matt’s music blog

Though I generally like The Decemberists, I’ve found that it’s easy to pick my favorite track off of each of their past three albums – and The Rake’s Song  definitly qualifies on The Hazards Of Love.

First off, as in most good Decemberist songs, there’s a story to be told:

I had entered into a marriage
In the summer of my twenty-first year
And the bells rang for our wedding
Only now do I remember it clear
Alright, alright, alright

The song builds really well – there’s this super catchy instrumental progression that sort of accomnies the progression of the song’s plot. It starts with simple acoustic guitar, no chords even, just some strumming. Then on the first ‘alright, alright, alright’, some electric bass jumps in, along with guitar chords, and finally a hint of percussion accentuating the next verse.

No more a rake and no more a bachelor
I was wedded and it whetted my thirst
Until her womb start spilling out babies
Only then did I reckon my curse

The percussion comes in full, along with that electric bass, expertly distorted as the song gets a little more twisted:

First came Eziah with his crinkled little fingers
Then came Charlotte and that wretched girl Dawn
Ugly Myfanwy died on delivery
Mercifully taking her mother along

What can one do when one is widower
Shamefully saddled with three little pests
All that I wanted was the freedom of a new life
So my burden I began to divest

The breath of air during the murder verse is perfect, and the growing screaming in the background of the ‘alright!’ sections is another nice touch:

Charlotte I buried after feeding her foxglove
Dawn was easy, she was drowned in the bath
Eziah fought but was easily bested
Burned his body for incurring my wrath

And at the end, there’s no moral to the story, which I like – the narrator gets away with the vicious murder of his own unwanted children. The line “her womb starting spilling out babies” is perfect for expressing his disgust with the situation.

And that’s how I came your humble narrator
To be living so easy and free
Expect you think that I should be haunted
But it never really bothers me
Alright, alright, alright
Alright, alright, alright

To be honest, this song is not so much about the instruments for me – a laid back jazz kit for percussion, a nice plucky meandering banjo line, supporting deep strings, that’s not what’s important here. What’s important is the incredible well written lyrics:

So you quote-love-unquote me
Well, stranger things have come to be
But let’s agree to disagree
Cause I don’t believe you
I don’t believe you

The last two lines for each verse (excluding the one bridge) will always be “I don’t believe you, I don’t believe you,” so I’ll skip them after this – but what a way to start out strong: “So you quote-love-unquote me.” It’s an incredibly literary way of expression sentiment – the concept of someone “loving” someone else and the implications of those added quotation marks is delightful.

You tell me I’m not not cute
Its truth or falsity is moot
Cause honesty’s not your strong suit

Intentional use of double-negative also racks up points, and the complicated phrasing in “Its truth or falsity is moot,” is great – what it means it, “Although your statement might be true, it doesn’t matter because you often lie.”

You tell me of what once was
And all about Buck, Butch, and Buzz
How they were not like me because…

Alliteration in ‘Buck, Butch, and Buzz’, but otherwise not quite as interesting as the other verses. And now, for the bridge:

I had a dream and you were in it
The blue of your eyes was infinite
You seemed to be
In love with me
Which isn’t very realistic

It’s a nice little way to break up the otherwise strict AAABB-rhyming format of the verses, and somewhat droning instrumentation – and if you look closely at the bridge, can you see what it is? It’s a limerick: AABBA, with an almost identical rhythm. Neat, huh? Also, the bridge literally straddles the center of the song – three versus, one bridge, and then another three verses.

You may sing me “They Were You”
And I start crying halfway through
But nothing else you say is true

Like ‘Butch, Buck, and Buzz’, this verse isn’t as intricately crafted, although “They Were You”, from The Fantasticks is an interesting reference to make – I’m not really familiar with the play at all.

You may set your charm on stun
And say I’m delightful and fun
But you say that to everyone

Star Trek (or possibly Star Wars) reference with ‘on stun’, which is always appreciated, and finally -

So you’re brilliant gorgeous and
ampersand after ampersand
You think I just don’t understand

Remember the “quote-love-unquote me” line in the first verse? This last verse closes the loop with “So you’re brilliant, gorgeious and ampersand after ampersand,” – once again, it evokes visions of typography, which is incredibly unique – I can’t think of many other songs where this happens. You’re brilliant & gorgeous & & &. It’s like another way of saying ‘et cetera’.

Anyway, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Daniel Handler (also known as Lemony Snicket) is involved with The Magnetic Fields – although as far as I know Stephin Merrit writes the lyrics.

This is one of my favorite Enya songs – as an artist, her music can be a little hit-or-miss for me. Sometimes it’s too ethereal for its own good, and loses its appeal in spaced-out vocals and ‘world music’ instrumentation. Caribbean Blue doesn’t have this problem.

The beginning is a great way to introduce a concept – brief orchestral strings, which fade away to trancey plucked arpeggios and nice bass swells. The beuty of the chord progression is made clear, along with the sort of flowing, lilting rythem of the song. The brief ‘ah’ vocal sting at :25 should make it abundantly clear to anyone listening that this is, in fact, an early Enya song. The swirling vocals immediatly afterwards give way to the enchanting lyrics:

So the world goes round and round
With all you ever knew,
They say the sky
High above
Is Caribbean blue.

More orchestral strings follow, along with more vocalizing, keeping things interesting but not varying much from the original music premise of the song. Next verse:

If every man says all he can,
If every man is true,
Do I believe the sky above
Is Caribbean blue?

More vocals, more orchestal strings, a little stronger this time, with more bass, intensifying things a little until the bridge at 1:58, carrying the song swirling onwards with higher notes, until the last verse comes around, this time transposed upwards a bit:

If all you told was turned to gold
If all you dreamed were new,
Imagine sky high above
In Caribbean blue.

By now we’ve heard all the song is going to give us – things roll onwards to the ending at 3:50, which is as brilliant a way to usher the track out as was the intro to usher it in – everything drops off, leaving a lone vocal pad, which briefly hints at a solo, before abruptly fading down to silence.

What’s the song about? To begin with, there are a few observations we can make about the ‘narrator’ – the fact that “they say the sky” is blue, and that its blueness is questioned in the next verse, and finally imagined in the last, suggests that wherever this song takes place, the colour of the sky is not readily ascertainable. Are they underground? Are they in space? Are they in a world that’s perpetually cloudy? When I think of the colour ‘caribbean blue’, I think of the deep endless ocean off the shore of a tropical island – impossibly deep dark blueness, accompnied by a fring of shallow green and sandy yellow. It sort of feels like a yearning for a lush vegetative island paradise – something the world in the song is possibly missing.

The phrase “so the world goes round and round” pretty explicitly refers to the passage of time – after all, that’s how our chronology works, revolutions of planetary bodies. “with all you ever knew” seems like another reference to time, and perhaps a sort of elder wisdom – a world in the future, where all the secrets of the past are contained somewhere on the planet? A planet which has lost its island paradise? The other lines seem to suggest that it’s possible for this paradise to be reclaimed: “If every man says all he can, if all he says is true… If all you told was turned to gold, if all you dreamed was true…” If the shattered world worked together, imagined progress, dealt honestly, and communicated… would the sky high above once again become caribbean blue?