Iron and Wine

A sample.

What's it mean?

Iron and Wine became one of my favorite bands over the last couple of years--don't hate me for being a late bloomer. Last night we had the chance to go see them live at the Paramount in Oakland. I would have preferred to have seen them last year or the year before--before their newest album came out which has a World Music sound to it that I can't get fully behind. The previous two albums were very low-fi folk and a pleasure to listen to (all the time). There are two songs I really enjoy in the new album so I figured the show would consist of bearing through most of the new album with some respite in the two songs I love plus hopefully a couple of my old favorites.

When the show started eight people came on stage, EIGHT. Oh how I wanted just Sam out there, him and an acoustic guitar, but it was not to be.

Let me do all my complaining up front. The couple in front of us consisted of a girl whose body language made it seem like she didn't want to be there and a man who got so into some songs (she had to hold him still he was so excited) and then other songs, I'm assuming songs he wasn't interested in, he'd just lean over and start talking to her or kissing. I don't mind kissing but the seats are crowded and every time he did it he hit my knee with his elbow. Really the talking was the bigger offense, even over the songs I wasn't particularly excited to hear myself.

The other problem is that they played a couple of my old favorites including the one I linked above but they put the World Music twist on them. Sigh. Somewhere in the middle they played a version of Sodom, South Georgia (which I've always secretly expected is his favorite song) that wasn't mangled. It was different, but not World Musicy, they added a little accordion and a little up-right piano, it turned out to be quite nice.

I was starting to worry that they wouldn't even play my two favorite songs from the new album (Resurrection Fern and Flightless Bird, American Mouth) but they ended the show with those two songs and Flightless Bird was almost done without any instruments. So I was pleased at the end. But I was to be more pleased in a moment.

They left the stage and the audience demanded an encore (as audiences do) and just Sam (with his acoustic guitar) and his backup singer came out. He said he was going to play one more song, and he stuck to his promise. He played The Trapeze Swinger, another of my favorites (the origin of which I'm clueless about).

Here are the lyrics, they're ____. A word goes there. I'll probably post the song later.


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 hill
And up until
Someone caught us in the kitchen
With maps, a mountain range,
A piggy bank
A vision too removed to mention
But

Please, remember me
Fondly
I heard from someone you're still pretty
And then
They went on to say
That the pearly gates
Had some eloquent graffiti
Like 'We'll meet again'
And 'Fuck the man'
And 'Tell my mother not to worry'
And angels with their gray
Handshakes
Were always done in such a hurry
And

Please, remember me
At Halloween
Making fools of all the neighbors
Our faces painted white
By midnight
We'd forgotten one another
And when the morning came
I was ashamed
Only now it seems so silly
That season left the world
And then returned
And now you're lit up by the city
So

Please, remember me
Mistakenly
In the window of the tallest tower call
Then pass us by
But much too high
To see the empty road at happy hour
Leave 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'
And

Please, remember me
As in the dream
We had as rug-burned babies
Among the fallen trees
And fast asleep
Aside the lions and the ladies
That called you what you like
And even might
Give a gift for your behavior
A fleeting chance to see
A trapeze
Swing as high as any savior
But

Please, remember me
My misery
And how it lost me all I wanted
Those dogs that love the rain
And chasing trains
The colored birds above there running
In circles round the well
And where it spells
On the wall behind St. Peter's
So bright with cinder gray
And spray paint
'Who the hell can see forever?'
And

Please, remember me
Seldomly
In the car behind the carnival
My hand between your knees
You turn from me
And said 'The trapeze act was wonderful
But never meant to last'
The clown that passed
Saw me just come up with anger
When it filled with circus dogs
The parking lot
Had an element of danger
So

Please, remember me
Finally
And all my uphill clawing
My dear
But if i make
The pearly gates
Do my best to make a drawing
Of God and Lucifer
A boy and girl
An angel kissin on a sinner
A monkey and a man
A marching band
All around the frightened trapeze swingers

-- End Lyrics --

Man, that's life.