All My CDs, pt. 29: God Shuffled His Feet

God Shuffled His Feet - Crash Test Dummies

After I’d had Jingle All The Way for some time, and knowing that Crash Test Dummies had a few other albums out, I decided to check one out. I listened to it a few times when I first got it, and once in a while since, but it was still mostly unfamiliar to me when I put it on to prepare for this review. I took a good week of listening to only this album before beginning to write about it.

My first and largest impression is that the songs are generally catchy, upbeat and fun to listen to. It’s also not hard to notice a certain cerebral humor in the lyrics. But the lead singer’s deep bass voice isn’t always easy to understand, so I rely on the liner notes to actually follow along with the songs’ meanings. Once I do, I am usually surprised at how dark, sinister, or cynical the lyrics turn out to be compared with the overall mood of the music.

Afternoons & Coffeespoons, for instance, is one of the catchiest tunes of the lot. When you sit down and read through the lyrics, it tells a tail of failing health and the looming specter of old age. Medical imagery also appears in Here I Stand Before Me, which is similarly cheerful-sounding, but describes the uneasy, disembodied feeling the narrator gets from looking at his own x-ray - an experience so disturbing as to inspire nightmares.

Others seem at first glance like they might have some deeper meaning, but after reading the lyrics I find not much of interest there. Maybe this is by design. The title track, God Shuffled His Feet, tells a fanciful anecdote of God having a picnic with his created people. The people take eager advantage of this audience with a deity, and ask what they think are profound questions. God responds with a decidedly unprofound (or else inscrutably cryptic) story. God shuffles his feet, the people clear their throats. There just isn’t much communication going on.

The song I find most musically beautiful is Two Knights and Maidens, and also holds the honor of most covertly disturbing in imagery. I fell in love with the compelling and haunting melody, but only caught a few of the words until reading them. There I was confronted with a story of young men sexually propositioning some women, who dispose of their unwelcome suitors by drugging them, then watching while the stupefied men are attacked by tigers. No morals, no commentary, just a straightforward telling of events.

I’m not quite clear about what you just spoke -
was that a parable, or a very subtle joke?

I’m not sure if I want to know.

Next: Doctor Who, Vol. 4