Welcome to RedEye’s “Song of the Day,” an ongoing feature where music reporter Josh Terry or another RedEye staff member highlights something they’re listening to. Some days the track will be new, and some days it will be old. No matter what, each offering is something you should check out. Check back every weekday for a new song and subscribe to the Spotify playlist below.
The year that White Denim’s song “If You’re Changing” came out (2010) was kind of a transitional time for the Austin psych-rock band, but it ended up being one its best periods. The band was slowly but surely moving from its raucous garage-rock roots to something more smoothly palatable and rock’n’roll oriented. With nimble-fingered guitarist Austin Jenkins rounding out the group to a four-piece and frontman James Petralli singing well rather than yelping, the White Denim of the searing single “Shake Shake Shake” was pretty much no more.
That’s not a bad thing at all (for the record, everything the band has done has ripped so far). Before the 2011 release of its dizzying third LP ‘D,’ White Denim decided to first give fans a free surprise release called “Last Day of Summer,” a messy but supremely lovable collection of old songs that, while ramshackle and all-over-the-place, ranks as my favorite full-length from the group. “If You’re Changing” is my favorite song off it.
It doesn’t really make sense to love this album more than the rest of its catalog. After all, “Last Day of Summer” is a collection of re-recorded outtakes meant to tide fans over rather than serve as a proper release. Who cares—the songs are all great. It’s got everything from reworked and improved “Fits” cuts (“I’d Have It Just The Way We Were”) to rollicking rockers (“Tony Fatti”), proggy instrumentals (“Incaviglia”) and folksy love songs (“New Coat”). With such a solid group of songs, its quality completely belies its haphazard release rollout.
But let’s talk about “If You’re Changing.” For all his yelping and screeching in White Denim’s early days, Petralli is much more suited to pop-oriented fare. He’s got a dynamic croon flavored with a tiny bit of twang that coos, “If everything’s changing where do we go now?” over the jazzy and breezy arrangement. While it never made a proper album and is only played live sparingly, the song is still one of the catchiest offerings in the band’s entire discography. Listen below.
2015 has also been a transitional period for the band: Petralli started his own solo project Bop English and drummer Josh Block and Jenkins have gone on to tour and record with Leon Bridges, whom Jenkins discovered. Does this mean there’s a “Last Day of Fall” in the works?
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