#TEGAN AND SARAH NINETEEN HOW TO#

The object of the song is a cipher – we don’t know anything about who the other person is – but we probably know enough about the narrator that we should walk away very quickly, at least until she grows up a bit. I’ve been that person who is more focused on the idea of being in love than with what love really demands. I’ve been that nineteen year-old who is so unreflective that they don’t start with what led up to the breakup, but instead tries to devise a plan to get together. So why do I like this song so much? Probably because I’ve been there. The singer/narrator is doomed in this relationship, at the moment doesn’t see why, and can only focus on their own emotions and needs. At the end of the first line of the chorus the guitar produces some feedback and the drums come crashing down, creating a discordant sense of dysfunctional desperation. She sings the words of love in a ballad-like way, suggesting that it was a good plan, except that, barely discernible (but more obvious in live recordings), Sara Quinn is yelling out the words “I was yours right?”, undercutting the good intentions of the preceding lyrics.Īn then it all falls apart. Here’s the song in its polished studio format: “Nineteen” in the studio.

#TEGAN AND SARAH NINETEEN HOW TO#

She’s full of anguish and is trying to figure how to put it back together. It is a song that looks back on the relationship which has now come to an end, but the narrator doesn’t want to let go. Nineteen is that, because it talks about being in a relationship that began when the narrator-singer was that age. Second, it should be about young people and probably about love. Nineteen in the studio is a mere 2.54, and live, rarely is more than four minutes. The early Beatles songs all clock under four minutes. First, it needs to be playable on commercial radio, which means it should be less than four minutes, and maybe even less than three.

What makes a perfect pop song? Well, a few things. One of the songs on it is Nineteen by Tegan Quinn and it may be a perfect pop song. Eleven years ago, when they were 28, they released an album called The Con. Tegan Quinn and Sara Quinn are twin sisters from Calgary who front a band called, of all things, Tegan and Sara.

Okay, this post isn’t about Crete, but about one of those songs that is perfect.

Tegan and sarah nineteen