Ballad Breakdown: Courtney Barnett Goes on an Existential Spiral on “Pedestrian at Best”
Courtney Barnett takes shots at the music industry with the snarky lead single from Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit.
A song can range from seconds to more than 10 minutes, but every song, no matter the length, tells a story through its lyrics, instruments, and/or vocals. In Ballad Breakdown, our writers dissect your favorite songs to display the intricacy and care put into every seemingly minuscule aspect.
Written by C.S. Harper
As a newcomer to the indie scene, Aussie singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett was quickly hit in the face with fame thanks to the virality of her acclaimed 2013 single “Avant Gardener.” But a storm of unwanted attention ensued and harried her increasingly fraught mind, which she profited off by neatly packaging it into her debut album’s four-minute lead single, “Pedestrian at Best.” However, the track has anything but commercial appeal: the auditory equivalent of a dumpster fire, “Pedestrian at Best” diverges from the lethargic guitar strums and pleasant mundanity of “Avant Gardener” with its abrasive wall of sound and ranting lyrics.
Following the upbeat opener “Elevator Operator” on Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, “Pedestrian at Best” induces whiplash in the listener with its grimy guitar riffs and booming percussion. Barnett juxtaposes the grungy soundscape with a deadpan sprechgesang, her words stumbling on each other as she delivers them in a stream-of-consciousness style. At center stage is her relationship with the music industry, which she holds with equal regard and disdain: “I love you, I hate you, I'm on the fence, it all depends / Whether I'm up, I'm down, I'm on the mend, transcending all reality.” Just as tumultuous as the ear-splitting feedback, Barnett’s relationship with her fans and the music industry at large is messy and riddled with white noise — in her case, the turmoil of her internal monologue. She goes on to sing-talk, “I must confess, I've made a mess of what should be a small success / But I digress, at least I've tried my very best, I guess (...) / It won't be with me on my deathbed, but I'll still be in your head,” losing herself in her low self-esteem but relishing the fact that her music — and in turn, she — will live on in her fans’ memory.
What follows is the heart of the track: the chorus. The only moment in the song wherein Barnett attempts to properly sing a melody; its hook is the exception to the track’s lack of a clear structure. These lyrics have an AABB rhyme scheme, which doesn’t often lend itself to much creative freedom. However, Barnett uses its association with nursery rhymes (e.g., Twinkle, twinkle little star / How I wonder what you are / Up above the world so high / Like a diamond in the sky) to her advantage, elevating the tongue-in-cheek tone of the chorus. The refrain serves as a massive middle finger to the music industry, as Barnett comes to view it as both an unfunny joke and an exploitative — and exploitable — machine.
She begins the chorus with a self-effacing line that reveals how little she cares about the acclaim she is receiving: “Put me on a pedestal and I’ll only disappoint you.” However, she quickly makes her back-handed agenda clear, snarkily singing, “Tell me I’m exceptional, I promise to exploit you / Give me all your money, and I’ll make some origami, honey.” By calling the entertainment sphere “honey,” the nihilistic nonchalance of folding money into origami turns into an action that she utilizes to taunt her subject, signifying how little she cares about the money she makes from her career. This adds a hint of absurdity that contrasts with the bitter outlook from the previous two lines, suggesting that Barnett may find humor in the relationship. To tie it all together, she ends with the witty but scathing line, “I think you’re a joke, but I don’t find you very funny,” showcasing her simultaneous dismissal and caution toward fame.
In the second verse, Barnett turns inward, analyzing how the newfound attention affects her mental state. Entering a crisis, she laments, “My internal monologue is saturated analog / It's scratched and drifting,” but she turns to escapism to save her decaying mind: “I've become attached to the idea / It's all a shifting dream, bittersweet philosophy.” Snapping out of her idyllic daydream, she goes on to say, “Underworked and oversexed / I must express my disinterest.” As opposed to the typical phrase of artists being “overworked and undersexed,” Barnett complains about experiencing the opposite amid her cumulating fame.
In the final verse, the instrumental becomes more raucous while the guitars become more dissonant. At this point, Barnett has truly unraveled as she turns to her relationship with “you.” Whether this “you” be her partner or her audience, they distress her to the point of wanting to “wash out [her] head with turpentine and cyanide,” both cleansing and killing her. She further spirals, revealing that she “dislike[s] this internal diatribe when I try to catch your eye / I hate seeing you crying in the kitchen / I don't know why it affects me like this when you're not even mine to consider.” Despite the clear disturbances in her mind, Barnett ultimately brushes it off as her just being “a fake, I'm a phony, I'm awake, I'm alone / I'm homely, I'm a Scorpio,” using everything from an array of disjointed adjectives to her zodiac sign as an excuse for her increasingly chaotic mentality. This leaves the listener with an unsteady serenity as the singer repeats the chorus one final time, reminding them of the true source of her worries.
Though “Pedestrian at Best” does little to absolve Barnett from the woes of fame, its rowdy noise and biting lyrics serve as cathartic consolation, both for her and the listener. By unleashing this explosive track onto the world, Barnett solidified her place as the anti-rockstar rockstar.