The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte - An Exploration of Choice and Consequence

Part One: The Message

In 2023 the band Sparks, aka the brothers Ron and Russell Mael, released The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte, their 26th album. The album can be enjoyed for its well-crafted, highly entertaining, music - 14 songs, not a clunker in the bunch. However, I think there’s more at work here: the Mael brothers, after more than 50 years in the business, are imparting some important wisdom about the adventure and journey that is life, based on their unique career and experience in the music business. And they’re doing it the way they know best - through their music.

One could reasonably look at Sparks’ idiosyncratic career as the result of a series of choices, some no doubt harder than others, that the brothers have made over these many years. And that is, I believe the underlying theme of the album: Latte is a meditation on the nature of choice…and the consequences that therefore result.  They are sharing what they’ve learned, looking at the question of choice from many perspectives, including:

• Making a choice - whether discussing their career directly, or commenting on the consequences of individual or societal choice more generally;

• The reluctance to make a choice - and the consequences that can lead to; 

• The inability to make a choice, on both a personal and societal level; and finally,

• The absence of choice, sometimes at a personal level, sometimes more broadly.