Last week, Erik and I joined Tessa and Chris to go to a concert! Live music! We saw Iron & Wine, and The Swell Season (the Once movie peeps). It was incredible. Iron and Wine opened (!!), a mostly solo set, and he was, as usual, absolutely stunning. His music, his remarkably lyrical imagery, and his voice, literally filled the place and my entire self and soul, beginning with the first few words of his first song. (Which! I had never heard before. It turns out it is a somewhat hard-to-find B side and will post the lyrics for you in a minute.)
We all assumed that The Swell Season would pale in comparison, but they held their own, differently. But maybe it was just because time was passing since Iron and Wine's opening song. Tessa and Chris will tell you that Glen Hansard's seriously neurotic storytelling skills kind of ruined things a bit, but I still really liked their set. What I did not like was all those scantily dressed older women having the same taste as me. And also two particular scantily dressed older women stage dancing, but I am trying to repress that so it won't be discussed.
But back to Iron and Wine. You should know that I have only ever posted the lyrics to one full song in its entirety before, and it was another Iron and Wine song, the amazing Upward Over the Mountain. I tread very carefully with the lyric spewing on here, so trust me on this. It starts out so simply and universally but then weaves itself through this complex path of interconnected images and I think, most significantly, death. Sam Beam, I swear, he is my favorite poet. Also, as an aside, my next trick will be to count the appearance of dog-related imagery in his songs.
But, this song stole the entire night, and I was reminded of it in particular this afternoon amidst a particularly hefty dose of nostalgia. Nostalgia is so intense to me, reflecting on lives and loves lost or given away. It sometimes consumes me. Not the people, not the actual things that happened, but dealing with my memories, processing what the relationships, the friendships, the love, the hurt, the everything... what it all has changed in me, and who I am in its stead.
Read, listen, whatever:
THE TRAPEZE SWINGER.
-Iron and Wine
Please remember me happily by the rosebush laughing
With bruises on my chin, the time when we counted every black car passing
Your house, beneath the hills, and up until someone caught us in the kitchen
With maps, a mountain range, a piggy bank, a vision too removed to mention...
Please remember me fondly, I heard from someone you're still pretty
And then they went on to say that the pearly gates had such eloquent grafitti
Like "we will meet again" and "fuck the man" and "tell my mother not to worry"
The angels with their gray handshakes, always done in such a hurry...
Please remember me, on Halloween, making fools of all the neighbors
Our faces painted white, by midnight we'd forgotten one another
And when the morning came I felt ashamed, only now it seems so silly
That season left the world and then returned but now you're lit up by the city...
Please remember me mistakenly in the window of the tallest tower
Call and pass us by but much too high to see the empty road at happy hour
Gleam and resonate just like the gates around the holy kingdom
With words like "lost and found" and "don't look down" and "someone save temptation..."
Please remember me as in the dream we had as rug-burned babies
Among the fallen trees but fast asleep aside the lions and the ladies
Who call you what you like and even might give a gift for your behavior
A fleeting chance to see the trapeze swinger high as any savior...
Please remember me, my misery, and how it lost me all I wanted
The dogs that love the rain and chasing trains, the colored birds above their running
In circles 'round the well, near where it spells on the wall behind St. Peters
So bright on cinder gray with spraypaint "who the hell can see forever?"
Please remember me seldomly in the car behind the carnival
My hand between your knees you turned from me and said the trapeze act was wonderful
But never meant to last, the clowns that passed saw me just come up with anger
And filled with circus dogs, the parking lot, had an element of danger...
Please remember me finally and all my uphill clawing
My dear, if I make the pearly gates I'll do my best to make a drawing
Of God and Lucifer, a boy and girl, an angel kissing on a sinner
A monkey and a man, a marching band, all around a frightened trapeze swinger
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raVzi_y6XWI
(I know, I know. TOPHER GRACE is smirking right at you the whole time. At least Dennis Quaid is mid-life-angsting at the ground.)
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