Music Review: The Neighbourhood "Sweater Weather"

The Neighbourhood

Sweater Weather

Album: I Love You

Year: 2012

            Jesse Rutherford and his girlfriend are intimate in the reserved  “Sweater Weather.”

             Meditative synths open the single, setting an absorbed tone. She splashes water on his legs, spotting his khaki pants and runs off. He starts to chase her on the beach, his feet plunging into the sand. She returns to him, coughing from laughing so hard. She rubs her arms and comments that it’s gotten cooler. He pulls her hands into his sweater. He gazes at her long legs in one his favorite outfits of hers – a pink camisole with faded demin shorts. She asks him if he’s ready to go and he answers “huh.” Knowing his concentration is shot, she takes his keys. Even though, he finds the beach cliché’ (years of watching it be a backdrop on television for the rich and superficial ruined it for him), he will go with his girlfriend. She likes being outside and relaxing. Hearing her laugh was worth it. (“All I am is a man /I want the world in my hands/I hate the beach/But I stand in California with my toes in the sand/Use the sleeves on my sweater/Let’s have an adventure/Head in the clouds but my gravity’s centered/Touch my neck and I'll touch yours/You in those little high waisted shorts.”)
 

              In the chorus, she has told him in the past that he all he has to do is stand by her, staring deeply into her eyes and she falls for him all over again. He wants to be with her. (“She knows what I think about/And what I think about/One love, two mouths/One love, one house/No shirts, no blouse/Just us, you find out/Nothing I really wanna tell you about no/’Cause it's too cold/For you here/And now/So let me hold whoa/Both your hands in the holes of my sweater .”)

             Inside their home, he looks to her and she walks to their bedroom. His hand shakes a little as he touches her. They have been together for several years now. However, she still makes him nervous. Thunder vibrates the floor underneath them while the rain pounds on the windows, covering it with blurry streaks.(“And if I may just take your breath away/I don't mind if there's not much to say/Sometimes the silence guides your mind/So move to a place so far away/The goosebumps start to race/The minute that my left hand meets your waist/And then I watched your face/Put my finger on your tongue/Cause you love to taste yeah/These hearts adore/Everyone the other beats hardest for/Inside this place is warm/Outside it starts to pour .”)

           The chorus is sung again.

           The last half of the chorus is sung. (“Cause it's too cold…both your hands in the holes of my sweater.”)

               He whoa’s for awhile.
     

               The last half of the chorus is sung twice.

               At the end, Rutherford says “it’s too cold, it’s too cold…the hands of my sweater.”)

                Rutherford’s brisk, coy vocals trip over the words, brushing past them to get straight to chorus. His motor mouth mangles the romantic lyrics, twisting it into saying what she wants to hear.

              The impersonal “Sweater Weather” needs to slow down and appreciate the tender moment.