This One Song… SAVAK on Aujourd’hui

Tell you what – we love hearing from artists when things go right. We equally love hearing from artists when things go dreadfully wrong. A song that was a piece of piss, written in 20 minutes? Or years in the making and a bastard to write?

Whether it’s a song that came together through great duress or one that was smashed out in a short amount of time, we’re getting the lowdown from some of our favourites on the one song that they can’t stop thinking about – in their own words.

Following the release of their latest album ‘Rotting Teeth In The Horse’s Mouth‘ earlier this year, Michael Jaworski of SAVAK talks us through a head scratcher in the language department. Take it away, Michael…

Words: Andy Hughes
(Photo Credit: Taylor Sesselman)

“It can be a bit alienating living in a bi-lingual family when you’re the only one who doesn’t have a command of the second language. One can make the effort, take the French classes, read along to the French children’s books, watch French films and fumble along to make the connections with the subtitles… but there’s still a very disconnected feeling being the only person at the dinner table who struggles to follow along with the conversation and needs an occasional interpretation… sometimes from his 4 year old daughter. It can make one feel like an outsider looking in through the steamy glass windows of the brasserie when all you really want is un verre de vin rouge et une bonne conversation. I do my best to follow along in glasses of French wine.

The inspiration for ‘Aujourd’hui’ came one morning as my daughter, Cybille, and I sat on the couch and sang out loud together while I strummed F and G chords on an acoustic guitar. I managed to put together an airy chord progression that felt akin to Prefab Sprout or Aztec Camera, and it sounded pretty nice to my ears. The melody somehow inspired the both of us to sing “Aujourd’hui” at the top of our lungs in our apartment living room. It was a great feeling, the strengthening of a father-daughter bond and a feeling of synchronicity with your child in a moment of sharing another language together.

The charm and fond memory of that situation really raised the stakes on this tune for me, and made it extremely hard to write lyrics. It fucked with me. My initial thought… This song will be an homage to my French wife and half French daughter. I’ll sing it all in French and it will solidify our irrevocable, spiritual familial bond. Yes, that’s it, all in French! IDIOT!

On a strangely related note, I don’t enjoy driving at all. It generally makes me nervous so I try to preoccupy my brain with other things. I took the wheels one day on a summer trip to Vermont in August of 2019, and to distract me from my anxieties my wife and I started trading English to French translations. I’d ask her to translate my sentences of hope, love, self-doubt and humility in French and it all sounded so cool hearing her say it. I asked her to write the translations down and text them to me. These translations became the foundation of the lyrics for this song.

The process of writing the lyrics took a long time for me, and I eventually realized that singing a song entirely in French was too tall an order for someone just settling into niveau deux. I whittled the French down to one verse and the chorus. That would have to do.

It’s a relationship song. It’s a song about hope tempered with the struggle of maintaining a healthy long-term relationship while raising a child together. It’s a song about the work it takes to keep it together. Coming to terms with our humanity and our limitations. It’s a song about that intense feeling of love and connection I felt singing along with my daughter that sunny morning. It’s the untouchable stuff that makes us human and keeps us guessing and motivated to push on for an eternity. In French or English, I guess.”

‘Rotting Teeth in the Horse’s Mouth’ is out NOW on Ernest Jenning Record Co. – Read our review here!

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Album Review: SAVAK – Rotting Teeth In The Horse’s Mouth

Words: Nate Holdren

Brooklyn’s SAVAK are a three piece who occasionally bring in other players to join the party. They play in the catchy and danceable end of indie rock and post-punk. The bass looms large, rhythmic and melodic, holding down the songs alongside drumming that struck me as Cheap Trick with a touch of Joy Division. The rhythm section provide an indestructible foundation for the guitars, which seem to be mixed largely one channel each, one right and one left. That works well because the guitar playing veers from the percussive rhythms of punk and power pop to more jangling and complex post-punk riffs. If they were layered on top of each other some of the detail would get muddy.

Altogether the band are something like a really good cup of coffee: you can take it in quickly and enjoy it, and you can take it in slowly with a lot of attention and get extra enjoyment out of all the complexity and subtlety. There are some harsh moments but above all there’s a strong pop sensibility, lots of warmth and sweetness.

If I had to pick just one element of SAVAK’s sound that stands out, I’d say it’s the hooks. There’s the post-punk and the complexity I mentioned, but the band’s greatest strength is how its songs come together in a combination of catchy choruses and guitar flourishes in the best power pop style. I was not thrilled when ‘Aujourd’hui’, the fifth song on the album, opened with clean and perhaps even acoustic guitars – I just don’t see the point of a guitar without distortion, personally; this is probably one of many character flaws of too much punk and metal at an impressionable age – and yet by half way through the song I was nodding my head, tapping my foot, and humming along, despite my own stupid musical prejudices.

The lyrics deserve a mention. I don’t always know exactly what the band are singing about, but they’re catchy and evocative – as in the refrain mentioned in the album’s title, “rotting teeth in the horse’s mouth, the rats have left”, in the album’s second song, ‘Listening’. It often reminded me of some of Jawbox and Fugazi, in that the lyrics are at once slightly vague and abstract but in a way that ends up sounding very expressive, and with a clear theme of social commentary. For example, one of the verses on ‘What is Compassion?’ begins “another city, reduced to rubble, assets sold off, are we surprised?”, with other verses mentioning debt and deregulation, over a tense guitar line. It’s the first song I ever remember hearing about deregulation and the role of finance in contemporary capitalism, and it still manages to be taut and catchy.

The song made me think of Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel New York 2140, about a society devastated by climate change and financialization (that’s a compliment, good art often reminds us other good art.) ‘Bayonet’ lyrically brought to mind the Bad Religion songs Brett Gurewitz wrote, with lines like “in the open market, even sellers will be sold” and “zealots on parade”.

While this is clearly a record expressing some anger and discontent over the state of the world, it’s also a good time, music to move to, expressing a warm sense of togetherness too. The first song, ‘Vis-a-Vis‘ recalls The (International) Noise Conspiracy, imploring someone else “dance with me” but making the joy in dancing together into something that can sustain political hope, adding later “reclaiming history, picking up the pieces of forgotten dreams.” Give SAVAK a listen. ‘Rotting Teeth in the Horse’s Mouth’ speaks to what you’re angry and exasperated about but helps you celebrate what you care about.

(Photo Credit: Taylor Sesselman)

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