It's difficult to describe just what Andrew Bird does, musically. Let me try and take a shot at it: he's a whistling, violin/guitar/glockenspiel playing one-man-band. Trained in Suzuki method, obviously influenced by Eastern European gypsy music (a formative influence, but he bears many influences), and a terrific, if allusive and oblique lyricist. Because he plays with minimal accompaniment (at this show, it was him and him alone) he uses this recording apparatus which allows him to play a small bit on his guitar or violin, capture it and loop it, then play over it (or pull it out). This all takes fancy footwork and timing. It's pretty amazing to watch him play like this, layering melody over rhythm then fading it out. At least it is for me, but I couldn't play a scale on the piano, much less imagine knocking out a tune while singing.
I've been haunted by his song "Scythian Empires" since his newest album came out earlier this year, and especially since I heard him play it live in concert. I figured I would share it with you; while I'm not sure how up you are on American indie multi-instrumentalists, I thought it might hit a chord, given your historical and philological interests. The creation story of the song itself is interesting; according to this interview (among others I've read) it stemmed from his adolescent fascination with the Scythians, that now-forgotten (at least here) ancient race of the steppe. How many great songs have their roots in Herodotus? Much less, how many songs about lost Indo-European tribes sound so quite so pointed and elegiac when alluding to another tribalized empire in the process of losing itself?
Anyway, here are the lyrics.
Five day forecasts bring black tar rains and hellfire
While handpicked handler's kid gloves tear at the inseams
Their Halliburton attaché cases are useless
While scotch guard Macintoshes shall be carbonized
Now they’re offering views of exiting empires
Such breathtaking views of Scythian empires
Scythian empires, horsemen of the Russia steppes
Scythian empires, archers of an afterthought
Routed by Sarmations, thwarted by the Thracians
Scythian empire
(Whistle solo)
Scythian empires, exiting empires
Scythian empires, exiting empires
Routed by Sarmations, thwarted by the Thracians
Scythian empire
Kings of Macedonia, Scythian empire
And here's a live performance from some other show. You get more of a sense of the song from it, but sorry about the shaky camerawork.
Before he played it last week, he said he was happy that the venue had hardwood floors, because he wanted to
ask us, the audience, to stamp our feet to the beat (a ghost rhythm, you might say - there's no actual percussion) during the solo halfway through the song. We did, and it sounded exactly as you might imagine it would - the sound of an army drilled but run ragged, marching out under the cover of night.
The allusions are right there. But artful and deep. Thwarted empires. Exiting empires.
A note: that "archers of an afterthought" line. I read somewhere that a typical Scythian tactic was to ride on horseback through/around the opposing lines, turn, and fire into the enemies' backs. Now, what a lyric, if that is true.
3 comments:
It's like hearing something from a phase shift. It almost sounded like Pindar's odes to the eternal abode of gods on the North, beyond Scythia, beyond the northern wind...
"Never the Muse is absent
from their ways: lyres clash and flutes cry
and everywhere maiden choruses whirling.
Neither disease nor bitter old age is mixed
in their sacred blood; far from
labor and battle they live.
Reaching such exotic lands is never easy:
Never on land or by sea will you find
the marvelous road to the feast of the Hyperborea."
(Pindar, Tenth Pythian Ode, Richmond Lattimore, translator).
I'm glad you mentioned the term "phase shift." I've been thinking a lot lately about the imagery and application of systems thinking, patterns, phases, vectors, organization and entropy, and so on. In particular I've been reading some far-out there stuff which seeks to unify cybernetics, physics, psychology, cognitive science and maybe some other things; it could be a load of baloney, or it could be profound, and I'm actually leaning towards the latter at the moment. Topic for another post - or a series of them.
I was thinking about doing a series of topics on that, since I just finished editing a book called "Systems: Structure and Management" which is quite interesting. However, it is not in English, and it's more related to management, very quantitative.
But, I'll think of something
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