LOVE SONGS FOR THE LONG GAME
NQ Arbuckle can sound much tougher than he is, with his gruff hoots and wild laughs amidst stories of red wine, cigarettes and hot dogs, reminiscent of “another time when I quit smoking, I don’t drink as much and my heart isn’t broken.” But even after all these years, the tender NQ still believes in love and poetry as much as the power of thoughtful criticism. He’s a lover and a dreamer and a cynic. He’s got the paradox blues.
we sing lullabies to the unkind
love songs to pretty girls who don't care
drinking songs
to children to put them to sleep at night
we're swimming against the tide
Opening on what sounds like a heartbeat, “No Hands Bicycle” checks our pulse and staggers forward like a pair of legs that have long been still. The shuffle beat and NQ’s no-holds holler fully revive us, kicking up a springtime image, an alleyway full of misfits on bikes, in trees — neighbourhood kids — flanking NQ as he swaggers towards us.
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Love Songs for the Long Game?is an album about love, hope and commitment, backed by ruralist hip-hop beats, country guitars and campfire sonnets. Its wholesome beauty and unabashed lyrical quest for sleep and, per chance, to dream, soothes like a lullaby. NQ Arbuckle’s writing falls somewhere between Ginsberg and Gainsbourg, oscillating between beat poet “Funny Bone” and sentimental, “Dress That You Met Me In,” unabashedly swooning over his love yet sometimes embarrassed by it.
Titular track, “Love Songs for the Long Game,” a prescient manifesto for the years to come, muses about the world and our state, wondering how anybody ever gets to sleep without some heavy handed help.
It helps to laugh, and NQ’s wry, dark sense of humour is intact in “Alabama All Nighters” (“God, I miss you / In between drinks”) and “Seven Year Itch” (“I missed our seven-year itch / Because I was having a good time”). On album closer, “Sad Songs,” NQ answers with, “I'll take my chances on you, Take them on me.” It’s a two way street.
The Long Game. Life itself. NQ Arbuckle is still playing.
Stream/purchase Love Songs for the Long Game here:
https://SixShooterRecords.lnk.to/lovesongsLK