Every Moment Has A Song

Dawes: “The Game” (2024)

Dawes is the kind of band that, over the course of an album, can proverbially lull you to sleep with long, ponderous lyric phrases and melodies tending to be short on dynamics and originality.

Then like Ali in the Rumble in the Jungle they can wake you up with a quick jab of something so feel-osophical you’re not sure what hit you.

“The Game” is specific to itself as a story song, but in its summarizing title line it takes on metaphorical import.

Singer-songwriter Taylor Goldsmith and his brother, drummer Griffin Goldsmith have released the ninth Dawes album as a duo. Gone are a few bandmates. Still intact is their ability to create songs that show you your life through a new lens.

“The Game”

Millie came up playing in the boys’ clubs
But they made her play at midnight or at 8
Her friends all said the times were finally changing
It only felt a few centuries too late
Her eyes were always deep inside her notebook
Her hands were always tuning her guitar
And while some stayed busy waiting for permission
She was on her way to be a star

But if you asked her if anyone had held her back
She’d tеll you she forgot most of their names
Thе losers only think about the winners
The winners only think about the game

Then Millie fell in love with a civilian
Or at least we know he fell in love with her
He could see how bright her light was shining
He could feel how wild her fire burned
But love has its own kind of symmetries
You have to give as much as you receive
And once he realized he would never give her nothing
He decided it was time for him to leave

But now he likes to criticize her privately
While she simply says that neither were to blame
The losers only think about the winners
The winners only think about the game

So Millie kept on adding to the setlist
And working on her studio tan
And for the first time found it hard telling the difference
Between all her friends and all her fans
Which left her with a special brand of emptiness
She channeled right back into the songs
She wasn’t gonna ask herself the question
If this is what she wanted all along

Some people said she was a genius
Some people said she was insane
But those losers only think about the winners
The winners only think about the game

She wouldn’t suffer any fools
She danced to her own rhythm
She wasn’t playing by the rules
She was playing with ’em

Millie knew just when the dust was settled
When it’s time to put the pencil down
When the harmony is only just a shadow
Of the way it felt the first hundred times around
Which left her to the critics and the experts
To tell the world how Millie really felt
To somehow say she lost a competition
She was only ever having with herself

Well, some might look for meaning in the ashes
She just misses standing in the flame
The losers only think about the winners
The winners only think about the game
Oh, the losers only think about the winners
The winners only think about the game