‘Eventually’: the Tame Impala song Kevin Parker wrote about the “poetry” of breaking up
Kevin Parker and Tame Impala are one of contemporary music’s greatest success stories; when you spend a moment to consider how they started and where they ended up, it’s truly phenomenal. The project of the Perth native began as a psychedelic rock band with a predilection for heavy grooves and dancey inclinations, as ‘Alter Ego’ affirms. They were a favourite of stoners everywhere, with them seeming to be the next in line on this area’s path to cult glory that The Brian Jonestown Massacre laid.
However, Parker gradually shifted his sound, bolstering his production technique and continuing to make the opiate nature of his work more tangible. While the band’s 2010 debut, Innerspeaker, is a psychedelic masterpiece that wraps itself around the listener, the 2012 follow-up brought the band to further acclaim by upping the ante with bigger pop hooks, imposing synths, and more direct riffs. Just take ‘Elephant’, ‘Mind Mischief’ and ‘Apocalypse Dreams’ as examples; they are substantial constructions on the foundations the debut laid.
Although the album was a tremendous success and is arguably their best, in terms of commercial value and cultural status, Parker enacted the improbable on 2015’s Currents. Immersing himself in the writing, recording and producing process, he brilliantly finalised the band’s transition into a more dance-oriented and less guitar-heavy space. This was the moment they became what many would call a pop band, and their extremely rich, synthesiser-led sound would pierce a generation.
Typified by the record’s final single ‘The Less I Know The Better’, featuring the funky bassline, catchy falsetto and effective key change in the chorus, Currents saw Parker and Tame Impala go stratospheric. They were no longer just a psychedelic rock band, and their leader became one of the hottest tickets in Tinseltown. They have now written for and collaborated with other famous stars, including Lady Gaga and Dua Lipa.
While people often think about Tame Impala’s musical development, one critical factor in Currents’s success was that Parker’s lyrics shifted from kaleidoscopic abstract to more lucid poetry. Thematically, the record is about the process of personal evolution, which, given the contents of some of the songs, you might interpret as the consequence of a romantic split. According to Parker, the third single ‘Eventually’ is specifically about the “poetry” of breaking up, told from the side of the one making the heartbreaking decision.
“I find there’s a lot of poetry, art and songs singing about the plight of someone with someone changing in front of them,” Parker told The Guardian. “It excited me to tell the story from the other side. Trying to explain that it’s not a bad thing, its just natural.”
He continued that the track is about someone who knows they’re going to hurt another. While they’re not going to be the ones experiencing the pain they’re meting out, this decision will have significant emotional consequences for themselves, he contended. “Arguably, it’s just as emotionally crippling knowing that you’re gonna do that. It’s just as heavy. It’s just as torturous.”
This is precisely the kind of insight that saw Currents unlock the gilded gates to worldwide success for Parker and Tame Impala. Whether he intended it or not, the honesty and emotional intelligence of tracks such as ‘Eventually’ spoke to the masses, and when fused with music as all-consuming, it made for an effective blend rarely seen in modern music, particularly from the alternative side of the spectrum.
