Catalina Fight Song – Joyce Manor

Some songs don’t need to be long to be great, and Joyce Manor gets that. This track clocks in at a minute and five seconds. In fact, the entire album it’s on comes in at around nineteen minutes total. “Catalina Fight Song” is, to me, an almost perfect punk song: aggressive, fast, straight to the point, and with lyrics that stand out but aren’t overly complicated.

Joyce Manor seems to challenge, or at the very least ponder, societal norms in the lyrics of “Catalina Fight Song.” The theme of the song, to me, deals with a sense of disillusionment with an average day in today’s modern society. The song seems to be filled with a sense of longing for something more, and yet it makes me feel nostalgic as well.

I first stumbled across this song last summer while unloading trucks for Harbor Freight, and the first line really grabbed my attention. “Sunken city by the ocean” has got to be one of my favorite uses of imagery in lyrics. I really do wish it were longer, but I think that it being so short does add a certain charm and realness to it.

Link to song – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCryL5Ywcz8

Link to a live performance – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UEqqF2Aw_c