Parables & Primes - Danny Schmidt
A few years ago I became aware of a wonderful little podcast called Welcome to Night Vale, a fictional comic horror drama that incidentally features, in each episode, a song from a different emerging or established independent musician. This segment of the show, even taken out of the context of the rest of the podcast, serves as a very interesting tour of various worthy and largely unknown artists; most of them were wholely unknown to me before being featured.
One episode featured the song This Too Shall Pass, a thoughtful piece in acoustic guitar and voice that features such hard-hitting verses as:
We think too big, we think our self is one whole thing
And we claim that this collection has a name and is a being
But deep inside, when every cell divides
It sets upon the rule that states self-interest is divine
Cancer, too, lives by this golden rule
That you must do unto the others as the others unto you
All for the best, cause that’s all the life accepts
And so we kill it like a buffalo, with awe and with respect
I am such a sucker for this kind of subtlety and emotional ambiguity in song lyrics and all other art. Like Georgia O’Keefe framing a sunbleached skull in vibrant flowers, this song takes death and despair and sets it alongside beauty and truth and allows them to flow into one another, so each is tinged with the essence of the other. Naturally I had to investigate this musician further, and as it happened I soon had the opportunity not only to hear him perform live (in a Night Vale stage show), but to buy this album from him personally.
Not all the songs held my attention as readily as that one, but another immediate favorite was Stained Glass, another masterpiece of that aforementioned ambiguity. In the grand tradition of folk rock, it tells a story: of the destruction of a beloved stained glass window in a church, the death of its creator, and the attempts of his 90-year-old father to “resurrect the window from the dead” in time for Easter. Even at the time lacking Christian belief, the potent Easter imagery struck me right where a good mythic tale should, in the heart and soul. But to really be appreciated the song must be heard with an open mind and full attention, so I hope you will take a few minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7lTPyoHA5w
Other songs have taken some time to sink in. I am gaining a slow and comfortable appreciation for Beggars & Mules, about the struggle to promote one’s art (something that I, as a poet, can relate to). Another new favorite is Happy All The Time, which is less lyrically accessible, but I think I might be starting to get a hang of some of its meanings:
I lived inside a log but I was happy all the time
With the lizards and the frogs but I was happy all the time
And I always ate at dawn and I always slept til dark
I guess I worked too hard but I was happy, I was happy all the time
It’s sung to a bluesy beat, and dripping with irony. There’s that ambiguity again.
Next: Shrek
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