But where songs like “Treat Her Better” and “No Other Heart” felt anachronistic and inessential, these tracks are foundational in building to the more incisive songs, and the focus on communication in relationships brings the back half of the record, along with “My Old Man” into focus. “This Old Dog”, “Baby You’re Out”, “For the First Time”, “One Another”, and “One More Love Song” look like the love songs that felt like filler on Salad Days and Another One. It’s still guitar-based songwriting flavored with mystically chintzy synthesizers and jam band rhythms.
Besides the tonal dissonance of “My Old Man”, much of the front half of the This Old Dog does not seem like a drastic departure from his past work. The song is almost used like a flashback at the beginning of a film, in that its full meaning is indecipherable until put into context by the end. “Oh no / Looks like I’m seeing more of my old man in me,” DeMarco calls on the chorus of introductory track “My Old Man”, which is bruising and unsettling in its bluntness.
This is Mac DeMarco’s autumnal moonscape, a story told with an honesty that only emerges in the deepest hours of the night. The friendly intimacy that defined 2 and DeMarco as an individual was no longer being captured on record, even as his compositions felt more mature and polished.īut with This Old Dog, DeMarco invites the listener back into the fold with gusto, and the material connects like a punch to the gut. DeMarco’s playful, loving songs felt more staid and colored with less personality than they once were by comparison. Salad Days and subsequent release Another One were lessened by DeMarco’s failure to fully commit to his darker songs. “What Mom don’t know has taken its toll on me / It’s all I’ve seen that can’t be wiped clean / It’s hard to believe what it’s made of me” is sung powerfully but is ultimately hollow, as whatever issues DeMarco has concealed from his mother are concealed from the listener too – he couldn’t seem to let himself tackle his problems with the same straightforwardness as he did on any one of his many matter-of-fact love songs. Only, DeMarco’s lyrics still offered glimpses of deeper anxieties that were displayed in ways that felt more opaque than revelatory. “Passing Out Pieces” is still DeMarco’s most cinematic song – it’s introduced by a blaring synth and booming bass, shocking in its in-your-face confidence. The glancing references to personal troubles that appeared on songs like “Freaking Out the Neighborhood” were brought to the forefront of DeMarco’s songwriting.
But while 2 was an honest record, it was lighthearted, and any discussion of the darker side of DeMarco’s story was left implied.īut with his sophomore release, Salad Days, DeMarco dipped his toes a bit deeper into the muck. Part of the appeal of 2 was that it felt so intimate – the songs shimmered with a warmth, casualness, and humor that played like you were sprawled on a beaten couch in a close friend’s garage, listening to the guys jam and goof off. “Daddy’s in the basement, cooking up something fine / While Rick’s out on the pavement, flipping it for dimes / If there’s anything redeeming, I haven’t seen it yet / And I’m still up at midnight, chewing nicorette.” A thin blanket of melancholy rests just over some of his best work, like a layer black ice on a sidewalk that’s invisible and ready to bust your ass if you stumble into it unprepared.Īs early as “Cookin’ Up Somethin’ Good” on his breakthrough album 2, DeMarco was singing about a dysfunctional home life, but with a rubbery cheeriness as if he was in “The Brady Bunch”. He is, by his own admission, a regular guy who likes to sing about regular stuff.Įxcept, beyond the surface-level shenanigans that have come to define him to many, there have always been hints that there is more to the man than his stage presence. He’s charming, in a goofy, off-kilter, gap-toothed kind of way. His live sets are littered with inside jokes, he’s liable to play a jangly AC/DC cover at any moment, and he looks like he just climbed out of sleeping bag in a cave. You could argue that Mac DeMarco has made a career for himself through the intimacy he’s developed with his fans more than any other factor.