Tomorrow is gonna be Sweet
Bouncing back in just a little under a year after Tomorrow Forever, Matthew Sweet returns in theme with Tomorrow’s Daughter. He and his backing band spread smiles on their fans’ faces, even in moments of melancholy or serious self-judgment. His songwriting peak may have passed, but listeners are likely to still be satisfied, today and tomorrow.
From a cinematic point of view, an opening scene can say so much about a movie—primarily what direction it will go in, the setting and whether or not the story is told chronologically. But just as there is a difference between the joy of starting out college as a freshman and going into your junior year, there is a difference between the opening scene and the overall state of the movie fifteen minutes or so in. That distinction (perhaps trivial to some) is happily at the podium with the first two songs off Tomorrow’s Daughter: “I Belong to You” and “Run Away.”
The opener has a hint of country in the background guitar and is the type of musical introduction that television writers would use for a character like Jason Segel’s Marshall Eriksen. Just behind the casually happy instrumentals lie some surprisingly descriptive lyrics: “I don’t wanna be free / I just wanna believe / I don’t wanna be free / For I belong to you.” Is this person happy that he belongs to someone else? Is this a crush set in so deep that he can’t even think of being with someone else? Maybe he thinks if he believes that they’ll be together it will actually happen? Who knows, but this camouflaged lyrical depth is the sign of good writing. Props to you, Sweet.
Returning to the earlier point, “Run Away” follows up and is the perfect song for a lighthearted movie like Accepted. The song would play fifteen minutes in, at which point the audience understands a fair amount about the world of the protagonist and is comfortable enough for the conflict to be a disappointment. The character described in this one is also worth a closer look; he’s with someone who runs away (the mere pluralization of ‘run’ colors this a bad relationship), and he tends to mimic her behavior by running away as well but knows that if does, she’ll have no one to come back to. Admirable complexity.
A similar character trait is described in “Out of My Misery.” Sweet sings of a relationship where the couple gets along despite the guy’s downer of a life, noting that he “Can’t keep [her] out of my misery.” She wants to be around him, but he knows that she’ll get dragged into the sadness. The track is not quite as happy as “Run Away,” but the lyricism is similarly disguised. That same theme is continued in the third song, “Lady Frankenstein,” with a chorus going, “I can love you / I can love you / I can love you / If it’s hard” and “You are beautiful despite her face.” It’s easy to not linger on if only listening as background music.
“Girl with Cat” has the most puzzling title and lyrics (not for the same deep reasons as the previously mentioned tracks) and is the best display of Sweet’s vocal chops. “Hey pretender / Let’s go on a bender / ’Cause we really don’t know where we belong” in particular lets him shine. He puzzles a little more with “Now Was the Future,” a song uninhibited by the customs of normal speech, which is seen also in the line, “You don’t have to wait to get to then.”
Every track here benefits from its moments of chordal simplicity, the short yet tasteful guitar solos in the middle and the effective introductions, drum fills and guitar strums alike. The only qualm that comes to mind is the decision to end with “Passerby. It’s good on its own, but it’s not a bow-tie the way “Can’t Pretend” and “Something Someone” both are with great lyric writing. For those who don’t concern themselves with track order or those who put albums on shuffle, this album is problem-free. Nevertheless, enjoy Sweet’s tunes today, later tonight or even tomorrow.
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