tim. (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} o_song) wrote,@ 2008-07-13 12:20:00 |
|
I Won't Be Found
I think I lost interest in this blog because it used to be about songs that made me feel things, and what it was about the songs that made me feel things. But as the history of the blog progressed, the writing became less about what made me feel things and became more about things which interested me on an intellectual and rational level. Which is understandable in a way; I was doing a PhD where the intellectual and rational level of writing is paramount. And I had also considered this blog a sort of practice writing area - if I got lots of writing practice here, it might make it easier there. And, maybe it helped with the PhD because I've finished it (apart from some apparently minor changes).
(The Tallest Man On Earth's "I Won't Be Found", from the album "Shallow Graves" (2008))
Anyway, The Tallest Man On Earth's "I Won't Be Found" is fairly intensely traditional folk; the song is a reconstitution of sorts of the old folk tune "I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground", but I don't think it matters that it is. It's just a guitar and a voice and a song. Kristian Mattson (i.e., he who is The Tallest Man On Earth) furiously fingerpicks throughout the song, letting cascades of fingerpicked notes ring out, providing a countermelody to the (strong) sung melody line. His voice frequently sounds on the edge of falling apart, as if he's belting it out as hard as he can; there are rough edges in the voice every so often, as if certain tones make his voicebox rattle and his throat crack. With singing like that, you (well, I) believe every word he says.
The lyrics are elliptical, with mentions of freeways, the Serengeti, and lizards in the spring, but they seem to me to speak of a desire for hibernation away from prying eyes (like a mole deep in the ground); as if he's come to the end of something and has to lay low to regenerate himself. Hmm, now why would that appeal to me?
tim.
I think I lost interest in this blog because it used to be about songs that made me feel things, and what it was about the songs that made me feel things. But as the history of the blog progressed, the writing became less about what made me feel things and became more about things which interested me on an intellectual and rational level. Which is understandable in a way; I was doing a PhD where the intellectual and rational level of writing is paramount. And I had also considered this blog a sort of practice writing area - if I got lots of writing practice here, it might make it easier there. And, maybe it helped with the PhD because I've finished it (apart from some apparently minor changes).
(The Tallest Man On Earth's "I Won't Be Found", from the album "Shallow Graves" (2008))
Anyway, The Tallest Man On Earth's "I Won't Be Found" is fairly intensely traditional folk; the song is a reconstitution of sorts of the old folk tune "I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground", but I don't think it matters that it is. It's just a guitar and a voice and a song. Kristian Mattson (i.e., he who is The Tallest Man On Earth) furiously fingerpicks throughout the song, letting cascades of fingerpicked notes ring out, providing a countermelody to the (strong) sung melody line. His voice frequently sounds on the edge of falling apart, as if he's belting it out as hard as he can; there are rough edges in the voice every so often, as if certain tones make his voicebox rattle and his throat crack. With singing like that, you (well, I) believe every word he says.
The lyrics are elliptical, with mentions of freeways, the Serengeti, and lizards in the spring, but they seem to me to speak of a desire for hibernation away from prying eyes (like a mole deep in the ground); as if he's come to the end of something and has to lay low to regenerate himself. Hmm, now why would that appeal to me?
tim.
