Hello everyone!
I have been listening to 'Carousel' from 'The Shepherd's Dog' for a whole week now and it is one of those rare gems that make me feel like my life would be incomplete if I don't write about them. Also, one of those underrated Iron and Wine songs in rainy mornings in this city over a cup of contemplation can never do you wrong! This world you see, has become a contradiction on its own face, much too often in case of art. And post the apocalyptic Cold War, everything, including the deficiency of things, anything - has become a commodity, or an empty space meant for substitution of a material kind. A song, and its beauty then becomes the act primarily of defending itself while being able to look through the apparently closed doors of time. And if and only if, there is a key hidden to transcend from one zone to the other, one time frame fast forwarded to newer 'times', the leap shouldn't hurt, it should caress.
And on a different note, I am kind of convinced by now that either Sam Beam has had a conversation with Jesus himself about the fallacies of capitalism, imperialism, jealousy, hatred, bureaucracy, corporate fascism and the like or he himself is some Pagan angel with some idea about the wrongdoings of the human race and the bouts of their contradictory guilty feelings.
The song, if I haven't like said it already, is a beauty. And I will tell you something even more intriguing. If you have already listened to 'Sodom, South Georgia', I suppose it must have made you feel a certain uncomfortable something about the etymological origin of 'Sodom' ; particularly on biblical terms. Also,
"Papa died Sunday
And I understood
All dead white boys
Say, "God is good"
White tongues hang out
"God is good"
is, mind you, not an easy thing to write for any sane American living in the 21st century for a number of reasons. On the one hand, while songs like 'Upward and Over the Mountain' might make you feel like Beam has been on the lookout for mastering the art of writing minimalist songs, as much as it would seem evident, 'Cinder and Smoke' could make Freud barf in heaven. Not even kidding.
Then comes the real blow - 'Woman King'. It must be clear by now that I am not very fond of Beyonce for very Zizek oriented reasons and an Irish musician once told me how there are ample people running this "porn" industry who are more interested in showing off their legs than making some real music. Period. I listened to 'Jezebel' first when I was in deep distress during a conference which was held far from Kolkata and I could listen to men and trinkling of glasses in the next room and I was worried, it was quite late at night. So, I turned the lights off and walked around the whole room and listened to it. And once I had listened to it, it was on repeat for a number of days, and it was absolutely soul-haunting. Then I got home for another couple of days, wherein I met my old pal, our ten year old Labrador Retriever called Lettuce, and we listened to 'Woman King' together as I patted her on the head and stroked her fur.
By the time I had listened to 'Freedom Hangs Like Heaven' and the lines
"Mary, carry my name
Hoof marks hacked up all I had to offer you
Looked all over this place
Lost your portrait lately when the winter blew
In like Herod and them
Freedom hangs like heaven over everyone
Anybody knows what the newborn holds
But a dollar says he'll lick that devil
And do it alone"
I was in complete awe about the guts that this man had. I mean of course Hozier said
"My church offers no absolutes
She tells me worship in the bedroom
The only heaven I'll be sent to
Is when I'm alone with you
We were born sick
But I love it
Command me to be well
Amen, Amen, Amen"
but "Mary, carry my name/ Hoof marks hacked up all I had to offer you"? Oh, dear God and then "But a dollar says he'll lick that devil / And do it alone"? That's something. That is something.
The song 'Jezebel' is a gem of a song, too -
"And who's seen Jezebel?
She went walking where the cedars line the road
Her blouse on the ground
Where the dogs were hungry, roaming
Saying, "wait, we swear
We'll love you more and wholly
Jezebel, it's we that you are for
Only" "
Also,
"Who's seen Jezebel?
She was gone before I ever got to say
"lay here my love
You're the only shape I'll pray to, Jezebel" "
In the song 'Woman King' Sam mentions this "wristwatch time" and then talks about garden worm, cigarettes, ash on the window seal before transcending to -
"Black hoof mare, broken leg
Eye on the shot gun shell
Age old dog, hornet nest
Built in the big church bell"
Look at the elements and how they interlink the very ideation of 'time' - it's gentle, it's deep and it's arrogant. And arrogant in the right kind of way, the wonderful portrayal of a woman king who never ever strives for a crown but a sword instead. The history of the deprivation of more than one half of a race in a song!
In the album 'Beast Epic', there is a song called 'The Truest Stars We Know' and it says
"Someone has the door to heaven, someone has the lock
Someone has to be the dog when someone has to walk
And someone's talking to the miles around and hearing them for good
Everybody's branch is falling harder than they should
And I know Jesus and his trophy wives are praying for the broken to be noticed
Save us all from what we want, beautiful and beaten back to life"
Too good to be true, right? There's more. The album 'The Shepherd's Dog' talks wildly of his discomfort with the autonomy that the church as an institution seems to have been collaborated for with heaven or God or that whole weird spectrum. But somewhere deep down, God is not dead in his songs ; in fact the search for him, and his sea of sorrow and his aching shoulders, the kind of pain that the universe had brought in with the advent of itself is what Iron and Wine is capable of feeling, and portraying in many instances. This is something that words like "genuine" and "unique" would not describe rightly. Also, if somebody ever
gets the point about misogyny and is able to portray it in music, then this is one of the truest examples I would cite. Sam's poetry is not just out of the world, or to good to be true, it is closer to truth than most of his contemporaries and if for no other reason is this important, for the very sake of the endurance of poetry as an art would be.
If you've got anything in your mind about this, please write to us in the comments below, or use the form at the end of the page or directly e-mail me at titassparkles@gmail.com. Would be delighted to talk!
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