Song in Focus: 'Carousel' by Iron and Wine

The only other time I went as crazy about a particular song was probably when I listened to 'Wish You Were Here' by Pink Floyd when I was fourteen. And having gone through probably the toughest, deadliest time in my life until now and having pertained walking poised on the streets like a living sculpture, toasted between panic and terror and deadlines and fights, I think I have actually been doing a more than decent job! 

The funny (and sad) thing is that amidst everything, the song makes me feel perforated and fluid and gentle and mellow simultaneously. I have listened to Sam singing the live versions multiple times by now and he's perfect but you know, more real than perfect at points, which is probably what makes his music so appealing. His songs are lucid poetry, more than perfect, autonomous, amazingly crafted to finesse and vibrantly amusing. 

But what concerns me more than that is his literary influences; I am so keen to know by now. And contrary to popular opinion, I would love to state that his music is far deeper than Simon and Garfunkel's and although he accepts them as an early inspiration, if I was allowed to choose, God knows I would have chosen Iron and Wine. 

Lyrics

Almost home

And I miss the bottom stair

You were braiding your grey hair

And it's grown so long

Since I've been gone

Now the perfect girls,

By the pool, they would protest

With crosses 'round their necks,

But our sons were overseas,

And we knew all about the hive and the honey bees.

Almost home

With an olive branch and a dove

You were beating on a Persian rug

With your Bible and your wedding band

Both hidden on the TV stand.

When the cruel wind blew

Every city father fell

Off the county carousel

While the dogs were eating snow

All our sons had sunk in a trunk

Of Noah's clothes

Almost home,

We got lost on our new street,

While your grieving girls all died in their sleep,

So the dogs all went unfed,

A great dream of bones all piled on a bed

And the cops couldn't care,

When that crack head built a boat

And said, "Please, before I go

May our only honored bond

Be the kinship of the kids in the rioting squad."

And I suppose the lyrics here would very well speak for themselves. But I'll point out a thing or two which might me too cryptic otherwise. Umm, firstly, people who have listened to 'Woman King' (the album, not just the song) would know a thing or two about his profound dislike towards the suppression of women, by and large because of the church. And there are bits and pieces, traces, hints and then almost slogans in songs like 'Freedom Hangs Like Heaven'. That album still gives me chills down my spine and never ever in my life have I come across a man who could write this beautifully about the portrayal and existence of a woman and the difference and the gap existent between both. But I also had a secret feeling that there were Pagan influences to his verses (listen to 'Jezebel') ; not sure about the constitution but almost definitely semantically. 'The Shepherd's Dog' probably double confirms that presumption.  

Now, the battle of the scriptures are one of the hardest battles fought. But Paganism dispossesses both scriptures and the urge to posit the monolinearity of truth. Neopaganism is pantheistic, too, which means that it suggests that our perception of what's real is in itself the sole constituent of what is divine. That is not just intriguing, that reads to me like a crime thriller, much too much like those in which the protagonist is portrayed to be the anti-protagonist in the end. It also reminds me of Camille Paglia's 'No Law in the Arena: A Pagan Theory of Sexuality' that I began reading much later after listening to the song. 

Re-addressing the poetry in 'Carousel', the first metaphor that you find is about the perfect girls around the pool who would protest with crosses around their necks while the 'sons' were overseas. From what is visible in the contextual metaphor, the 'sea' is the obscurity. So, the metaphor lies within another metaphor, there's this strange recursion that's more philological than linguistic.

Then comes the "beating on the Persian rug" with the Bible and the wedding ring hidden behind a TV stand! Also, "almost home, between and olive branch and a dove" is a very inclusive, super subjective way to define something as minute, as close to the heart and almost universally so as home. 

And then comes the most important part of the song, when the cruel wind blew and the city fathers fell off the country carousel. The dog, if referred to as the shepherd's dog and if even according to ancient Pagan perspective, if "the good shepherd", as you've already anticipated is Jesus and if the sheep are his fellow human followers, then who are the dogs? Why would they be eating snow? In a certain sense, the dog might me the male who plays the role of the one in charge of surveillance, in charge of following commands here. Mostly because I trace this to the forest where  her blouse was lying and where the dogs were roaming hungry. If this does imply something catastrophic, then Noah - being the tenth and the last of the pre-flood Patriarchs, probably stands as the metaphor for the protector who at the same time, is the one playing the dominant role?


In the next part of the song, the grieving girls - and this profoundly makes me think of the woman as a rhetoric, the woman as a symbol and the woman as a woman; who died of grief in their sleep and hence the dogs died unfed!

The last part reminds me of the good, old shepherd portrayed as "the crackhead" instead who built a boat and left, and left forever. If the element "cops" symbolically portrays the defence system, or even a military of a certain establishment, then the only honored bond between imposed religion and the deportee is the kinship of the kids in the rioting squad! And it remains that way to this day.