Friday November 5, 2010
When my professor once asked his class what would be the different about a lecture in ancient Greece compared to the one he was giving we took a moment to ponder it. Firstly, some students suggested the superficial changes as they imagined their classical selves in togas, attending at an ampitheatre or leaning against a white marble column. Beyond the surface, what would the lecture have sounded like? Of course, someone suggested, the philosopher would not be speaking in English nor the Greek spoken today, but some ancient variant. Yes, agreed the professor, but he would not be speaking at all. He explained that if now was then he would be singing to us his pupils with the light accompaniment of a stringed instrument.
Though no one lectures in poetry and song anymore the world never lost the mnemonic tools that allowed pupils and teachers alike to memorize hours of knowledge before the age of text: rhyme and repetition. Sometimes when an artist performs for an audience there might still be a trace of that ancient mood, pupils now fans mouthing their lecture back to their teacher so that they might show him what they learned.
Bruce Springsteen is the boss and if I were his employee there would still be a picture of him hung on my bedroom wall. He often operates in one of two moods. One is the more determined and optimistic sound of “Thunder Road” or “The Promised Land”: the restlessness of youth to reach the next level of life, to break free from towns and schools and authority to seek romance in the next chapter. The other can be heard in “Meeting Across the River” or my personal favourite “Atlantic City”. Here we hear all the previous ambition burning out:
Now I been lookin’ for a job but it’s hard to find
Down here it’s just winners and losers and don’t get caught on the wrong side of that line
Well I’m tired of comin’ out on the losin’ end
So honey last night I met this guy and I’m gonna do a little favor for him
The song isn’t only about hard times, but of last chances. The narrator character struggles hard to realize his own small dreams in the city that could make them true. In just three verses we feel the time passing, the unspoken line of disappointments - dead luck and cold love. Everything seems on the verge of collapse and the worst fear of all becomes losing everything. The narrator fakes confidence in his desperation by promising a way out. The implications of violence and criminality hit me cold in the stomach. He’s convinced himself that after this one job everything will be righted, but no one believes him. Saddest of all is the silent woman at the fringes of this song hopelessly destined to be dragged down with him.
Sufjan Stevens explored similar folky territory on his album dedicated to his home state of Michigan. Canadian Literature is sometimes criticized for authors that try too hard to prove their familiarity with their country by namedropping as much geography and as many street names as possible. Sufjan Stevens no doubt wanted to prove that he’d done his research and looked at the map when he chose song titles like “For the Widows in Paradise, for the Fatherless in Ypsilanti”. Luckily, his lyrics are very human, thoughtful and provide no history lessons:
I have called you children
I have called you son
What is there to answer
If I’m the only one?
Morning comes in Paradise
Morning comes in light
Still I must obey
Still I must invite
If there’s anything to say
If there’s anything to do
If there’s any other way
I’ll do anything for you
At first I thought that this might be a love song. It is, but not the common romantic kind. It’s the love that comes with the weight of responsibility and from the unification of family through tragedy. The characters are left undeveloped. It could be a boy forced to become the main provider for his siblings at an early age. It could be an uncle who promised his brother that he’d take care of everyone after he’s gone. Those are just examples. The strummed banjo provides an aura of rural hardship. Stevens’ delivery is emotionally sympathetic to the character that should be singing, grieving but numbed by hungry mouths. A story we’ve heard before all wrapped tight in the irony of a town called Paradise.
I first heard “One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong” through the stumbly cover by the rock band Harvey Milk. Strange to think that that was only yesterday since I’ve listened to it a dozen times since and I’ve become smitten with the lyrics:
I lit a thin green candle, to make you jealous of me.
But the room just filled up with mosquitos,
they heard that my body was free.
Then I took the dust of a long sleepless night
and I put it in your little shoe.
And then I confess that I tortured the dress
that you wore for the world to look through.
I showed my heart to the doctor: he said I just have to quit.
Then he wrote himself a prescription,
and your name was mentioned in it!
Then he locked himself in a library shelf
with the details of our honeymoon,
and I hear from the nurse that he’s gotten much worse
and his practice is all in a ruin.
This is a common love song but with uncommon words. He follows the trail of a lover lost and all the devastation she’s left in her wake, seemingly a succubus for every man who meets her. The doctor, the saint, the Eskimo and perhaps Leonard Cohen himself are all devoted or perhaps addicted to the desire of this woman who like many lovers is always just out of reach. I like the exploration of the attachment of memories to objects, her shoe and her dress, and his attempts to torture it. Perhaps to extract information? or maybe just to punish it in effigy. Either way we know that the real person suffering is him.
Especially when the accompaniment is light, lyrics shine through. Though I will always love instrumental music, the bewildering genius of Jazz, the intensity of metal, I have a new enthusiasm for lyrics. Even without my ipod, I can hum a few lines as I walk, like a poem stitched into my sleeve.
