Changing Horses: "Cut All Strings"

“Cut all strings / Make sure that I don’t exist / Do you laugh with him / The way we used to laugh…” I’m no behavioural psychologist, but reading between the subtext here, you get the impression that someone’s been spectacularly dumped. And that someone is Ric Birtill of folk duo Changing Horses: a band whose Sunday clothing, romance, and vague equestrian overtones are in danger of connecting them to Little House on the Prairie. However, one quick look beyond the frocks and buttercups show why people tout the Horses as the British White Stripes, and why, alongside co-star and writing partner Fran Cullen, comparisons to Meg and Jack White are based on their radiating a similar mania. It’s not just the Horses’ MySpace following who think they’re hot shit, too—Costello collaborator Chris Donohue had the duo flown across to Nashville to produce their demo EP, and this lead track from it can only be a stone’s throw from Skins finale glory. Particularly if the script calls for “something epic with low royalties, like National or Billy Corgan, but no lawyers.”

Happily ticking all of those categories, “Cut All Strings” is a finale track that comes with its own stash of fireworks. Looping a mandolin line poached from a forgotten Zwan melody, Changing Horses branch out into their own lovesick universe, though their one’s the real deal—sugar crashes, stomach knots, and thoughts of primal screaming in public included. Birtill’s lyrics catch him wrestling with the thought of his ex and her new beau, wondering which of his favourite theme parks they’ve eloped to. The thought then out-wrestles and suplexes him, sitting on his face and sending him pictures of ex’s friends taking the new beau to heart. Fortunately Cullen’s cello comes galloping to the rescue, accompanying Birtill for a volatile afternoon freakout (“Screaming through the circumstantial seratonins / Going through the motions / Feeling like a child / Screaming at the top of your lungs”) as they build to a flighty folk chorus. Even if indie-folk’s not your cup of tea then you can still take something from the message—the absolute importance of deleting former squeezes from your phone—because, like Paul Giamatti in Sideways, you never know when the urge to drink ‘n dial might seize you. Keep “Cut All Strings” on your SD card in case it happens in a restaurant. You can sneak off to the cubicle for a quick emergency stamina dance.