"Say what you mean / Not everyone can know": The not-quite-decipherable Ted Leo

No matter how easy people find it to categorize Ted Leo as a lefty punk-rocker, he doesn't write many lyrics that would fit conveniently onto a protest sign. Even when he's berating listeners with something as direct as "Peace and quiet, it is criminal / While there's injustice in your town" on the song "Criminal Piece," Leo's not about to pause his animated vocal delivery for interpretive debate. Most of the time, he's not even overdoing it on the big words or historical references—it's just that he has a lot of ground to cover on his own terms. A great lyric is not necessarily all about bowling listeners over with messages, but about leaving them with something worth revisiting, even if it's just a vague image or a sentence fragment. A few such elusive, indelible tidbits came to mind as The A.V. Club listened back on Leo's work, including another spin through his new album The Brutalist Bricks, ahead of Ted Leo And The Pharmacists' show at First Avenue tonight.

International escapades

Bouncing around the globe has inspired two of Leo's most bizarrely witty tunes, "The Ballad Of The Sin Eater" (from 2003's Hearts Of Oak) and Bricks' "Bottled In Cork," but it might also put him on edge. "When I woke up all beaten and bloodied / I couldn't tell if it was Jersey or Sierra Leone," he shouts on "Sin Eater," before launching into the song's savagely chanted chorus: "You didn't think they could hate you now, did ya? / Oh, but they hate you, they hate you 'cause you're guilty." Both songs seem to keep his head spinning with thoughts of how people around the globe look at Americans—"My haircut startled a Canadian," he says on "Cork." But at least he ends up scoring "complimentary mugs" from a bartender, according to one of the song's playful call-and-response verses.
Why it matters: "A little good will goes a mighty long way," he sings on "Cork." Plus, a little world-citizen mentality agitates the vocabulary, so much that it makes some tunes like "Even Heroes Have To Die" both extremely vivid and tough to process: "From Two-Tone to downtown Beirut but only halfway back / Stealing bits of wisdom from the shelf…"

Dire prescriptions

Despite the band name, Leo and crew are no apologists for the medical industry. Leo reels off a large list of prescription drugs on the bridge of "Heart Problems," a panicked indictment from 2004's Shake The Sheets that also asks, "When you can't afford a broken nose / How can you afford a fight?" "Ativan Eyes" (on The Brutalist Bricks) draws its title from an anxiety drug, but this time it's almost as if he's worn out on issues and side effects: "I'm so sick of cynics and I want something to trust in."
Why it matters: Regurgitating slogans doesn't accomplish much. Revising them with just a little grace can bring some humanity back to the debating table. Plus, even on a song as angry as "Heart Problems," Leo makes it clear he's not being fatalistic: "I know we won't live forever but / Oh, don't you want to live them down?" Some songwriters who go political struggle to keep up with the debate, but Leo refuses to slow down for it.

Birds

The Brutalist Bricks launches its series of waist-tackles with "The Mighty Sparrow," and "The Gold Finch And The Red Oak Tree" marks a meditative break on 2001's The Tyranny Of Distance. Leo's acoustic guitar and some restrained strings offer up nothing but reverence to the finch, but the subject of "The Crane Takes Flight" (off Hearts Of Oak) gets something more akin to a pep talk: "I know how hard to pursue / When you just ain't breakin' through / But don't you let them tell you that you're wrong." Even though "Sparrow" suggests a bombing—"When the café doors exploded"—each of these three songs get their wings from Leo's talent for creating uplift in the face of frustration.
Why it matters: Personal, literary, and historical characters flit through Leo songs quicker than anyone can look them up—"Colleen," "Little Dawn," various members of The Specials in "Where Have All The Rude Boys Gone?" He doesn't even give away who his feathered allies might be, but they always seem to bring out his affection and admiration.

Toasting the past

Leo has explained in concert that "Timorous Me," off Tyranny Of Distance, channels the grieving rituals and fond remembrances of an Irish wake. Even though the instrumental bridge chimes into a hearty Celtic-folk melody, he seems to question what he's mourning: "Apparently he was my very best friend / We spent warm summer days wishing they would never end / But I only know from photographs I look at every now and again." Talking about the memories he's almost lost ("I only wonder what it is that I even miss him for") proves what some forced eulogy might overlook—that the past still has emotional pull even when we think it's faded. The other big part of Leo's heritage comes from a place just as mysterious as the Emerald Isle: "How'd you Jersey boys ever make it this far?" a character asks in "A Bottle Of Buckie," only to get told, "You don't know nothing about where we're from."
Why it matters: It's as if these songs want to recapture all the learning and evolution that happens as a person grows up. Whatever time or place he's recalling in "Criminal Piece," the best part of it was: "So much to be seen / And no one to stop you seeing."