And you may have my precious bones on my return

[sovay]

I don't know if the Decemberists' The Hazards of Love (2009) is a folk opera, a song cycle, an indie-rock concept album, or a universal truth, but it is a thicket of ballads and I delight in its existence. Essentially, the plot is an expansion of "The Drowned Lovers" (Child 216) to allow for the interweaving of "Tam Lin" and "Reynardine"—an enchanted lover, a murderous rake, a possessive queen, pregnancy, shape-shifting, child ghosts, the river's marriage bed; it may be possible to follow the narrative while unfamiliar with the tradition it was created from, but one of the album's chief pleasures lies in how these stories are braided to interact with one another, mother's malison and all. None of it sounds like Anne Briggs, of course. She's not so much with the prog and acid. But the lyrics can be formal and archaic enough to pass for Trad.; there may be some of the mad storm and skirling of Steeleye Span's "Twa Corbies" in songs like "The Queen's Rebuke / Crossing" and "The Hazards of Love 3 (Revenge!)" and neither Fairport Convention nor Archie Fisher would look totally askance at the tongue-twisting "The Hazards of Love 1 (The Prettiest Whistles Won't Wrestle the Thistles Undone)." The title track of this post, "Annan Water," is straight out of Nic Jones.* In short, I love that The Hazards of Love is a mainstream release, when in fact it's as obscure as an Alexandrian epyllion. Maybe it's the zeitgeist (in which case nineweaving's intrinsicate, folkloric, PW-praised Cloud & Ashes: Three Winter's Tales should sell a million copies and we'll all be happy). But even if not, I'm glad someone is writing Child-inflected strangeness with fawns and forests and missel thrushes and taiga; daemon lovers, promises. They're hazards worth hearing about.

* You know, the more I think about this album, the more I wonder if its closest taxonomical relative isn't Peter Bellamy's The Transports: A Ballad Opera (1977). The styles are not comparable, but the spirit is rather like; and if you think Colin Meloy sings wiry and nasal, check out Bellamy sometime.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I loved the murdered children's voices in "Revenge!" and--if there is a song in your possession that sounds like Annan Water, can I have it? Because that is, right now, my favorite track on the album.

I think Amazon should do one of those deals: "If you liked The Hazards of Love, you may also like Cloud & Ashes" (and vice versa).

[sovay]

and--if there is a song in your possession that sounds like Annan Water, can I have it?

Well, I sent you Kate Rusby's "The Drowned Lovers" and Cloudstreet's "Annan Waters" already, which is what I was thinking of; not so much sound as story. Nic Jones is responsible for unleashing both those ballads in their present forms, so I mention him. But if anything does remind me, you will be the first to find out.

I think Amazon should do one of those deals: "If you liked The Hazards of Love, you may also like Cloud & Ashes" (and vice versa).

Do you know anyone at Amazon.com? That would be brilliant.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yes, thank you so much for both of those! I should have edited the comment after you sent that second one!

I don't know anyone at Amazon... it's purely a wish... I wonder if there's a way to suggest it to them, though. Hmm. I'll look into it.