Over gurgling sawtooth synths, reverberating booms, and searchlight-in-the-dark choral swells, Green Light Cameras present words of wisdom, lamentations, and resignation centered on D major. I’ve spoken before about the power of this most sinister of tonics, and while its darkness is present here in literal/nocturnal form, our sleepless poet masterfully—woefully—wrings from this tone every bit of malice, leaving only dread-tinted longing . . .
. . . at least for the first and second verses. A change begins to take place, announced by an unsteady rattled buzzing and the sudden inability of the choral voices to reach their former glory. When they finally do, we’re set up perfectly for the reveal. It’s in the final verse that “This Useless Lullaby” shows its real beauty: sustained G and A tones impress a IV-V ascension on the listener as our narrator confesses that he needs to be lifted up from “this abyss,” and indeed—even in the depths of despair—the tonal movement brings an undeniably uplifting aspect to the piece and that dark tonic is at last subverted and made to appear bright and hopeful.