Day After Day #22: Romantic Rights

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Romantic Rights (2004)

Twenty years ago was the peak of the MP3 blog era. In the wake of Napster and MP3 sharing, music nerds all over the world were creating blogs and posting MP3s of new and interesting stuff. I was all over it. It was a great way to discover new music as well as get rare tracks and bootlegs. I was downloading songs from artists like TV On the Radio, the Hold Steady, the Black Angels, Midlake, Neko Case, Jenny Lewis and on and on.

One such discovery was a noise rock duo from Toronto called Death from Above 1979 (they've also gone by DFA 1979 and Death from Above at different times), comprised of bassist Jesse Keeler and drummer/vocalist Sebastien Grainger. The band's debut was the 2002 EP Heads Up, but it was their debut album, You're a Woman, I'm a Machine, that really made a splash. 

Two-piece bands were becoming all the rage thanks to the White Stripes (although Ween and the Spinanes had already been around for a while). In the early to mid-2000s, the Black Keys, the Kills and Lightning Bolt all emerged, with Japandroids showing up a few years later. But Death from Above and Lightning Bolt stood out because they were bass-drums instead of guitar-drums and were both louder than the guitar acts, with DFA79 being the more tuneful of the noise rock acts.

On "Romantic Rights," the lead single from You're a Woman, I'm a Machine, Keeler's fuzz-driven bass is the lead instrument, all monstrous Sabbath riffs and stuttering squeals while Grainger pounds the skins and yowls, "I don't need you, I want you." Loud, yes, but eminently danceable as well. The song builds into a frenzy and kicks about as much ass as humanly possible.

"Come here baby, I need your company/We could do it and start a family/She was living alone unhappily/We could do it, it's right romantically."

The song hit #57 on the UK Singles Chart, but got plenty of other attention. It was used on the MTV show Human Giant and on the soundtrack for the videogames SSX On Tour and NBA 2K15. 

In March 2005, DFA79 played "Romantic Rights" on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and when Grainger stepped out from behind the kit to sing, Late Night drummer (and E Street Band legend) Max Weinberg ran across the stage to take over behind the drums. Weinberg, dressed as he always did in a three-piece suit, struggled to get the jacket off before pounding away while Grainger stood on top of the bass drum belting out the vocals. A truly electric performance.

DFA79 split up in 2006 and reformed in 2011, releasing a tremendous album The Physical World in 2014 and two more since. I still haven't seen them but I need to, because they definitely put on one hell of a performance.