If music is an art form, it has to do more than tell a story. It has to evoke multilayers of expression, to find threads and answers, calls and responses to our complex understandings and interpretations of how we respond to the world. It often does that through metaphor, interpretations of fable and its application, through what we intrinsically believe in, through what we integrally hope for.
Music is metaphor. Like a multifarious language we cannot always find the equivalent definitions in words. That is why we have lyric: a fine accompaniment. But one which is due to carry metaphor in equal weight. If lyric carries a one line story of obvious intent, then it is failing in its duty.
Worthy lyrics therefore draw on that rich plethora we find from Homer and Sappho, from religion and philosophy, and essentially from the writers' multivalenced understanding. Without this, there is not true art; there is only the superficial rehash of what we already know, albeit in another form.
To make art, we have to understand both art and humanity, and how it relates to the world in so many different manifestations. So when we read or listen to lyric, in or outside of the context of music, it must again evoke the metaphor of rich cultural reference to truly translate our complex understandings and interpretations of how we respond to the world. If it can do that, it becomes art; but also becomes our teacher and our healer. And it is for that we have art.
When we first listen to music, it is like water on soil: first permeating the top and depending on saturation, deeper layers. Often that first listen intimates potential for something more. We may not notice it, if it is not what we are looking for. But if we are listening to music for art, for our translator, our potential teacher and healer, then we will find it. Then we have to tend the soil and its sleeping heart.
If there isn't any such thing as coincidence, then any sweet serendipity is righteously yours. You can take it as your own; you deserve it without need of any external justification. But it is also up to you how you will tend it and watch it grow. True love, as we know, is unconditional, and without the physical limitations of time and space. Here is esoterica in the ethereal. But here, again, is art.
What if we could draw on that boundlessness and bring it beyond the liminal into our physical reality? What if we could transform that into opportunity and forgiveness, and into true understanding? Perhaps we could "hold out for love when [we're] diving for pearls".
You can listen from their Bandcamp page here, as you read.
A few posts ago, I mentioned a band - Dusken Lights. Since that entry, I sought the CD and have been listening to it regularly. Their first song has the fantastic title "Superman, Wondergirl". (Fantastic, as fantasy. Again metaphor and meaning are appropriated). These super-persona defy our mortal limitations. But what if we all have the ability to be supermen and wondergirls? First we have to cede time and tangible place, we have to forgive, we have to therefore dispense fear, and define our positioning with "no front or no back, and [consider] the future is blind".
In this song, Paul Watling (Dusken Lights' writer and musician) takes us through limitless time within the familiar concepts of sleep and waking. He also emphasises unmarked potential that is defined by our ability to traverse and travail our own paths. But moreover, he reminds us of our vital and tenuous interrelation. He implies this subtly in the title: in the potential of unconditional connection between the kin you make, or the kin you choose.
The interplay of opposites provides a platform for the breadth of contrasts. Even in the title,"Arrows of Joy", we find the potential of harm and/or direction in what makes us most happy. Like the gentle structure of acceptance in the opening song, here Watling describes the delicate transition of trying to understand the unknown as the protagonist "[s]earch[es] through the names of what [he] recognize[s] / In the darkness of your eyes". He draws on the metaphor of the arrow, of what cannot be taken back; that ancient symbol of hunting and war; and in religion - between pain and the choice of suffering, of Saint Sebastian the martyr; and in philosophy of Zeno's paradox where the arrow begins to define the moment in time. Even if Watling did not intend this complexity of interpretation, by using such a rich metaphor he enables the listener to draw parallels with their own experiences and relate it to the concepts in the song.
Watling also subtly and deftly weaves the most intimate in his work. This, too, is part of the evidence and experience of love. If this is read or interpreted, it is again dependent on the listener and what they seek, and dependent on their question they may find the evidence they seek. But there are double meanings throughout Dusken Lights' songs which is up to the reader to find.
The bridge builds the pace and evidences the volatility of emotion, with a litany of evocative images against the backdrop of the antagonist's hand - that which we grasp when seeking help in the midst of turmoil.
The depth of understanding and imagery are intricately intertwined in Watling's lyrics. They are not blatant or overt. It is not until the third song, "The Frangipani Are Open", that the CD's title In the Service of Spring, is fully realised. Being dedicated to renewal and bourgeoning beauty is a fine monicker for this album. Watling tells us though that beauty, however, can be squandered or not recognised when it is ironically needed most.
"Skindiver" opens with my favourite image on the album: "I swim back through thought like I'm a skindiver" (sic). The seemingly simple premise of this song highlights different forms of love and related intentions through counterpoint.
"Mother Nature Wants Him Dead". The obvious in long title belies the esoteric of this song, which are rich in symbolism, linking Christian and pagan tropes reminiscent of Leonard Cohen; and the cult of youthful waywardness with it's strange combination of heroism and loss which would not be out of place in a S.E. Hinton novel.
"Spark On the Wire" again invites us to evaluate the carnal manifestation of love and the decisions it impels us to make. This song reminds us of the volatile temptation of new love against "tired horse" of love kept to time, which is the aptly portrayed a few songs later in "Sun Above".
Between these is "Lodestar" at the turning point of the album. Serendipity is often conducive to what we most wish for, but even that definitive and righteously guiding star can seem ambiguous when we find it hard to believe that it could be a reality. The beautiful lines "I see you in the sky writing with your light pen / I don't understand every message that you send / Your sending love but please send / Directions" perfectly encapsulates the excitement of finding your ultimate desire recognised, and not wanting to lose it by inadvertently steering off course in the eagerness of it making it come true.
"Sun Above" combines superstition, the Christian philosophy of Aquinas and story of Samson, around the tropes of new and old love as the protagonist decides which love he should wait for "under the sun above / On a tired horse / Whose secret name is love". The tiredness here could be read as a return in faith to the old love, or the need for revitalisation as the rider of a tired horse. Here Aquina's philosophy of the "five ways" seems to fit well as the need to evidence god, in this case embodied as love, as proven to exist.
"All Soul's Day" immediately claims the intimate and holds it decorously through the song. All Soul's Day is the equivalent celebration of the pagan All Hallow's Eve (or Hallow'een), when we celebrate and make a place for those we have lost. The song also draws on the Christian story of The Great Flood, when birds are sent out to seek out land, to evidence the end of God's displeasure and bring back the olive branch - the symbol of peace. Each time the bird is sent it becomes both the question and evidence of faith: that the world will find its equilibrium.
In verse two, the protagonist could be interpreted in one of two oppositional positions; depending on your preference he could be faithful or faithless. The redemption comes through the question of maintaining love over an expanse of time, "If ever is a prison not a piercing light / Waiting won't relieve it but loving might". That crystalised realisation is so imperative, and is evidence of Watling's insight into the value of love over time.
At first I read the Dusken Light to be representative of a shady or gloomy light. However, I posited this to Watling, who corrected me to advise that Dusken Light is "the last twinkling of light of the conscious state ... [which is] one of the infinite, latent possibility and a promise of rebirth. [... It] encourag[es] the dowsing of the fire of ego, and encourag[es] a letting go, into the field of infinite possibility for a potential Phoenix-like return to the challenges of the eternal day. A day where one could "let loose all the love that you're dreaming about".
"The Decision She Was Making" is a delicate and beautiful song which correlates the inner and outer worlds of a character who is meeting her lover. Here is what I appreciate most about Watling's work - that ability to understand the fragility resultant from the portents we impose upon ourselves when we feel most vulnerable. As sage and confidante he intimately portrays her psyche while depicting her vulnerable beauty from without.
"Raining Down Glitter" is another ode to love in a more physical form. The lyrics are without gratuity and attest Watling's honesty which conversely, and yet somehow aptly, could stand beside both a literal and allegoric image of a "department store Christmas" window.
A "Moonflower" blooms only at night and can grow prolifically. This final song juxtaposes the frangipani of the second song on this album - it is less hardy, opens coquettishly in darkness, grows with lush verdant stems and leaves like a vine; however, like the frangipani, it hails from Mexico. While Watling's intention eludes me in these lyrics, this contrast reminds me of a quote from Gloria Anzuldúa's Borderlines/La Frontera, "Borders are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them. A border is a dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge. A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a constant state of transition. The prohibited and forbidden are it inhabitants".
Watling's lyrics can transgress and transcend. The audience can follow them as far as their experience or understanding. Or their desire. Watling's gift here is the subtlety of understanding, and then being able to translate this for varied levels of interpretation.
You can get your copy of the album here.
