"I've Found Grace Inside a Sound"

I just found a well-written article (HT: Jeffrey Overstreet) by Jeff Keuss about the comedy of U2's new album No Line on the Horizon. He uses Gustav Freytag's "pyramid" to trace the arch of U2's whole body of work, focusing primarily on No Line and its comic movement. Keuss articulates well what I was trying to say in fewer words in a previous post, paying special attention to the "sound" motif throughout the album.

RIP Horton Foote and Musings on U2's New Album

I heard last night that Horton Foote (March 14, 1916 – March 4, 2009) died a couple of days ago. If you don't know Horton Foote, you should really check out his screenwriting chops. He's also known for writing the Academy Award-winning Tender Mercies (one of my personal all-time favorite films and filmed near my home town--the rolling prairie land that makes up its geographical setting fills me with longing too deep for words...memory, dreams, Sehnsucht).

On another note...U2's No Line on the Horizon is quite the record. When I first heard it, I was dubious. I thought, "Ah, their music's gettin' soft...what is this poppy stuff." But then, through more listening, I think No Line is a truly comic album: an album that celebrates "love" that "can heal such a scar." This sentiment expresses a perfect answer to Achthung Baby's "Love is clockworks and cold steel / Fingers too numb to feel...Love is drowning in a deep well /All the secrets, and no one to tell./ Take the money, honey...Blindness." The former is the hopeful answer to the tragic limitations found in the latter's disordered love (HT to my friend and colleague, Brett, for that last thought). Bono has progressed as a writer, his artistic vision moving toward the wholeness of the time when heaven and earth will be one--as in "no line on the horizon."

If you don't own No Line already, give it a listen at U2's Myspace page. It has free streaming of the whole album. I'll leave you with a live version of the title song "No Line on the Horizon."

Throw Down Your Heart

I just found out about this documentary coming out this Spring. In it, Bela Fleck (you should know him and his music if you do not) takes the banjo back to Africa, where it is believed this beautiful instrument originated, to play with African musicians from all over the continent.

There are not many instruments that "send the chills down my spine," as I heard Bill Monroe once say, like the banjo. Its history also interests me given that it was brought over by slaves and eventually became a core instrument of bluegrass, country, etc.

Murder Ballads

I like a good murder ballad. Why? Well, I'm feeling a little too brain dead to get into it right now (from a retreat with students, which was good)--maybe in a later post. In the meantime, why not enjoy this footage of one of my favorites--Gillian Welch and her partner, David Rawlings--singing "Caleb Meyer."



This next one I've written about before. Just listen to the next to the last verse if you find the song a bit unsettling and let the video play out until the end. Cash wrote this years before he recorded it with Rick Rubin.

Hurt

I pulled out my guitar tonight to strum a little. I was trying to figure out this one chord (I'm still pretty much an amateur after ten years of wielding my axe) in Johnny Cash's cover of Sting's "I Hung My Head". I found a site that provided the chord. I thought I was right: It was the D Minor I kept missing. As I perused the other songs, I found a link to the "Hurt" video--the one in which Cash covers the Nine Inch Nails song. I had never seen the video before; I had only heard about it. I was moved to tears...the juxtaposed footage of the young, confident Cash with the old, ailing Cash; his "House of Cash" museum--his "empire of dirt"--sitting vacant.

I think what moves me so much in Cash's music is his insistence upon the fact that one cannot escape the consequences of his actions (this is especially important in a culture where celebrity ethics are dominant--you know: you can cheat, steal, and sleep around, but you always have an out with the creation of a new image). It's apparent in "Hurt" and also in a song like "Delia's Gone." The tone of "Delia" is lighter than its content. The song is about the narrator's paying a visit to his lover in Memphis who's "low down and trifling/ And [...] cold and mean." After binding her to a chair, he shoots her in cold blood. The mood that the tune creates laid along side of the mood created by the words is chilling. Nevertheless, the murder isn't glorified in any sense. In his jail cell, the narrator sings, "But jailer, oh, jailer/ Jailer, I can't sleep/ 'Cause all around my bedside/ I hear the patter of Delia's feet." The song ends with this lesson: "So if you woman's devilish/ You can let her run/ Or you can bring her down/ and do her Like Delia got done/ Delia's gone, one more round/ Delia's gone."

However, this "lesson" has lost much of its effect in light of the narrator's inability to shake off the memory of his murdered lover. The dead are present in "Delia" and death is imminent in the "Hurt" video. This is the second reason I admire Cash's music. In his music, death is real but not glorified. From what I remember reading, the viewing of the "Hurt" video caused a hush to fall upon the crowd at the MTV music video awards in 2003, where Cash won for "Hurt." There is not much that can cause a hush in our culture anymore. As Christians, we are called to die to ourselves everyday. I think God knew that death would always hush the maddening crowds screaming for their rights and insistent upon their happiness above all else. Perhaps that's why he made it the means to life and perhaps that's why he calls his followers to it daily. You can click here to view Hurt.