‘Elevator Operator’: The one song guaranteed to get you into Courtney Barnett
The sign of a truly great artist is the excitement their return provokes after a period of extended absence.
Not dictated by this current culture’s endless appetite for output, they leave time for their albums to exist in the world before returning to deliver a sequel and avoid the desperate need to fill the silence with mediocrity. Now, after five long years, the silence of waiting for already great Courtney Barnett got pretty deafening and at last, she’s back to fill it.
As per the aforementioned rules of greatness, Barnett didn’t need to, however. There are many things that make her the brilliant artist she is, but one of them is her resistance to the desperate need to provide for us, and instead, she waits, carefully crafting albums that deserve the time they deserve.
Her upcoming album, Creature Of Habit, serves as her fourth solo studio record and comes after a long five-year absence. In that time, she delivered an ambient record that soundtracked her own documentary, as well as a collaborative project with Kurt Vile that serves as one of the very best examples of two worlds colliding.
But Barnett has always been at her best, in the traditional songwriting sphere of her own solodom – where the obscurity of her lyrics is given time to thrive inside the angular style of her signature guitar playing. As the truly singular artist she is, in the modern landscape of music, her songwriting voice has always been needed, whether it was in the drab era of mid-2010s indie or the hopelessly confused days of Covid’s dregs in 2021.
But it was in that former moment, when she emphatically introduced herself to the world with her debut album Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, that she shone brighter than she ever has before, and so serves as both the perfect chronological and artistic place to start for any oncoming Barnett fan.
In many ways, ‘Avant Gardener’ is the song that epitomises her style, but I would encourage any new listener to return to that after hearing the 2015 record for the first time. For any lucky soul out there yet to experience her greatness for the very first time, there is no better way to dive in than to listen to the debut record in its entirety and run it back multiple times.
The opening track, ‘Elevator Operator’, is on par with ‘Avant Gardener’ for its marriage of storytelling obscurity and compelling musicianship. The angular composition sets the scene for a typically observational take from Barnett, telling the story of a confused and depressed young man who flirts with the idea of his own suicide despite facing various humorous warnings not to do so.
But in typical Barnett fashion, the song hides a lot more beneath the surface – while you’re immediately lured in by the narrative of this tale, further listens will unveil a more personal take from Barnett.
She explained, “It’s the only song that isn’t about me and my feelings, but about someone else’s, and the lyrics come in straight away, right in your face, it seemed like a good way to set the tone for the album.”
It is the perfect way to start an album that very much serves as a masterclass in musical storytelling, where quirky optimism and humour marry with a subtle sense of melancholy to truly depict the conflicted experience of modern life.
