She & Him - Sentimental Hearts

“What can you do with a sentimental heart?”

She has an unassuming beauty, sparkling eyes and a shy smile. He prefers to stay in the background, bent over his guitar. She is Zooey Deschanel, a rising star of American cinema. He is M. Ward, standard-bearer of new-millennium folk songwriting. From the very first time they met, they immediately realised they shared the same passion for old pop records. And so they decided to become She & Him.

But let's take a step back: it's 2006, and director Martin Hynes is persuaded by one of his producers to go to a Bright Eyes concert, in search of artists to feature on the soundtrack of his road movie "The Go-Getter". As it happens, the opening act is none other than M. Ward: Hynes immediately realises he's found what he's looking for. Not content with simply drawing on Ward's existing songs ("Vincent O'Brien" is chosen for one of the film's opening scenes), the director asks him to record a duet for the closing credits with one of the film's stars: Zooey Deschanel, of course. The choice falls on Richard and Linda Thompson's "When I Get To The Border", which the two perform with perfect chemistry and conviction. Ward, who had already heard Zooey sing in the film "Elf", is stunned by her talent and discovers that the actress has, in fact, already written several songs, though she's never worked up the nerve to release them.

The pair part ways promising to stay in touch, and before long Zooey Deschanel's demos start arriving in Ward's inbox. "I had to get over a lot of fear to actually send Matt my songs," she recalls. "I'd kept everything to myself for years. I was really nervous about sending Matt something to break the ice, so I decided to start with a cover." The cover in question is the traditional "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", and Ward falls for it instantly. The two work together remotely on Zooey's early sketches, before meeting up in the studio to finish the job. This collaboration, in March 2008, leads to the release of the first album under the name She & Him, Volume One.

The album's songs, starting with the hit single "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?", blossom with vocal harmonies, playful doo-wop touches, carefree whistling and old-fashioned romance. "My biggest source of inspiration has always been old records," Ward notes. "So when it comes to working on a song, the aim is to present it in a way that honours those musical memories while still sounding appealing to the ear." The choice of references speaks for itself, from the Beatles' "I Should Have Known Better" to Smokey Robinson's "You Really Got A Hold On Me". And the inclusion, as a ghost track at the end of the record, of the original version of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" briefly takes us back inside Zooey's childhood bedroom, where the story of She & Him first began to bloom.

The debut's formula is repeated with greater confidence and assurance in 2010 on Volume Two, though it does pay the price of being a touch more predictable. From the title onward, the album leaves no doubt about its desire to pick up directly where its predecessor left off. Fully at ease at the centre of the stage, Zooey Deschanel moves effortlessly between original songs and covers, leaving her partner in crime the task of dressing the songs in dazzling, vintage-cut outfits.

The opening "Thieves" is pure 1950s jukebox fare, while "In The Sun" combines a carefree call-and-response interplay with the supple flow of Ward's arrangements. "It was originally slower, with a classic jazz chord progression," Zooey explains, "but when we got into the studio Matt tried putting a Bee Gees-style beat under it, and the song came alive in a totally unexpected way." With help from Tilly And The Wall, "In The Sun" has no trouble winning you over at first listen, helped along by the video directed by Peyton Reed, the man behind "Yes Man".

She & Him's love letter to sunny harmonies once again runs through the more or less explicit references scattered across the record, from NRBQ's "Ridin' In My Car" (which provides the album's one true duet between the pair) to Skeeter Davis's "Gonna Get Along Without You Now", right up to the Beach Boys tribute in the a cappella notes of "If You Can't Sleep". "It's fun to take things from Gershwin and Cole Porter and make them sound like pop music," the pair enthuse. So it's no surprise to find a delicate rereading of Phil Spector's "I Can Hear Music" as the b-side of the "In The Sun" single.

As expected, the songwriting gravitates around Zooey Deschanel's sentimental heart, as she opens her diary to dish out advice and confessions. No ingredient is left to chance: a dash of Beatles ("I'm Gonna Make It Better"), a touch of soul ("Sing"), a guitar-plucked nursery rhyme ("Brand New Shoes"), even a hint of flamenco ("Lingering Still"). Everything is delightfully polished, everything deliberately adorable and out of time: a hand so gentle and careful that, over the long haul, it risks tipping into preciousness. Luckily, all it takes is one smile from Zooey Deschanel to make it all feel effortless again in the blink of an eye.

“Change is hard”

Zooey Deschanel firmly believes in the existence of Santa Claus: she had irrefutable proof of it at age ten, when she received two identical chemistry sets as Christmas gifts… There was no way her parents could have been so scatterbrained as to buy her the same present twice: at least one of them had to have come from Santa Claus!

It comes as no surprise, then, to find She & Him in 2011 tackling a collection of Christmas songs. After all, Zooey Deschanel's first breakout moment, the one that revealed her vocal talents to the world, came courtesy of the classic “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”, in a scene from the 2003 film “Elf”.

A Very She & Him Christmas is a gift to unwrap with the innocent gaze and wistful smile of a Peanuts strip. The repertoire belongs to that quintessentially American vein of songs built on snowflakes, reindeer and crackling fireplaces, where politically-correct Christmas turns into a postcard-perfect holiday season. Pulled from the old family record player are the “Christmas albums” of Vince Guaraldi, the Beach Boys and, of course, Elvis Presley. All of it rediscovered in a “new old-fashioned way”, as suggested by the breezy Fifties flavour of the lyrics to “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree”.

For once in the duo, the leading role falls to Ward: it's the elegant interplay of his guitar that saves A Very She & Him Christmas from the (all-too-easy) trap of sappiness. The arrangements and orchestrations of the first two She & Him volumes give way here to a rarefied atmosphere with an intimately acoustic soul: songs for Christmas morning, made to lull a silence tinted with blinking lights.

Instead of the usual profusion of strings and sleigh bells, “Silver Bells” settles for a ukulele to accompany Zooey Deschanel's voice, while “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” takes the form of a romantic, bewitching whisper. Between the piano touches of “The Christmas Waltz” and the choruses of “Little Saint Nick”, the pace quickens on the sleigh of “Sleigh Ride”, gliding along on the soft fabric of the vocals. M. Ward takes hold of the microphone on “Christmas Wish”, then plays the reluctant party in the ironic seduction game of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”, reimagined with the roles reversed from the norm, with Zooey cast as the temptress.

For the real next chapter of their partnership, though, we have to wait until 2013, with Volume 3. Zooey Deschanel returns to her own personal wonderland, finding it exactly as she'd left it: a soap bubble where the sun always seems to shine, a dimension awash in pastel tones just like the video the actress directed for “I Could’ve Been Your Girl”. But a sense of déjà vu lurks around the corner, given how closely the album is tied to the two previous volumes. Perhaps the television success meanwhile achieved by the show “New Girl” has made Zooey Deschanel's persona a bit more stereotyped, but the feeling is that her songs increasingly end up sounding just like one another, settling into a formula that risks wearing thin.

Once again, spontaneity is the card that saves She & Him's music from predictability. “We both love working with immediacy and capturing, if not quite the first take, then at least the feeling of the first take”, explains M. Ward. “The voice is the most important part of a song. It has to sound as if the singer is discovering the song in that very moment”.

Volume 3 doesn't skimp on covers either: alongside reworkings of Ellie Greenwich's “Baby” and the classic “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me”, a hit in the Sixties for Mel Carter, what shines brightest is the rockabilly-flavoured take on Blondie's “Sunday Girl”, on which Zooey Deschanel brings an extra dose of charm with her enchanting French. “It was one of my favourite songs in high school”, she recalls. “It came out a bit before my time, but a friend of mine had made me a cassette of it. We approached the track imagining what it would have sounded like if Buddy Holly had sung a Blondie song”.

As for the new original songs, the variations on the theme only occasionally offer a hint of novelty, from the funky stride of “Together” to the solitary piano of “London”, via the Motown-style horns of “Snow Queen”. All of it delightful as ever, all of it a bit too much as ever. After all, Zooey has been saying it since the first volume: “Change is hard, I should know”.

“We’ll meet again, some sunny day”

After four albums built around an increasingly recognisable sound, Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward make the fateful leap to a major label in 2014. And they do it with a covers collection that, rather than playing with allusions, chooses to lay out more explicitly than ever the list of the duo's influences. After all, their songs have always had the air of apocryphal covers from another era: Classics, in the end, is simply the closing of the circle.

Nostalgia, as we know, is entirely a matter of distance. Time can turn what was once the soundtrack of any ordinary middle-class living room into the latest indie sensation. Because that living room is now a distant memory, and digging through your parents' record collection is like dancing with a memory, with an idealised image. Just like Zooey Deschanel in the video for “Stay Awhile”, twirling through the rooms of a supremely stylish apartment, wrapped in the arms of an invisible partner.

“I've always loved anything that sounded old-fashioned”, the actress confesses, “as if it were a little hidden treasure. Compared to the music of the past, today's music feels soulless to me”. And M. Ward immediately echoes her: “Old music was recorded better, it gave the listener more room to breathe, it left more space for dreaming”.

For Classics, Columbia then puts a full twenty-piece orchestra at She & Him's disposal, ready to accompany the pair as they record their favourite songs. Inevitably, the pop essentialism of the early records gives way to a more sophisticated frame, in which strings and horns take up an ever-larger space, from the reworking of Maxine Brown's old hit “Oh No, Not My Baby” to the winking charm of “Teach Me Tonight”.

There's the Frank Sinatra of the golden years in "Time After Time" and there's the distinctly feminine take on Burt Bacharach in "This Girl's In Love With You"; there are black-and-white movies ("It's Not For Me To Say") and the lights of Broadway ("Would You Like To Take A Walk"). Ward's guitar floats lightly over Dusty Springfield's "Stay Awhile", delicately weaving the evening gown of "Stars Fell On Alabama". And while the Chapin Sisters' harmonies lend an ethereal quality to the slowed-down version of "Unchained Melody", the trumpet that brushes against "We'll Meet Again" ultimately rediscovers the duo's folk soul.

The arrangements keep their balance (and no small part of the credit goes to Ward's deft touch). But the knack for quotation the two started out with gradually fades into an ever more faithful impersonation of the original models. So much so that, in the end, it becomes almost impossible to tell Matt and Zooey's classics apart from an actual vintage track. A copy crafted down to the smallest detail, but a copy nonetheless.

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