Collected Animals

what does this song mean to yall and when has it given you comfort in your life? im kinda going through it rn and i love how candidly this song presents awkward emotion (confusions not a kidney stone in my brain, if we're miscommunicating, do we feel the same?) and (someone in my dictionarys up to no good, i never find the very special words i should)

i love that they made a song that texture sounds like cascading water, when i listen to it when i feel horrible it feels healing in a physical way like im taking a shower and healing in a mental way when i lsiten to avey meditate on why people hurt other people and security and i dont know why "and you give a little, and you get a little bit" vocals sound so profoundly sad to me but they do

i feel privileged to be able to listen to this band and feel understood

Amen, my friend. I don't have too much more to add right now but the gradual incremental build and then the euphoria and catharsis of that chord change are rejuvenating. You picked out my favourite lyrics, too. Take it easy and hope you're feeling a bit better soon.

i like it a lot

it's like a band aid for sad feelings sometimes, other times it siphons them out and lets them drain away. it's a healing song.

my favorite song ever, special special song

To put Daffy Duck, the most severely down-in-the-dumps song probably in their whole canon, right after this song is awesome too. Like Banshee beat is the river leading into the swamp

Daffy Duck, the most severely down-in-the-dumps song probably in their whole canon

is it?

Probably in feels

Super special song between me and a best friend from high school. She's my earliest friend to really like animal collective when I showed it to her, and they became one of her favorite's.

I remember us talking and naming favorite anco songs, and she said Banshee Beat while I said Loch Raven.

Banshee Beat has always been one of my favorites, it takes me back to a place of high school ambition. To live life free and strive to be the person you most naturally want to be.

i had one of the worst nights emotionally in my entire life last night and after sleeping in way later than i should have i woke up and checked CA and saw this thread and just burst into tears


theres no song like this. thank you for reminding me.

Baby Birch by Joanna Newsom kicks my ass to death. It's not a competition

But Joanna announcing she is the god shiva before playing this will kick my ass to death big time forever

Cooper wrote:

Daffy Duck, the most severely down-in-the-dumps song probably in their whole canon

is it?

yeah, I will say that daffy duck always hit me as wistful or nostalgic sounding, definitely a slower, murkier song, but it isn't "sad" to me whatever that means.

they honestly don't have too many sad songs. i think even their emotionally tinged stuff like banshee beat is very hopeful and brimming with optimism, that's why i think so many people fall in love with them as a band, they are a very life affirming in a way that's hard to pull off without seeming super disingenuous.

jfw7 wrote:

Cooper wrote:

Daffy Duck, the most severely down-in-the-dumps song probably in their whole canon

is it?

yeah, I will say that daffy duck always hit me as wistful or nostalgic sounding, definitely a slower, murkier song, but it isn't "sad" to me whatever that means.

they honestly don't have too many sad songs. i think even their emotionally tinged stuff like banshee beat is very hopeful and brimming with optimism, that's why i think so many people fall in love with them as a band, they are a very life affirming in a way that's hard to pull off without seeming super disingenuous.

weird. daffy duck has always been a happy and peaceful song to me. i used to sing it while working in the farmyard with my happy goats and sheep.

whereas banshee beat is more of my heartrending song that I cry to.

loooooove the version on Ballet Slippers. spun the side that one is on like every day for weeks in December. Also looooooove the version they played last fall. I mean every version is soooooo good. sometimes I think this is like THE ac song in a way I used to think Fireworks was just cuz of how FW became such this massive pillar for them live. But banshee has never gone away for as long as FW has (tho I guess it was absent thru all of Chz tours I think??).

just the way its musically simple in a lot of ways. Pandas little tappy beat. Deakin massive guitar chords. Geos... other stuff. And then just like peak Avey lyrics/melody.

the drums like make it feel energetic which is weird cuz its also so meditative and chill and sweet. delish

afaict they stopped playing fireworks about six months after banshee beat but have never played it since (so the streak is still active)

at these dates being like 11 years ago

To me daffy duck is like a deep sleep with strange dreams, sort of calming and oceanic but at moments disturbed and dark

afaict they stopped playing fireworks about six months after banshee beat but have never played it since (so the streak is still active)

at these dates being like 11 years ago

didn't they play banshee beat at the Big Sur show last October?

jfw7 wrote:

afaict they stopped playing fireworks about six months after banshee beat but have never played it since (so the streak is still active)

at these dates being like 11 years ago

didn't they play banshee beat at the Big Sur show last October?

They played it throughout their 2019 mini-tour.

god, i hadn't heard daffy duck in so long, I just had to go back and listen to remember what it sounded like.

don't listen to AC very often but I will return to banshee beat every few months. still one of my favourite songs ever i'd say. makes my heart feel quite heavy but i like how it blooms. it's really beautiful.

i feel privileged to be able to listen to this band and feel understood

Absolutely. I feel corny explaining my ac-origin story, but I suppose I am in good company here. I feel lucky to have been introduced to ac during the ST/Feels era when I was in high school because it has allowed ac to soundtrack so much of my life. It made me feel connected to something I couldn't define. I still have a hard time trying to articulate how much this music means to me and often have to pull back with others and simply say, "they're my favorite band" but truly, their music has offered much more than that for me.

Banshee Beat will always be a song that is very special to me. It was the ultimate song about relationships that my teenage self felt strongly connected to in sound and lyrically. I always came back to it, especially in times of conflict. It recognizes your pain but offers a sense of hope.

When I saw them perform it live during the MPP tour, it moved me. A friend and I drove 6hrs round trip on a school night in college to catch the show. We linked up with a friend who had transferred to a college there and had the weirdest, memorable night with her friends. Maybe it was the fact that I was rolling, but when this song came on, I had tears streaming down my face. It was super slowed down from the recorded Feels version. It felt so cathartic. I typically don't get visibly emotional when listening to music or watching movies or whatever, but this version, that moment, just everything... I felt it more deeply than any time previously listened.

This song still holds a special place in my heart. It brings me back to those silly high school relationships, harder relationship conflicts I had in college, and still gives me solace now in marriage. It has helped me validate my own feelings and understand that though conflicts happen, they can come from a place of passion and love. It's a give-and-take.

This song still holds a special place in my heart. It brings me back to those silly high school relationships, harder relationship conflicts I had in college, and still gives me solace now in marriage. It has helped me validate my own feelings and understand that though conflicts happen, they can come from a place of passion and love. It's a give-and-take.

awesome awesome post dude...and i love this. ac makes some universal music with grounded sensible messages

It's definitely one of my favourite songs of theirs and while there isn't a particularly refined narrative to it, it seems to be about struggling with relationships, looking back on hard moments in your life, and coming to the conclusion that pain is an experience in life worth having.

I think I had initially processed Daffy Duck as sad in like middle school, which back then sad just meant bored, so I have to re-listen lol

Reposting

Like banshee beat i always pictured taking place in a terrarium with a woods built inside it. It used to be called ghost chaser cause its like someone is chasing a ghost through the woods and very clouded and ghostly. Most of the production and the way we want a song to sound is done before we go to the studio though. Some songs however like bees are made in the studio cause the overall effect is harder to achieve live.

davey

Wow, thanks for that. What a quote.

Love how Dave’s interpretation sounds exactly like something a fan could’ve came up with in YouTube comments