When the experimental pop group Animal Collective released their studio album Merriweather Post Pavilion in 2011, the song “My Girls” quickly hit the charts as one of their most popular songs. In this song, band member Noah Lennox, typically known by his stage name, “Panda Bear,” discusses his desire for a simple life with his wife and daughter. However, it is the chorus of the song that truly caught my attention. Here, Lennox states, “I don’t mean to seem like I care about material things/ Like a social status/ I just want four walls and adobe slats/ For my girls.”
When analyzing these lyrics, I noticed that firstly, Lennox recognizes that there is a certain level of shame surrounding materialism (“I don’t mean to seem like I care about material things”). He then proceeds to classify a social status as a material thing (like a social status). At first glance, this seemed curious to me. How could something as seemingly abstract and complex as a social status be considered material? However, when looking at the archeological record one may observe a profound connection between materialism and social status/hierarchy. For example, the privatization of seeds in the western Great Basin during the Marana Period, facilitated through the increased use of pottery, allowed individuals to hoard a (private) surplus of seeds. Ultimately, this enabled the acquisition of a higher social status (Eerkens). Furthermore, during the Neolithic period in Thy Denmark hierarchy developed amongst chiefs through the wearing of material adornments during ceremonies and at death (Earle). In this way, social status has largely been constructed on the basis of material items throughout history.
In the second portion of these lyrics, Lennox expresses his desire to live in a simple home (“I just want four walls and adobe slats”) with his wife and daughter (“for my girls”). I found it interesting that Lennox specifically references adobe structures which have been used to create shelter for thousands of years. When looking at this line in the context of his previously stated desire to not care about material things, one can see how he draws a connection between the simplicity of a single room adobe home and anti-materialism. This ultimately plays into the popular narrative which equates simplicity with anti-materialism and anti-hierarchy.
Works Cited
Earle, Timothy, How Chiefs Come to Power: The Political Economy in Prehistory. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1997.
Jelmer, Eerkens W. “Privatization, Small-Seed Intensification, and the Origins of Pottery in the Western Great Basin.” American Antiquity, vol. 69, no. 4, 2004, pp. 653-670.
The Museum of Modern Pasts 