Track 12 - “Dirty Paws” by Of Monsters and Men (2012)

From the album My Head Is an Animal

Music and lyrics by Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir and Ragnar Porhallsson

Performed by:

Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir – lead vocals, guitar

Ragnar Porhallsson – lead vocals, guitar

Brynjar Leifsson – lead guitar

Arni Guojonsson - piano

Kristjan Pall Kristjansson – bass

Arnar Rosenkranz Hilmarsson - drums

US Billboard Hot Rock & Alternative - #24; Billboard US Rock Airplay - #25

Her dirty paws and furry coat

She ran down the forest slope

The forest of talking trees

They used to sing about the birds and the bees

The bees had declared a war

The sky wasn’t big enough for them all

The birds, they got help from below

From dirty paws and the creatures of snow

 As someone who interviews job candidates for a living, I hear many of the same questions: “What are the growth opportunities?”, “Why is the position open?”, and “What’s your timeline for making a decision?” among the examples. Questions about benefits and compensation often follow, but I would recommend not leading with those during a first interview, just a free professional tip from your neighborhood recruiter. But there’s one question that I now get more than any other: “Is this a remote position?” The past two years have proven without a doubt that many corporate jobs can be performed at home. Businesses needed to continue during the pandemic and to put it bluntly, we had no choice, so companies pivoted, and everyone turned to online meetings to collaborate and get things done. For some it was a big adjustment, juggling daycare and work every day, and for others it became isolating, with workplace camaraderie disappearing in an instant. And still others embraced the change, saying it restored their work/life balance, and enabling some to re-think their jobs and careers in general. But no matter who you talk to, one thing everyone agrees on is that remote work is probably here to stay and that employers need to offer at least the option to work remote part of the work week if they want to hire the best people. Remote work though has had a bigger impact on another component of our daily routines; working from home obviously means that commuting to the office is a much smaller part of the equation. Being from Long Island, my job search dilemma was: work locally and make average money, but face horrific traffic on the Long Island Expressway, or get on the Long Island Rail Road and make more money, but spend four hours per day commuting. My own career went back and forth between those two options. Personally, I didn’t have a preference; I went where the job was, for better or worse. My father commuted to New York City for years and never complained, and he did it before the trains were electrified (but after they ran on coal, ha-ha). So, with that as my example, I commuted for years to New York City, five days a week, in all kinds of weather. I was one of thousands who did this, so I am not unique or special. But when I think about it now, how did we do it? All those hours of lost sleep and delays, all that money spent on monthly tickets, and all those lost umbrellas. There was a time as recently in the last 10 years that most people in a corporate job went to work five days a week, including Fridays. Most companies did not offer remote work, even before the pandemic, until sometime in the 2010s. Nowadays, if I told a Gen Z-er that the job they had applied to required them to be in the office five days a week they would laugh at me and hang up. And in my current role, when I arrive at the office once or twice a week, my team and I usually look at each other and wonder how we used to do it, every day, without questioning it. But times change, as they say, and we are in a new normal and this will probably be the way of things for the near future. I also remember a time when your computer remained on your desk at the office and there were no laptops or smartphones to check email on the weekends or on vacation, but let’s discuss one innovation at a time here. Back in 2011, I was presented with a new wrinkle in my daily commute: the subway. Up until then, I’d been lucky and most of my city jobs were in Midtown, meaning I was able to walk to the office from Penn Station on 34th Street. But this was an opportunity to learn new skills in a new industry and I couldn’t pass it up. The problem was they were based in the West Village, just south of 14th Street, where the street names were no longer numbers and where the skyscrapers disappeared, at least for a few blocks. Not quite lower Manhattan, but not Midtown either. It was a 35-minute walk, over 30 blocks. Was it walkable? Absolutely yes. But every day? In the rain or snow? Or if it was 10 degrees or 90 degrees out? Probably not. I would have to get on the subway at some point, and if I’m being fully transparent here, I had zero experience using it, and I was quite sure I would get on the wrong train and end up in Queens. But I wanted this job, so I did what I had to do, and I figured it out. Luckily, I never ended up in Queens. After two years though, I began having serious second thoughts; I wasn’t sure I could keep doing this. It was a long day, and the traveling was getting to me, especially the added time to get to the office after the 60 plus minutes on the railroad just to get to the city. And I literally hated taking the subway. But luckily there was a folk and rock band from Iceland, of all places, that provided the right distraction at the time, and helped me forget my commuting woes.

Go ahead and Google “popular musicians from Iceland” and you will get a lot of names you don’t recognize. There’s Sigur Ros, who have been together for 20 years and are probably the most well-known band in Iceland. You’ll also see alternative band The Sugarcubes, who had some popularity in the US in the late 80s, and their very popular and odd lead singer Bjork on that list as well, who is probably the most well-known Icelandic musician. However, there have not been many Icelandic bands that have gained popularity outside their native country and made an international splash. But an indie folk and rock band called Of Monsters and Men changed all that in 2011. Of Monsters and Men formed in Reykjavik, in 2009, and are led by lead singer/guitarist Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir and singer/guitarist Ragnar Porhallsson. They won their nationwide Battle of the Bands in 2010, and very quickly gained fame in Iceland with the release of their first album in 2011, My Head Is an Animal. The album, and first single, “Little Talks”, both reached #1 in Iceland. The single was picked up by US radio in late 2011, and in April 2012, the album was released worldwide, reaching #1 in Australia and Ireland, and on the US Alternative and Rock Album charts. Appearances at the Newport Folk Festival, Coachella and Saturday Night Live soon followed in 2013. In short, Of Monsters and Men got very popular, very quickly. And all this happened before I ever heard a note from them. The first time I heard them was on radio station WRRV, a popular alternative station in the Hudson Valley in upstate New York. I can vividly remember what I was doing when I first heard them on the radio. My wife and I were at my mother-in-law’s house in Fishkill for a visit that weekend, and I volunteered to run out and grab lunch for everyone and get some air. This was around September of 2013, about the time I was feeling exhausted from the everyday grind of commuting to the city. For whatever reason, I decided to scan the radio stations and I think I landed on a Green Day or Bush song, so I left it on. Realizing this was an alternative station, I took note of the frequency, 92.7, and continued driving. After my errands, I turned the radio back on, and was greeted by a song I had never heard; there were horns, and there was this great swinging beat, and it all sounded like it was recorded in a concert hall. But the best part were these two amazing voices, one female and one male, singing back and forth, and then harmonizing the chorus. Who was this?? I turned it up and hoped the DJ would come on and say the artist or at least the song title after it finished playing, but I arrived back at my mother-in-law’s before I was able to find out who it was. I even sat in the driveway for a few minutes. Argh…now I’d have to wait and hope to hear the song again. It would eventually take downloading the WRRV app and listening all day at work that week until I heard it again: it ended up being “Little Talks” by Of Monsters and Men. This band was new to me, and I quickly sought them out on iTunes to find the rest of their catalog and see if they had an album. Meanwhile, those feelings of getting frustrated by commuting remained, and I started to think about switching jobs again. But was that a good idea? I was doing well, and I liked who I worked with and what I was doing; I could make some adjustments and stick it out, couldn’t I? My wife said it was a phase, and I needed to look at the positives about the job itself. I knew she was right, and that I had to get past this. I couldn’t just walk out on a good opportunity because I hated the subway. As the weather started getting crisper outside with the arrival of fall, I was listening to WRRV all the time. I was discovering some great artists I had never heard before: Arcade Fire, Lorde, Cage the Elephant, Fitz and the Tantrums, among others. And I kept hearing other Of Monsters and Men songs as well. I finally decided to download the whole album, figuring it had to be amazing based on what I was hearing on the radio. As I headed toward the 1 train in Penn Station for my ride downtown one weekday morning that October, I cued up the album and let it play. Since I had not heard the first track, “Dirty Paws” at all, I was unprepared for what I heard, but it almost made me stop walking; it was that good. Knowing that stopping would get me trampled by angry commuters, I kept going to the train, but when the doors closed, I seriously did not care about the subway or my commute anymore. The song was unreal; acoustic guitars and just the two singers’ voices harmonizing. There was no percussion or other instruments for almost a minute and a half, and there were these great lyrics about the forest and snow and bumblebees. To me it was a perfect song. The rest of the album followed. Unfortunately, I only got to the fourth song before I had to exit the train at my stop. But instead of going into the building, I stood there on the sidewalk and played “Dirty Paws” again. Who was going to stop me? This was New York City! People stood around on sidewalks all the time! Eventually I made my way into the building and to my office; once I got settled, I started the album over and listened as I worked, and every song was amazing…but “Dirty Paws” was one of the best songs I had heard in a very long time. The album quickly became my commuting soundtrack for months and eventually I got over my commuting malaise. I ended up having that great job for four years. I’m glad I stuck it out; it led to other opportunities, and I met some great people along the way. And I started to wonder as I continued to commute to New York City for several more years: what is everyone listening to? Is it the same thing every day? The thing with commuting is the routine of it. If something goes awry, it can throw off your whole day. At least if you keep your playlist the same, it keeps things “on the rails” if your train is late. And on that awful pun, I’ll leave you with Of Monsters and Men recorded live on PBS in 2012…

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Next time…I accidentally discover an English singer/songwriter and he becomes one of my favorite artists.

P.S.

 Of Monsters and Men have released two more albums since My Head Is an Animal; Beneath the Skin in 2015, and Fever Dream in 2019. I have listened to both sparingly, and they’re very good albums, but their first is one of my favorite albums ever. I still play it frequently; it’s become a “go-to” album for me, where each song is perfect and I know them all by heart. There are maybe 25 albums in my life I can say that about, so My Head Is an Animal is pretty special. They also contributed songs to The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and The Walking Dead soundtracks in 2013. This year they released Tiu, a documentary about the 10th anniversary of the release of My Head Is an Animal, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. The band had cancelled a tour in 2021 celebrating the album due to COVID, so the film captures the band playing in their favorite places in Iceland. You can check out the trailer from the Tribeca Film Festival webpage here. Seeing them live is on the bucket list for me, so hopefully they tour again. If you’ve never listened to Of Monsters and Men, I urge you to give them a shot. Their sound is unique and atmospheric, and best of all, it’s uplifting. I’d be curious to know what you think if you gave them a listen, so feel free to put feedback in the Comments!

I ended up commuting to New York City for five more years. During that time, we moved to Connecticut, and traveling to Grand Central was easier, and honestly, nicer than Penn Station. And I was able to stop taking the subway when my job moved to midtown, so it all worked out. I left the city for a short time in 2018, but now I go in once a week, which is not so bad. I spend more time reading now during my commute than I did previously, and my walk to the office is so quick I don’t need a playlist. But I see people every time I travel to the office relying on their music or a podcast to get through their commute. What did people do before iPods and iPhones and earbuds? I guess they used Walkmans? They must have spent a fortune on batteries. Besides My Head Is an Animal, I discovered some other great music that fall and winter of 2013. Here’s some of the playlist I was listening to back then; hope some of your favorites are on there!

See you next time…

 JS

6/20/2022