Peregrinating 'Perverts', Cycling through 'Jail'

This is a continuation of the thread from the Interpol message board entitled "My favourite seconds of a song"

“Anyone who interrupts the end of Public Pervert (-2.35+) or Not Even Jail (-4.35+) is getting f***ed up.” TSD

- I think it’s worth pointing out that both of the sections mentioned are those in which the vocals (except for a brief return in “Public Pervert”) have left the song around ¾ of the way through. In both cases the guitars take over as the main focus, so that we get extended guitar outros over the last quarter of the song. As I’ve discussed in a previous entry, the form of Interpol’s songs often deviate from the standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus (for example) song form.

…the preference of “peregrinated” song forms over cyclical song forms is one of the ways that I hear Interpol’s earlier work as differentiated from Antics, and also one of the ways that I hear OLTA as harkening back to that earlier work. Even in Antics, however, Interpol’s songs stretch the norms of song form.

(from Jan 29, 2008 entry)

I hear these two songs as a combination of the two types of form I mentioned above: cyclical and peregrinated. As you can see in my rough formal divisions below, the songs re-cycle their sections once (cyclical) before proceeding on to the extended outros. The outros also contain formal divisions, but the individual sections do not recycle (peregrinated).

- I can relate to TSD’s sentiment, especially concerning “Public Pervert.” As I’ve mentioned before, my first exposure to Interpol’s music occurred when I was working at Urban Outfitters on 72nd and Broadway here in NYC. The job was exhausting and paid not nearly enough for me to survive on (I’m guessing many of you can relate to this), and added to this was the simple fact that I was not very happy about my life at the time. Urban had Antics in their store-music lineup, and every time they played a song from the album (or sometimes they played whole albums through) life for me got a little better, and I felt oddly empowered in my folding of sweaters (of which I must’ve folded at least two billion in my two months at UO). Something in particular about the sound of the guitars in “Public Pervert” struck me to the core, and though not conscious of the song’s particular formal details at the time, I wonder now if part of the appeal of the song for me was not only the timbre of the guitars, but also the cyclical/peregrinated form combination. Sometimes life is a series of repeated phases, and sometimes we move steadily on down a road without turning back.

My rough formal divisions of:

“Public Pervert”
0:00-00:41 Verse 1
00:42-00:53 interlude 1st part
00:54-1:00 interlude 2nd part
1:01-1:22 Chorus
1:23-1:44 Verse 2
1:45-1:56 interlude 1st part
1:57-2:05 interlude 2nd part
2:06-2:34 Chorus
2:35-2:53 outro 1st part
2:54-3:02 outro 2nd part
3:03-3:11 echo Chorus
3:12-3:50 outro 3rd part
3:51-4:40 outro 4th part

“Not Even Jail”
0:00-0:34 intro
00:34-1:08 Verse 1
1:09-1:16 interlude
1:17-1:47 pre-Chorus
1:48-2:25 Chorus
2:25-2:27 intro
2:48-3:22 Verse 2
3:22-3:29 interlude
3:30-4:00 pre-Chorus
4:01-4:34 Chorus
4:35-4:48 outro 1st part
4:48-5:47 outro 2nd part

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