It began innocently enough, as it tends to in indie-pop. I’d been
playing the excellent new Camera Obscura album, My Maudlin
Career (4AD)—or really more to the point, I’d been
obsessively replaying its leadoff single, “French Navy.” Everything
about the track sparkles: sharp opening one-two floor tom, brisk Motown
beat, obsessive orchestration, vocal melody to die for, the whole thing
as twee as a basket of kittens but with enough real-world resonance to
apply to adult life. (Or so I tell myself: I’ve read too many
complaints about one of the song’s lines, “You make me go
ooh-ooh-ooh,” not to note them here—but when you’re
talking about a romance as gooey as this tune is, you’re going to have
to face some ooh-ooh-oohs sooner or later.)
Still, what got me thinking was the song’s first line: “Spent a week
in a dusty library/Waiting for some words to jump at me.” “French Navy”
isn’t about a library—it’s about singer Tracyanne Campbell’s
pining for her enlisted beau—but opening its story among the
stacks is part of a long, proud indie-pop tradition. After all, few
things besides indie-pop are as bookish, non-macho, detail-oriented,
earnest, and geeky as the public library. Not even Rem Koolhaas can
make the library altogether cool—not that anyone who loves
libraries altogether cares. And few musical styles invite the kind of
obsessive filing and categorizing that indie-pop does, with its
emphasis on 7-inch singles and collectible label catalogues.
(Naturally, there was even a late-’90s/early-’00s indie-pop label
called Library Records, with artists operating under such cutesy names
as Sleepy Township, Pencil Tin, Tugboat, and Bowlarama.)
Libraries and librarians have been part of the indie-pop mythos
since the form began in 1978, when Brisbane, Australia’s
Go-Betweens released their first single, “Lee Remick.” The
7-inch’s B-side, “Karen,” Robert Forster’s ode to a comely help-desk
assistant, marks the birth of the indie-pop librarian—and in some
ways the birth of a coy, socially regressive indie-pop ethos generally.
“I don’t want no hoochie-coochie mama,” Forster sang, before shining
the spotlight on his nerdy object of affection, who’s “willing to help
with all the problems that I encounter”: “Helps me find Hemingway/Helps
me find Genet/Helps me find Brecht/Helps me find Chandler/Helps me find
James Joyce/She always makes the right choice.”
It’s not surprising that the genre is sometimes referred to as
“librarian pop.” A number of musicians in the field, as well as some
notable fans, are or have been librarians. Scottish indie-pop icon
Stephen Pastel, of the Pastels, has a library-science degree; the Folk
Implosion’s John Davis has worked in libraries. An early-’90s issue of
the zine Incite! devoted itself entirely to indie-pop
librarians, including an interview with Davis.
J. Edward Keyes, an indie-pop fan and an editor at eMusic.com, spent many years as a librarian.
Of his first job, at age 16, he says, “The first thing my coworker said
to me after giving me the basic training was, ‘Hey, so, do you like
XTC?’ Every library I’ve ever worked at, the record buyer was a
sheepish 30-year-old in glasses. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, when
I was working in libraries, most alt-rock was very ‘smart,’ bookish,
etc., so socially aware records like R.E.M.’s Green or XTC’s
Nonsuch made for a natural co-axis to what the kids I worked
with were reading, like Vonnegut or even Marx. It cemented the feelings
of social alienation they had from their peers.”
Sometimes, though, that alienation can be used to randier ends. Not
just as in Camera Obscura beginning their tale of breathless devotion
surrounded by numerically coded volumes, either. The other great
indie-pop single of 2009 so far comes from New Yorkers the Pains of
Being Pure at Heart. Their “Young Adult Friction” (Slumberland) takes
place in a library—one the singer is having anonymous sex in. It
begins, “Between the stacks in the library/Not like anyone stopped to
see/We came they went, our bodies spent/Among the dust and the
microfiche.” Dirty, yes, but not unprecedented: What do you think
Robert Forster was after “Karen” for those 31 years ago? Besides, of
course, a good book to read and some quiet time to read it. 
Even were my sister not the most badass librarian ever (and she is), I would still hold a special place in my heart for library-themed music. The library is the most accessible and welcoming place to indulge your geekery, so have a whole genre of librarian pop seems both natural and awesome.
Despite my own semi-obsessive crush on “My Maudlin Career”, the line about the library somehow managed to sneak past me. Therefore, being the aforementioned “most badass librarian ever” in the first comment(awww!), this story totally made my day. On the librarians-and-pop-music tip: I’m pretty sure I heard about least a few librarians begging Tullycraft to play during ACRL this year.
And don’t forget Blood Hag… not pop, but they play at libraries…
I have workrd ou this ditty at http://www.guitarscale.co.uk/ for all you bidding axe players
Ahh, any recognition of the greatest, Robert Forster, and the sadly late Go-Betweens is a very good thing. I like this idea of library indie rock, but just last night, again, was lamenting the loss of the “roll” in rock n roll. Indie is all fine, but doesn’t anybody want to shake and jump around anymore?
p.s. — I saw the Go-Betweens on their final rounds, at the Mercury Lounge in New York. The band was certainly refined and artful and indie and bookish, but they had a little of that missing ingredient (“Make Her Day” for instance).
After one song, Forster accidently kicked over a drink on a guy standing in the front and profusely apologized on the stage. From my corner spot, I said, “It’s rock ‘n roll, Robert,” and he thought for a moment and said, “You’re right. It is rock n’ roll.” Great moment.