(Podcast show notes are in the post before this one)
Denison Witmer, "Life Before Aesthetics" (Thanks to Largehearted Boy for the link)
Oh good. Denison Witmer already acknowledges that his music reflects such songwriters as Jackson Browne, Carole King, and I would say Dan Fogelburg (though his bio doesn't mention that artist). I grew up listening to that music, and that music makes up a good portion of the fabric of my being. I already have a special affinity for folk singers, which is why I took to this song so quickly. I hear the optimism integral to those older songs, but like earlier singer-songwriters, Witmer doesn't infuse false optimism or fake sentiment into his songs. It's honest optimism--something that can seem like an oxymoron in this day, but it doesn't have to be. He's more interested in truly felt experiences than soundbites: He'd rather watch "the mountains in the spring" and "hear the oceans as they sing". He "wades into the sound as if [he] never drowned..." Innocence isn't never having experienced anything. It's carrying on without the weight of pain.
Website
Myspace
Denison Witmer is in a hurry to experience life
Whitely, "All I Wanted" (Not a direct link--goes to Whitely's Daytrotter page)
Whitely is a young man...22 years old. However, from this song, you'd think the man had experienced lifetimes. Lifetimes of loss, it seems. His father "trembled" and is "dead and gone", and with it, his home. The singer was a soldier "who hadn't killed yet". His "gun was clean". That imagery speaks powerfully to innocence on the verge of being lost. His friend, a soldier also, is "dead and gone". Alot of death in this person's life...He (presumably metaphorically) kills his first love. He's "running, blood on [his] hands," but he doesn't want to run--all he "ever wanted was a home". If I met this person, I would wish him luck in this endeavor. Everyone needs a home. Not just the lyrics are traumatizing: the way in which he sings these sad lyrics is equally as moving. There's a trembling to his singing and to his guitar picking. His voice sounds weathered, labored. Tired. Though the situations are most likely metaphorical (I doubt he actually did go to war), I can hear the fear, the remorse, and the sense of loss in his voice. I think his point is that we're all soldiers, trampling through this life, looking for peace and salvation.
Website
Myspace
Whitely is a young old man
Crooked Fingers, "Crowned in Chrome" (Not a direct link--leads to their Daytrotter page. And actually, looking at their website, I'm realizing this is not a new song. This song is actually 8 years old. Oh well. It's retro!)
This song is as tense as a tightwire. From the terse plucks of the guitar, to the sneaking, quietly disquieting voice, to the beautifully manic violin, this song wears the veil of calming beauty, but undearneath is the roiling fire of the earth at its beginning. No cover of niceties. Perhaps that's most evident from the lyrics: he says he "took a ride in the wrong direction", went "down into a twisted dark dissension". He also seems to be courting this despair: he's "shaking with the hand that wants to cheat him". These are the words of a person who is in between two states of being: that of victim and of victor. He's trying to cut these ties; cut the tension. He's trying to unbind himself: "Darknesss froze as all the hooks got disconnected". He won't come out unscathed, though: tension leaves its mark. You can't come out of a personal hell without scars and burns, particulary when you've been "butchered underneath a broken light". Ow. I think I need to go listen to the first two songs as a chaser.
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Crooked Fingers send one guy out ahead to study this curious thing called "camera"
