“There's no sorrow that the sun's not gonna help.” I quote lyrics a lot in this blog, because I love a good line, a story, something to catch onto to remind me I’m alive. I also read a lot of poetry, and have a tendency to separate song poems and literary poetry, mostly because the literature works more subliminally, using language to emote more than what’s being said on the page. Why bring all this up? What intrigues me about Conor is his imagery. I’ve listened over and over and will capture one image and dwell on it for awhile, enough to miss the rest of the song. Next time another image lingers. For example, in this song we go from a short story about Sausalito to an iceberg, then quickly to the pilgrims. It works on the level of poetry, bringing all these images into feelings that are extremely personal and self-satisfying. What intrigues me about this is the music is so good, and works. It doesn’t hurt that he’s very confident in his performance. I believe he means it, and even if I can’t pretend to understand the story, I understand the emotions I’m being moved to feel. Shoutouts for Get-Well Cards (“all the peacock people left the plumes in a pile”), and the powerful meditation Milk Thistle (“You bring peace to midnight like a spotted owl”).A special note for the lovely tune Danny Callahan (“What gauge measures miracles?”), mostly because whether I’m right or not, seems to me to be about a young boy who died from cancer. That’s what I get from the lyric, one of the few I can follow as a full, deeply felt story. Sometimes when I listen to the album I’m feeling like this entire album is about Danny Callahan. There’s another key song, I Don't Want to Die In the Hospital, that enhances this thought for me.
Conors been on stage for many years now, and is a master at bringing the audience into his world. He manages to capture that fairly well on this new album, however his recent internet performance is absolutely mesmerizing. [LINK TO STREAM] I love this lyric from Nikorette: “I don’t want to go to your Mason lodge. There’s nothing more sad than a lynching mob full of rational men who believe in God.” I know exactly where that lyric comes from because I live in a very small town with 7 churches and a Mason Lodge. The men who are Lodge Members belong to these churches. I have acquaintances among them, most of them men who are not many years older than me. I always come away from the conversations extremely sad and confused. These men are proud of participating in some of the last lynchings that took place in Texas – right here in this ton and the next county over – in the 1970’s. I was at a “Christian Youth Concert” earlier this year as a volunteer and hear on stage one of the performers waxing on about the fact that there are no Jewish Synagogues anywhere to be found in the hills of Texas, and people, including children, were actually cheering. I asked the guy sitting next to me what that was all about and he smiled and said, “We chased them out of town even before we chased the blacks out.” No regret, no sadness, a true sense of pride.
Scary people I am living among. These are the same type of people that were shouting “Kill him Kill Him” when Sarah Palin spoke and were Booing when McCain mentioned Obama in his concession speech. They’re still alive and walking among us. I have talked about this with another guy, a bit younger than me, and I thought a bit more knowledgeable about the rest of the world because he has done some traveling and teaching overseas. He pointed out that when I was in the army, and then came home to protest against the war, that the Vietnam war was filling all the newspapers – people in the hills were simply ignored by the media. Then he said a few scary things. I think its Texans in general, they simply have this feeling that God is white. I know there’s a book in all this. Just the fact that lynchings were taking place in America in the 1970’s simply amazes me – it’s not a part of our popular history. It’s in all their collective memories, and there seems to be no guilt or shame. One of my supervisors told me that when they were younger there was a huge sign right outside of town that said “If you’re black, turn back.” This is not new, and I’ve probably told bits and pieces of this story in this blog before, but it all comes pouring out of my brain and into my fingers because Conor said all this and more in 25 words or less. A true poet. “I don’t want to go to your Mason lodge. There’s nothing more sad than a lynching mob full of rational men who believe in God.”
Conor Oberst
