On Sunday I saw the Decemberists for the second time this year. They were great, even though the rarefied setting of the Holland Performing Arts Center might have dampened the crowd's enthusiasm.
But. But, but, but! I've been a J.T.E. fan for about six months: when Kevin told me that he'd be opening for the Decemberists at their Omaha show, I nearly ran off the road.
THIS is the song that hooked me. He didn't play it on Sunday night, although his rendition of "Mama's Eyes" was abundant recompense. Close readers of this blog will understand my attraction to "Rogers Park's" themes of geographical entrapment and temporal panic. He also alludes to the Allegory of the Cave from Plato's Republic, which I evidently explained pretty well when I was a sophomore in college all those years ago. (Yes, Tiff, that bit's about you)
If you like Americana, alt-country, roots rock, or folk--or whatever the hell any of those appellations mean--buy this record.
Showing posts with label pop culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pop culture. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Monday, May 31, 2010
Peter Gabriel still haunts me
The dawn of my environmental consciousness came from pop culture, and I partly blame REM, 10,000 Maniacs, and Peter Gabriel. All of them wrote and recorded songs in 1986 that helped shape the questions I still ask in my own work 25 years later.
I had no idea this performance ever occurred. I found it by accident after hearing "Solsbury Hill" on Pandora and then looking for a video on YouTube. I'm supposed to be reading some John Thellwall for my archive chapter, but instead, Peter Gabriel got in my head and won't let go.
"Red Rain" is ambiguous on many levels, as is all the best of Gabriel's work. The rain can serve as a metaphor for guilt, trauma, emotional release, or sexual awakening. But I always read such conceits through my twin lenses of Marxism and environmentalism, and this habit is my greatest weakness as a critic. In this case, the acid rain / nuclear fallout imagery of the metaphor's vehicle breaks open a whole other tenor with the lines "I come to you, defences down / With the trust of a child." The speaker alternately flees and embraces the rain; what it portends, not even he can say. But there's an intersection in this song between psychoanalytic criticism and environmental catastrophe, an interplay that motivates much of the work of my dissertation Chair.
I had no idea this performance ever occurred. I found it by accident after hearing "Solsbury Hill" on Pandora and then looking for a video on YouTube. I'm supposed to be reading some John Thellwall for my archive chapter, but instead, Peter Gabriel got in my head and won't let go.
"Red Rain" is ambiguous on many levels, as is all the best of Gabriel's work. The rain can serve as a metaphor for guilt, trauma, emotional release, or sexual awakening. But I always read such conceits through my twin lenses of Marxism and environmentalism, and this habit is my greatest weakness as a critic. In this case, the acid rain / nuclear fallout imagery of the metaphor's vehicle breaks open a whole other tenor with the lines "I come to you, defences down / With the trust of a child." The speaker alternately flees and embraces the rain; what it portends, not even he can say. But there's an intersection in this song between psychoanalytic criticism and environmental catastrophe, an interplay that motivates much of the work of my dissertation Chair.
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