Early Whitney - Why?

With its plucked guitar and opening three words - You're so sensitive - Why?'s Early Whitney could almost be mistaken for a Death Cab For Cutie power ballad. However, whereas DCFC beefcake Ben Gibbard would then, in his earnest whimsy, declare his devotion to his muse's emotional sensitivity, Joni Wolf continues ...you can feel a single hair curl while you're sleeping, and each fraction of a millimetre fingernails grow. Before Why? became a band, it was Joni's moniker in a variety of Oakland avant-hip hop ensembles, and it was also the name in which he released his first solo album, the lo-fi masterpiece, Oaklandazulasylum. Early Whitney is the centrepiece to this record and its most conventional moment. Which isn't to say it has any chance of appearing in an episode of The OC, but merely to suggest that the song is quite possibly the point where Joni made the leap from weird-arse renegade to the indie-pop songsmithery of subsequent Why? releases. Whilst the song may be less idiosyncratic than his previous work and the rest of the album surrounding it, it still contains a fairly schizoid structure and exhibits Joni's distinctive outlook in quite an extraordinary fashion. The way the song can jump from Joni's nasal whine of Coffee's turned my dark days into Woody Allen long-sigh anxiety into a genuinely affecting plaintive falsetto of "Hide in Denver, I remember Montreal, I swear I'll write soon" and then back out to his semi-shouted pseudo-rap chorus (backed by Beach Boys-esque coos) that culminates in his definitive statement That ain't no God it's just a burning bush!.
Being the unreconstructed Jewpie I am, I'm a sucker for any reference to the Old Testament. It gives me sense of cross-cultural affinity which my otherwise oh-so-gentile lifestyle is lacking. Joni's father is a Rabbi and the jealousy leaves me doubled over in pain.

Early Whitney - Why?