional weight - very different from affecting early tracks like "Red Right Ankle" or "California One". However, I'll admit that the song a lot more charm than the "sound and fury" tracks surrounding it on The Hazards of Love because it at least has some clarity and taste in its arrangement. And it doesn't give me a headache the way many of the other Hazards tracks tend to. So it has that going for it, I guess.

"Isn't It a Lovely Night?" by the Decemberists