NOW “HEAR! HEAR!” THIS: Far Too Late For Should Have Known Better
We’ve all been through romantic situations where “should have known better” comes to mind. We make mistakes, but often pray we won’t become defined by them. This is a playlist full of songs which ride that roller coaster from the highs of first love to the lows of wishing we’d just said no before having one’s heart ripped to shreds became a legitimate possibility. Highlights include “Flowers,” from Anais Mitchell’s acclaimed Hadestown folk-opera, “Homage for the Suffering” from a stunningly under-appreciated Matthew Perryman Jones effort, and “El Matador,” one of the best soMngs from Semisonic I can almost guarantee you’ll never have heard. That, and you can expose yourself to a number of artists on the edge of fame who sorely deserve a wider audience — Meaghan Smith deserves to be mentioned as one of the stronger “vaudeville pop” vocalists working the pop scene, and Diane Birch’s “Fire Escape” sorely needs a cult following.
ALBUM REVIEW: Anaïs Mitchell – “Young Man in America”
“Am I a diamond or a dime a dozen?” Anaïs Mitchell asks on “Tailor,” and the answer is unanimously the former. America’s most brilliant independent folk performer, Mitchell is fast becoming a national treasure far too few have heard.
Album Review
Anaïs Mitchell – “Young Man in America” (2012, Thirty Tigers)
For this young, gifted songwriter of many varied talents, not the least being her astounding grasp of the English language, Anaïs Mitchell has built her reputation on her ability to inhabit songs with full-force and reckoning. Hadestown, her 2010 operatic masterpiece, set the bar so high many in her shoes would have feared following it up. Mitchell, however, takes the challenge and runs with it, crafting Young Man in America, a follow-up so resolutely daring it stands easily on its own merits. The title track alone is among the finest modern folk songs you’re going to hear anywhere. From the opening bars, when Mitchell sings of a young man being born forcibly into the world by a mother who “opened her legs and let me out,” the listener is hooked. When the song reaches its hair-raising conclusion and the haunting clarinet ushers us into the remainder of the suite, we’re fans for life:
Waiting on the kingdom come to meet me in my sin
Waiting to be born again
Mother kiss me cheek and chin
Mmm, a little medicine
Mmm, and then I shed my skin
Mmm, and let me climb back in the bed you made me in
The remainder of the album is intimate and expansive at the same time, letting us waltz into these little worlds she crafts as the words spill from her pen. Whether she’s mourning the loss of a relationship through creative pursuits on “Tailor” or contemplating death and sacrifice on “Dying Day,” she builds these songs upon a solid folk foundation. And the songs demand to be repeated. And though the album doesn’t feature a distinct concept from start to finish like Hadestown, there’s a sense that this is the most appropriate next step after what was essentially an album placing the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice into the world of the Great Depression. We’re still mired in the Great “Recession,” and Young Man in America examines our inability for sons to hold to the ways of their fathers in a modern America where we set out to make our fortune and find the American dream has become a fevered nightmare.
But her characters remain strong in the face of disappointment and loss. We take the role of the main character of the second-person narrative “He Did,” as we wonder what our lives mean when examined through a prism of our family history. “He kept a blue grey eye on you until the day he closed his eyes and left them closed,” she sings. “Your daddy didn’t leave a will; he left a shovel and a hole to fill and how it feels. How it feels to be a child of his.” This is heady lyrical ground to till on any album, but no one’s ever accused Mitchell of being timid. No Depression may have called her “girlishly sprite and brimming with innocence,” but she shows no fear here, the music being all the better for it.
Even in the face of loss, her characters push toward the future rather than dwelling on the past. “Tailor” is the pinnacle of that aspect of her songwriting. Excited by love, the protagonist sings of changing her career at every whim of her pursuer: “When he said that he liked the clothes I wore I became a tailor.” But when love goes sour, she takes up the violin when he said he was leaving and a poet when he said he’d soon forget her face. Is she crazy? Is she worthless because she doesn’t have his love? “Now that he’s gone away there isn’t anyone to say if I’m a diamond or a dime a dozen,” she sings surprisingly brightly considering. The fact is she’s unanimously the former. Mitchell is fast becoming a national treasure far too few have heard. Young Man in America, coupled with the magnificent Hadestown, should be more than enough to cement her reputation as America’s most brilliant young songwriter in any genre.
Anaïs Mitchell – “Hadestown”
Let me get this out of the way early: Anaïs Mitchell’s Hadestown is what it’s advertised to be, a tour de force example of how the world of operatic music can and, upon occasion will, translate across genres.
Mitchell has been reportedly working on this “folk opera” based on the Greek mythology involving Orpheus and Eurydice since 2006. But despite being able to launch the opera on in a live setting during two different indie theater runs, her ability to have her full vision realized was not possible until she got a little help from her friends.
With the aid of Ani DiFranco, who had, years prior, signed Mitchell to her Righteous Babe label, Mitchell was able to put together a master-class of musicians. With special guests Greg Brown, Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) and Ben Knox Miller (Low Anthem) along with the not-to-be-underestimated orchestral skills of Michael Chorney, Mitchell decided to head into the studio to record the opera in all its glory, including detailed aural characterization and a full libretto, ready to be dissected by the avid music junkie in all of us.
The album is almost certainly going to draw comparisons to The Hazards of Love by the Decemberists, which was one of last year’s most critically acclaimed albums. On the surface such a comparison might seem fitting, but when one delves deeper into Hadestown it’s possible to hear why her album is able to fittingly be called a true “opera.” The meticulous craft put into both the lyrics and the full-band orchestral arrangements allow this song cycle to flow magnificently as a complicated whole. Though the Decemberists came close to reaching that level of perfection, their album occasionally verged on the melodramatic, and the libretto was a mess — it took whole paragraphs to explain just what the hell was happening from point A to point B.
Hadestown, conversely, is a model of efficiency. The story could seem complicated in less skilled hands, particularly if the musicians had succumbed to the pressure to be overdramatic since that’s what many expect in “operatic” music. Instead, each song plays a distinct role in the progression of the story. There’s no added drama; the characters are allowed to fully develop without becoming overwhelming. And in less than an hour the entire album plays out its wrenching tale, coming to a distinct and fitting end — one which I suspect will leave more than a few listeners physically drained.
In Greek mythology, Orpheus and Eurydice are young lovers, husband and wife. Orpheus is called “the father of songs,” son of the river god Oeagrus and the muse Calliope. Eurydice is seduced by Hades into being bitten by a serpent, and is drawn down to hell. Orpheus is given permission by the Gods to go to rescue her, and legend has it that Hades is actually “moved” to give him her freedom, if he’s able to leave Hell with her behind him, trusting she’s there… no looking back. When he fails, looking backward before both are safely beyond the gates of Hell, she’s forced to return and he must spend the rest of his life pining for her through his music, never able to be with his true love as the Gods won’t let him go back, humilated by his failure.
Mitchell has chosen to set Hadestown during what may or may not be the Great Depression of the 1930s, a post-apocalyptic wasteland where humans are starved for even the most basic needs in life, and Hades is right there to provide them with work, if they’re willing to give up their very humanity.
The guests on Mitchell’s album bring this story to life in stunning clarity. As Eurydice, she’s willing to play a role, taking something of a backseat to her guests, while still imbuing the character with a great deal of depth. Her Eurydice goes beyond the myth, succumbing to Hades out of pure desperation, unsure that Orpheus will be able to provide for her, something she regrets through song for the remainder of the tale. Her “Flowers” is one of the album’s most heartbreaking songs.
Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon proves to have far more artistic range than many may give him credit for, breathing so much life into his character that we’re left on the edge of our seats as he’s tested by the fates. A lesser musician would have struggled with songs like “Wait For Me” and the album’s most stunningly raw moment, “Doubt Comes In,” when his fear has to show through nothing but the vocals. They require an incredible amount of vocal depth, something Vernon provides time and again.
But the real star of the album is Greg Brown, a folk artist with more than two dozen albums to his name. Brown’s deep-throated growl thunders through the album, providing a deep sonic weight to the entire opera. He also happens to take part in three of the album’s biggest showstoppers.
“Hey, Little Songbird” sees Hades alternately tempting and taunting Eurydice, luring her into his version of hell on Earth, but he brings down the house with “Why We Build The Wall,” a brooding catechism in which Hades indoctrinates his newest souls, in what is perhaps the strongest lyrical point on Hadestown. A meditation on freedom versus necessity, it’s such a timely song as to almost demand further discussion among listeners. And his debate with wife Persephone (DiFranco) on “How Long?” pulses with raw emotion: fear, hate, frustration, all thrown into a seething kettle as Hades must decide what must be done with this troublemaking Orpheus.
What results from all these forces coming together is, hands down, the strongest single folk music album I’ve found this decade. Mitchell’s four years of work put into this project show more clearly than anything that she values this as her masterwork. Having listened to the rest of her catalog, it becomes even clearer that, though she’s always been a talented member of the folk community, Hadestown is indeed a marked improvement, one which almost certainly will go down as her finest work. Blending blues, jazz, country and other folk idioms into one work of complex beauty, she’s stumbled on a potent blend which should help introduce folk and Americana to a wider audience than ever before.
For that reason, it’s an album which deserves to be heard and heard again, studied and shared, and above all, treasured. I’m going to go out on a limb and argue that no other album this year is going to match it for sheer audacity and, ultimately, for superb artistic merit. Anaïs Mitchell’s Hadestown is going to be an album around for the long haul, and should become a lasting example of where folk music can go when the right musicians take hold of history.
Reprinted with permission from Stereo Subversion.
Who says music has to be dumbed down for kids?
"The nephew" knows good music when he hears it. Photo by my sister, Stephanie Decker.
My nephew finally got himself an mp3 player for Christmas. And already the adventurous music listener (and a voracious one too!) he asked me to play “cool uncle” and fill it up with music for him for New Years.
Yes, he wants the usual stuff everyone his age is listening to on the radio … or as his mother puts it: “anything that sounds rebellious.” But he’s also a huge Lindsey Buckingham junkie. He’s memorized most of the libretto to Anais Mitchell’s Americana opera Hadestown (my top pick for album of the year in 2010). And he helped pick out The White Album by the Beatles and the BBC Sessions from Led Zeppelin for my father for Christmas along with his parents.
Did I mention he’s in first grade?
I’ve noticed people tend to have low opinions of young people and their musical taste. Disney markets Hannah Montana to kids and they lap it up because it’s what they hear — and their parents buy it for them because the music’s safe and inoffensive (just don’t let the kiddies watch “Can’t Be Tamed” if that’s your theory!) But kids aren’t stupid. They want to hear music that sounds good, and if they could hear bands like Arcade Fire, Sufjan Stevens, Regina Spektor or Only Son playing on top 40 radio, they’d lap those bands’ albums up too.
[It'd be nice if the music industry could pick up that kind of idea and run with it, the idea of getting kids when they're young and teaching them to love music, to want to explore it. These are our children, they're not just another marketing tool.]
Anyway, I just had a ton of fun filling his mp3 player up with both the music I know he already enjoys, along with the music I think he will enjoy when he gets a chance to hear it on shuffle. And I’m not going to make assumptions about what might or might not be over his head … aside from keeping things clean (he’s seven, so no major profanity) I think it’s best to let him set the limits of what works.
I can’t wait to hear what he winds up latching onto …
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December 29, 2010 | Categories: Commentary | Tags: adventure, Anais Mitchell, Arcade Fire, BBC Sessions, Can't Be Tamed, Disney, education, exploration, Hadestown, Hannah Montana, kids, Led Zeppelin, Lindsey Buckingham, marketing, Miley Cyrus, mp3 player, music, music industry, Only Son, Regina Spektor, Sufjan Stevens, The White Album, Wordpress | 3 Comments »