ROMAN SONGS

During the pandemic, both Linnell and Flansburgh returned to solo work briefly. Linnell's output was Roman Songs, and Flansburgh's output was... oh, wait, sorry, I'm getting word that I can't talk about that.

...To shreds, you say? ...Weezer?

Anyway, Roman Songs is a strange little EP that is written in Latin, despite the fact that John Linnell doesn't know Latin. He attributes the translations to his childhood friend Schoolmaster Smith in a note with every download of the EP. Linnell sings in Latin the entire time, it's great.

Every song on Roman Songs except the last one is about being paranoid, about being scared, about being afraid. The first one, TECVM CIRCVMAMBVLARE NOLO, is actually a lyrical cover of a Ramones song translated into Latin. The other two are about shyness and paranoia, about lying, about being too scared to say hello.

From this, we get an interesting character when we consider that the EP is called Roman Songs. In traditional conceptions of Rome, we see rulers, marble, whatever the fuck right-wingers jack themselves off about when they're trying to figure out how to retvrn. But here, we get pictures of people who are deeply... well, like us. Human. Scared. Afraid.

In this way, Roman Songs is about distinctly not wanting to retvrn™, especially when considering CATENAS MEAS AMISI. There's some good uncanny pipe-dripping synths on this that I like, but that's besides the point. It's a song about losing your chains, about sleeping forever. The chains are Rome, and sleeping forever is death. Let it die.