First Aid Kit's Palomino - Some of My Favorite Lyrics

Okay, at this point if you know me you know that I love one band and that band is First Aid Kit (if you thought you knew me but you didn't know this, now you know this so you probably know me, at least as of now)

They just released their first new album in a couple of years, Palomino. I was a freshman in college the last time we got a new full-length album. I vividly remember it being on repeat while I would walk to improv group auditions in the dim campus twilight wanting to die of anxiety and fear, the steady bass drum from "Fireworks" tempering my nervous heart. The new album finds me back in improv classes and practicing improv with some of my friends for the first time since the pandemic, so a little serendipitous if nothing else.  

I love their new album, and I wanted to share a few of my favorite lyrics in no particular order, so that is what you're getting for the rest of this post. 

From "Fallen Snow"

When you think that I'm not watching

I can see a bleakness in your smile

I know all the depths you've gone to

To lift the sorrow from your eyes

Oh, was it worth your while? 

The picture this paints is just so beautiful. Trying to put up a happy front, but you can never hide from those who know you the best. This is one of my favorite songs on the album. I gasped when I listened to it alone in bed at 12:15 am for the first time.

From "Wild Horses II"

Where do you go to when you look past me?

Do you see yourself miserable and free?

You've got to be fucking kidding me. Note that this is the fourth verse, and it actually echos the opening line of the song "'Where are we going?', something you asked me", though of course now the pronouns have changed from "we" to "you". This is through and through a storytelling song, and it's not a happy story being told. The fifth verse locks in our heroes' fate.

"I hate who we've become," spoken like an absolute

Just listened to you speak, there was nothing to dispute

I guess something shifted, I guess something died

Thought I couldn't change it, so I didn't even try 

It's over! It's over for these other hoes (all other esteemed musicians)! They don't even get it!

From "A Feeling That Never Came"

I go back there time and time again

Looks I stole when you weren't watching

I stood at the corner, solemn in the rain

Waiting for something, a feeling that never came

I got too drunk and embarrassed myself

Thought I'd be enough if I was someone else

Kissed in the sweet sweltering heat

On Bowery or maybe Delancey Street

This one's long, and I'm not gonna pretend it's short. The rhyme scheme and melody of the song sorta lend to this whole passage feeling like one big long line when you listen to it (in a way that Fiona Apple lyrics sometimes feel like one big long line). I think it's my top favorite song off the album, and it's such an innocent memory of a relationship that could have been but never was. It speaks to a universal insecurity and makes listeners feel less alone. And hmmm... I love that!

From "Ready To Run"

So I've stopped making those conclusions

Thinking you could truly know someone

You peel a layer, find another

No, you're never really done

I like this one because it is kind of stupid, and I say that as the biggest First Aid Kit fan you will ever meet in your life. Just the step-by-step visual of peeling a layer of something, and then what's that?! another layer?! I don't know exactly what it is, but something about the lyrics themselves feels patronizing, but I like that forced, cliché, manufactured sort of expression. Something about putting your full authenticity behind an idea that feels overused or often inauthentic I find to be really special and brilliant, and I'll never know (and never want to know) if this was an intentional move, though I am pretty crazy and even typing this all out now feel it would be too crazy to plan to be ironically patronizing to one's listeners. I laugh a little every time this lyric comes up.

Anyways stream Palomino and comment below if you have any favorite tracks!

[QUICK EDIT: I left out my actual favorite lyric of the album (lmao lmao dumbass vibes) from the song "The Last One" chorus: "How I wasted my time before you. How I wasted my time before you wasted my time before I knew you." LIKE?!!!!!! I think this may be an accident, because the phrasing online splits the second sentence like "How I wasted my time before you // wasted my time before I knew you", so if it's not meant as a continued sentence but rather a repeat of the same sentence just without the first word, I'm choosing to interpret as a continued sentence. "How I wasted my time before you wasted my time" ??? come on! You can't write this stuff!]