Wednesday, February 21, 2007:
This song is a tricksy time machine. You start it up and the melody and the harmony take you back to the nearest time when everything was okay: for some it was last night, everything accomplished, stretching out, drifting to sleep smiling; for others it's decades, unraveling the years, the conflicts and disappointments, the heartbreaks which will not be silent, to arrive at 6 minutes 21 seconds of bliss. And then the present returns.
It's a salve, a temporary fix, requiring inattention to the lyrics expressing that same loss the listener had hoped to escape. In a Philip K. Dick world some might hack the song into a permanent fix, programming it to repeat ad infinitum, increasing exponentially in volume and intensity in a doomed hope of shortcircuiting all conflicting thoughts, of rattling the skull so hard the words don't make sense, just the lullaby.
Christopher Porter/Suburbs Are Killing Us posted this track in mid-April 2004, and I'm only just now catching up to the CD: it had been half-forgotten (not the melody; no, that stays) until I recently stumbled onto it again, used and in great shape.
Ghosts of the Great Highway has been re-released recently with six bonus tracks, and allmusic.com considers the alternate version of "Carry Me Ohio" better than this one. Have any of you heard it? Thoughts on how they compare?
Sun Kil Moon -- Carry Me Ohio
Sun Kil Moon -- Carry Me OhioThis song is a tricksy time machine. You start it up and the melody and the harmony take you back to the nearest time when everything was okay: for some it was last night, everything accomplished, stretching out, drifting to sleep smiling; for others it's decades, unraveling the years, the conflicts and disappointments, the heartbreaks which will not be silent, to arrive at 6 minutes 21 seconds of bliss. And then the present returns.
It's a salve, a temporary fix, requiring inattention to the lyrics expressing that same loss the listener had hoped to escape. In a Philip K. Dick world some might hack the song into a permanent fix, programming it to repeat ad infinitum, increasing exponentially in volume and intensity in a doomed hope of shortcircuiting all conflicting thoughts, of rattling the skull so hard the words don't make sense, just the lullaby.
Christopher Porter/Suburbs Are Killing Us posted this track in mid-April 2004, and I'm only just now catching up to the CD: it had been half-forgotten (not the melody; no, that stays) until I recently stumbled onto it again, used and in great shape.
Ghosts of the Great Highway has been re-released recently with six bonus tracks, and allmusic.com considers the alternate version of "Carry Me Ohio" better than this one. Have any of you heard it? Thoughts on how they compare?
Comments:
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A really good post, Tuwa. My favorite song on that album is Glenn Tipton--so weary and resigned and, as you suggest about Ohio, vintage sounding.
∼ posted by
Amy
@ 10:43 AM, February 22, 2007
∼ posted by
Amy
@ 10:43 AM, February 22, 2007
Glenn Tipton is another good one. I've had the first two on replay a bit, not giving the others much of a chance yet. There is a weariness to them, yes, but a real comfort in the melodies.
∼ posted by Tuwa
@ 10:56 AM, February 22, 2007
∼ posted by
Tuwa
@ 10:56 AM, February 22, 2007
"Carry Me Ohio" was a nice track. Thoroughly enjoyable.
Thanks for the turn on.
Thanks!!
http://thecollegecrowddigsme.blogspot.com/
∼ posted by Casey
@ 10:24 PM, February 22, 2007
Thanks for the turn on.
Thanks!!
http://thecollegecrowddigsme.blogspot.com/
∼ posted by
Casey
@ 10:24 PM, February 22, 2007
I just got my copy of the reissue in the mail. I put the alternate version of Carry Me Ohio on my blog. Did you hear any of Little Drummer Boy, the live album released at the end of last year?
∼ posted by Michael Williams
@ 5:19 AM, February 28, 2007
∼ posted by
Michael Williams
@ 5:19 AM, February 28, 2007
Wow. Now that's an alternate version. The guitar's in a different key, the drums are gone, the mixing is different, the bassline is different, and the vocals seem much happier than in the original version.
Michael, do you allow comments on your blog? I would have put this there but I couldn't find the link.
I missed Little Drummer Boy; what did you think of it? I'm assuming you're a fan of Red House Painters.
∼ posted by Tuwa
@ 7:45 AM, February 28, 2007
¶ Post a Comment
Michael, do you allow comments on your blog? I would have put this there but I couldn't find the link.
I missed Little Drummer Boy; what did you think of it? I'm assuming you're a fan of Red House Painters.
∼ posted by
Tuwa
@ 7:45 AM, February 28, 2007
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