Since no one has yet taken advantage of authoring a post on the blog, I'll take the initiative with a reference to our discussion in class yesterday. Prof. Wilcox said in passing that country music is the sole purveyor of pastoral imagery in modern music, and I hold a bit of contention with that statement. Over the past few years, there have been a slew of independent releases by folk/rock musicians that embrace the pastoral while framing it within a C20 perspective. I'll provide a couple of examples here for the purpose of comparing and contrasting the lyrical content with some of the images we've already encountered, mainly in the Gray, Collier, and Duck. Note: YouTube cuts are provided if you're interested, not to debate whether or not so-and-so constitutes "good music."
Joanna Newsom - "Sadie" (From 2004's The Milk Eyed Mender)
Sadie, white coat,
carry me home.
Bury this bone,
take this pinecone.
Bury this bone
to gnaw on it later; gnaw on the telephone.
'Till then, we pray & suspend
the notion that these lives do never end.
And all day long we talk about mercy:
lead me to water lord, I sure am thirsty.
Down in the ditch where I nearly served you,
up in the clouds where he almost heard you
And all that we built,
and all that we breathed,
and all that we spilt, or pulled up like weeds
is piled up in back;
it burns irrevocably.
(we spoke up in turns,
'till the silence crept over me)
Bless you
and I deeply do
no longer resolute
and I call to you
But the water go so cold,
and you do lose
what you don't hold.
This is an old song,
these are old blues.
This is not my tune,
but it's mine to use.
And the seabirds
where the fear once grew
will flock with a fury,
and they will bury what'd come for you
Down where I darn with the milk-eyed mender
you and I, and a love so tender,
is stretched-on the hoop where I stitch-this adage:
"Bless this house and its heart so savage."
And all that I want, and all that I need
and all that I've got is scattered like seed.
And all that I knew is moving away from me.
(and all that I know is blowing
like tumbleweed)
And the mealy worms
in the brine will burn
in a salty pyre,
among the fauns and ferns.
And the love we hold,
and the love we spurn,
will never grow cold
only taciturn.
And I'll tell you tomorrow.
Sadie, go on home now.
Bless those who've sickened below;
bless us who've chosen so.
And all that I've got
and all that I need
I tie in a knot
that I lay at your feet.
I have not forgot,
but a silence crept over me.
(So dig up your bone,
exhume your pinecone, my sadie)
Fleet Foxes - "Ragged Wood" (From 2008's Fleet Foxes)
Come down from the mountain, you have been gone too long
The spring is upon us, follow my only song
Settle down with me by the fire of my yearning
You should come back home, back on your own now
The world is alive now, in and outside our home
You run through the forest, settle before the sun
Darling, I can barely remember you beside me
You should come back home, back on your own now
In the evening light, when the woman of the woods came by
To give to you the word of the old man
In the morning tide, when the sparrow and the seagull fly
And Johnathan and Evelyn get tired
Lie to me if you will at the top of Beringer Hill
Tell me anything you want, any old lie will do
Call me back to you
Thought's? Comments? Do you think these constitute proper pastoral imagery, or a sort of pastiche-throwback stylistic cribbing?
-Dustin Chabert
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4 comments:
Fascinating! I've heard that Fleet Foxes song about a million times on the radio, but never really listened to the words. Hmmm....
Obviously I have some opinions on this issue, but not the same ones I had before Dustin posted. I think I'll sit on them for a little while, though, and let others weigh in.
What do you all think?
What is or isn't pastoral about these songs?
Can you think of other telling examples of modern pastoral?
I don't know how to do "computer savvy" things, so instead of attempting to post any video.. I will just post some of the song "Field Below" by Regina Spektor. Although a more commercialized 'anti-folk' artist, she does use pastoral imagery throughout a lot of her songs.
"I wish I'd see a field below
i wish I'd hear a rooster crow
But there are none who live downtown And so the day starts out so slow Again the sun was never called And darkness spreads over the snow Like ancient bruises
I'm awake and feel the ache
But I wish I'd see a field below
I wish I'd see a field below"
When looking through my folk/folk rock music I noticed that there was a lot of pastoral imagery still alive in the songs even if they did not follow the strictures of 18th century pastoral poetry. If I had more time tonight I would go through and find better examples, but these are just a few I knew off the top of my head.
From Juno Polisar's All I want is You:
"If I was a flower growing wild and free. All I'd want is you to be my sweet honey bee.And if I was a tree growing tall and green. All I'd want is you to shade me and be my leaves" from the Juno soundtrack is full of pastoral imagery.
Please excuse me as a I stretch pastoral poetry farther with the song from Forgetting Sarah Marshall, We've Got to Do Something. While being absolutely hilarious, it blurs the line, allowing non folk/country to touch on pastoral imagery.
"Lately mother earth has been feeling unsatisfied,A taste plain from the rain the sweet lady started to cry,Fires crackle and blaze in the rays of a burning heart,and I don't think it's smart to,Lay and wait for the day that she dies in our arms."
When looking at a latter part of this song:
"I can't see another homeless man, because it doesn't seem right to me, He's got a home, and he's not got a home, What's the point in that?"
I personally can't help but see Gray's Elegy and his reference to poverty. It seems some of the same issues might even be expressed in modern pastoral imagery.
I don't exactly know how to post videos either, but I will offer the URLs of some videos on YouTube, in case anyone is interested. The first song that I thought of is by folk artist Mariee Sioux. “Buried in Teeth” off of her latest album, Faces in the Rocks, can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZnF8toKiLI
The lyrics are a bit dark but pastoral nonetheless. Sioux invokes images of rivers, roots, fossils, ferns, and a slew of other features of a very natural terrain. She begins by singing:
Buried in teeth
Buried in teeth
Buried in teeth
Can’t tell if I’ve got black roots or braids
Growing out of my head
Grandfathers eating our graves
Buried in teeth
Buried in teeth
Buried in teeth
Can’t tell if I’ve got rivers or veins
Running under my skin
Flowing out over the plains
There’s trapped antennae
All tangled up with these brains
And the spin of cocoons whispers your names
The crash of molars, it sifts us downward
Down past the roll of ancient thunder
Down past the delicate bones of bird’s wings
Those that never took the flight of morning
Down past the fossil, ferns, and antlers
A pack of ghost wolves are going to bring you under
And down past the stomachs filled with berries
Swallowed down into the gut of centuries
The next song is “Natural Disaster” off of Andrew Bird’s (nearly brand new!) album, Noble Beast. I encountered some difficulty in uncovering a live video with good sound and visual quality, but this one seems satisfactory:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43OPx7hbkHs
The lyrics are as follows:
Look upon the field of snow And find the desert sea
Under the ice the springs will flow
And release fecundities like a natural disaster
From the first drop of water
To the rage of Niagara
Collapse upon the forest floor and down upon your knees
Anthurium lacrimae decays underneath the canopies like a natural disaster
It’s the one that’s been happening over and over and over again
No peace in the valleys
Malarial alleys where the kittens have pleurisy
Donning our goggles
Valerian ogles
To see microscopically
A colony of dermestids
Undressed and digested
A grey spotted owl
And a wolf with a lung disease
Bird employs a plethora of idyllic images, including valleys, a forest floor, and canopies. In my attempt to find examples of contemporary music with pastoral lyrics, I discovered that a lot of the songs that applied were covers of country bands adapted to a more folk- or rock-like atmosphere. An example of such a song would be Andrew Bird’s “The Giant of Illinois,” which was originally recorded by The Handsome Family, an alternative country band. I keep asking myself one main question on this topic of contemporary musicians with pastoral lyrics. The pastoral imagery in these songs seems to be applied in a much more negative sense than that of C18 poets like Collier and Duck. Is this difference merely a product of the time elapsed, or is there some greater significance?
So this is not going to be some really insightful post. What did Sadie ever do to Joanna?
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