Not necessarily my favourite song on the album, as it's so good, but yeah, obviously up there...
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Over-analysis here!: Section 1
" get out your measuring cups and we'll play a new game come to the front of the class and we'll measure your brain we'll give you a complex, and we'll give it a name
get out your measuring cups and we'll play a new game can't have the cream when the crop and the cream are the same liquid or gas no more than the glass will contain "
Watching a Dutch interview with him (which I'll post here as soon as I figure out how to rip the streaming video - I'll post instructions for that as well... ) in which he describes a hierarchy and constant "labeling" while at school and away... an institutionalizing. Quantifying aptitudes in society within distinct parameters... a rationalization, characterization, numeration (?) of what people see before them.
" when you talk about the hand of glory a tale that's rather grim and gory is it just another children's story that's been de-clawed? when the tales of brothers Grimm and Gorey have been outlawed "
The Grimm and Gorey is further detailed in the following section...
" I think they're gonna make you start over You don't want to start over Put your backpack on your shoulder Be the good little soldier Take your places now 'Cause we're all predisposed "
Literal sense, starting over a grade. No one wants to start over. I'm reminded of a saying my friend often uses... "Step up". Sometimes you have to put your backpack on your shoulder and march on. Now, I think he most likely means this in the opposite sense, again attacking convention... being soldier like, listening and following orders, status quo measuring cups.
" Put your backpack on your shoulder Be the good little soldier It's no different when your older You're predisposed That's all for questions now The case is closed! "
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I was discussing with someone recently that the world is bound by rationality, even at the sake of feeling. This is how you're supposed to do this, this is how you get over that, shutdown, 'de-clawed', 'outlawed', 'case is closed!', etc... A strategy for being able to organize, and theoretically to try to feel better with organized thoughts...
Why not just feel; what's wrong with that? Discuss, talk, listen to feelings, I think, and that will bring on other feelings, and ultimately, when feelings are involved it's not a rational decision most of the time, so why approach it like that?! Lists of positives and negatives.. hate them. Ultimately, some pros or cons have higher weighting than others, so then what? A weighted matrix? How does one stay objective giving something a higher weighting? Ultimately, it comes down to feeling(s)! One can't categorize everything.
Grimm's Law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimm%27s_law "Grimm's law was the first non-trivial systematic sound change to be discovered in linguistics; its formulation was a turning point in the development of linguistics, enabling the introduction of a rigorous methodology to historical linguistic research."
- which I think is appropriate given how Andrew Bird writes his albums.
Further interest in Grimm and Gorey? I now have an answer to when a loved one will roll on their side, try to fall asleep or just take a nap, and ask me to tell them a bedtime story - a theme for me to this blog.
It's as majestic and lonely as his previous albums (the ones I've listened to), so it's gonna be great, just giving limited listenings now cuz the sound isn't as original as it once was. If you're a first timer to M. Ward, you're gonna love it. I'd love to hear him do an old country album, or something along the lines of The Burrito Brothers, he'd kill it.
NY: ... When Ward sings “So draw back your bows, you hunters,” it’s impossible not to think of Leonard Cohen, just as when he sings “absolute beginners” it’s impossible not to think of David Bowie....
Pitchfork: I'm also struck by the numerous references to time on this record. Many of the songs on Kensington Heights deal with confronting age ("Our Age"), generational conflict ("Brother Run Them Down"), and even overcoming time itself ("Time Can Be Overcome"). Why such a preoccupation with these themes at this stage in your life or career?
BW: I think anyone our age-- we're all around 30-- starts to get nostalgic or reflective about life. Writing a song is my way of coming to understand something, and I try to write from a few different angles. "Time Can Be Overcome" was me trying to understand time as a force-- something that acts upon your perspective of things.
Pitchfork: Such perspective often comes after a sort of maturation process, and I think this record chronicles this. Yet this process hasn't mellowed you, and such songs as "Hard Feelings" and "Credit River" seem genuinely distraught or even angry. Is there still a place for such emotions as one gets older?
BW: Yeah, absolutely. I think that part of me wants to write songs that celebrate people. That really seems like the most exciting type of song to me-- the most valuable. But I do believe that anger or expressing resistance to something is an interesting place to start when you're writing a song. And maturity may just be about accepting your limited perspective on such things. I don't try to articulate a single perspective in songs. I don't think that's really the way it is. And I am definitely having some trouble articulating where anger fits into that-- what its place should be in music. I think there is some truth to Public Image Limited's notion that "Anger is an energy," but I'm not always sure what exactly to do with that.
Toronto shows March 31st and April 1st, 2009 - Phoenix. 2008 Album of the year, as far as I'm concerned.
From wiki: The Box Tops were a Memphispop music group of the late 1960s. They are best known for the hits "The Letter,""Neon Rainbow", "Soul Deep" and "Cry Like A Baby," and are considered a major blue-eyed soul group of the period. (ed: legit white soul pop band)
One of my top ten shows ever has to be Mano Diao at the Horsehoe, 2007, just after my birthday if I remember right. My friends and I had just discovered, for some reason, that we could buy pitchers at the front, walk them (the pitchers) up the three steps, and have them inside the band area.
I'm sure you've encountered those assholes at shows, who stand in the middle, dance and sing along together to every song, in their own world. We were those guys that night. Fortunately for us only, I suppose. Anyway, great night, great album they were touring on (Ode to Ochrassy, plus great old stuff), and i can't wait until they come back again.
From what I've heard sounds great, but no development of self, sound, from their last album. Which is totally fine. Maybe this type of music never develops?.. I don't know, there's something missing between this album and the last... over production.. too tight. You can really hear the (over)production at the beginning and end of the songs... not loose. Still good, but loosing that feeling. Umm.. knowing a few gypsy folk, I think they would like, and I would/have introduced their, Beirut's last album, to them. This one I would not...
I have some great stories about a gypsy woman working for us as an administrator - mostly about interactions involved in a dominated male work place. Man, great girl, very secure and sure of her ways. Very bright girl. And in the same way (what may have formed that greatness as well) is a structure in the very different and lovely culture.
Q: What do you think it was that drew people to the Louvin Brothers' music?
Charlie Louvin: I think it was the songs. We sang about life. Life is certainly no bed of roses, and it's not always easy. I don't care if you're rich or poor, or a banker or a bum. Life is not kind to you sometimes.
Sometimes it helps you sleep better knowing the full truth of a matter. Sometimes it drives you crazy with sorrow. I think I'm going to get a good night's rest tonight. Intentions are a weird thing... It takes a maturity to get to them, to reach those intentions, and sometimes that maturity comes with a cost. That's life, right? Sometimes you only get one shot. Either way, better to know the truth to help you in the future.
Wise, found favorin' heaven And I at your side But I never felt sorry For those shimmering lies When I laid down and cried I was faking And I said Amen
Q: Speaking of titles, what's the meaning of the word "Sovay"?
Andrew Bird: Well, I always prefer to misunderstand songs. I think a lot of great things come out of misunderstandings. That's why I love Charlie Patton. I'd rather not get a lyric sheet. I'd rather misunderstand what he's saying and have it be a spark for a new song. So anyway, in this case, 'Sovay' was from an old English Childe ballad Sovay, Sovay, all along the day something about some highwayman or something but I never bothered to research it, and I never knew what it meant; it was mysterious. I was working on this song, and suddenly that word popped out. I was looking for a new word to describe unprecedented circumstances, and that word had not been defined for me, so it fit the bill and it sounded good. It's a new word.
Andrew Bird's version is quite different from previous ones.. basically seems like he likes and used the word and tried to incorporate it into the song/meaning, which he often does.
The song also seems to be cut into two different parts, with the first part describing escape plans, escape from whatever... then word washes ashore... a new hope? A finality?
That you're riding on a para-success Of a heavy-handed metaphor And a feeling like you've been here before
But then something changes... word washes ashore... most likely distressing, changing... And great how Bird uses the word Sovay to sound like waves coming up on shore...
I don't really want to go to a word-for-word analysis here (but I will in the future.. ), and ultimately it's your interpretation that matters... so many different factors, in any song really, that will influence your take home meaning/message. And so that's why I thought it appropriate as an opening overanalyzing song of the day... cuz in the end, it's what you take from it.
The second part; fighting a losing battle because you have to(?): The Ride of the Valkyries always conjures up the German invasion during WWII. Which, could mean that you're in for a 'rough ride', to put it loosely and vaguely. But, in the end, although we've been here before, "i swear this time" it'll be different..
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