Salad Days, the second album by Canadian goofball musician man Mac DeMarco, was easily one of my favourite albums of last year. I wrote a separate post dedicated to how much I was enjoying it at the time. If you’re in a hurry and can’t read it, I basically said the melodies were great, every song is memorable, the sound he gets on his guitar is a thing of gleaming beauty, and the album’s overall chill and casual vibe makes for some very easy listening. I certainly became a DeMarco fan thanks to it and I hope to see him, God willing, in Manchester in the summer when he plays at the Parklife Festival.

“Go Easy” is the last ‘song’ on the album, in that it is the last one in which Mac actually sings in before the album’s closing instrumental track “Jonny’s Odyssey”. It carries on the trend established by the nine tracks before it of consisting of a steady beat bathed with DeMarco’s shiny guitar licks and fills. The track also concerns DeMarco’s feelings on the pressures of his girlfriend moving to a new place, a subject which is also referred to in other songs on the album. And again, like almost all of the other tracks, it follows the simple structure of a verse, a chorus, a verse and a few reiterations of the chorus before it comes to a close. May not sound very interesting, but you have to hear it order to believe for yourself. Salad Days is too good to miss out on.

Oh, and Happy Valentine’s Day.