There’s something very Vince Guaraldi about the piano in “The Generator,” something that reminds me of “Linus and Lucy” or another of his track from the Peanuts holiday specials – A playfulness, perhaps, but also a wonderful looseness in the way it swings despite the taught, tense guitar it’s set against. The vocals in this song are somewhere in the middle, with Beach Boys-esque harmonies that emphasize the 1960s appeal of this period of Lilys’ history. The album this came from, The 3 Way, and the album that preceded it, Better Can’t Make Your Life Better, are two wonderful attempts to channel 1960s Britpop and modrock into something more timeless and also a little more weird; you get a sense of that with this song, and the nonsense lyrics that are hidden in amongst the pitch-perfect aural atmospherics of the whole thing. For a short while, Lilys understood the spirit of 1960s pop in a way that few ever manage.
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