Bonnie 'Prince' Billy (an alias of Will Oldham)'s I See a Darkness, 1999. This song-by-song account is a work in progress which will keep growing.
1. A Minor Place
It is the cheeriest of songs; a light way to begin an album with a mordant title and a mordant cover.
'I've been to a minor place/ and I can say I like it's face/ If I am gone and with no trace/ I will be in a minor place'.
How happily these lines scan! How happily they rhyme! Bonnie 'Prince' Billy is always on the side of the minor, of the little. Appropriate then it is to such a minor place to which he would disappear.
'Well I put the shoes in line/ Separate the women mine/ As we do what we do fine/ So victorious, so benign'.
A rhyme in every line, what joy! The first two lines are about order and discrimination. This is that and it is no other. There is a place for all things. This is not the order of the factory-farm, but a loving putting in place. The shoes in line against the wall. A sister, a mother, a lover, separated and in their place, without confusion. And all time is fine time; each triumphs and each triumphs in kindness and simple order.
The chorus comes again, and then:
'Only take the weather warm/ And the job that does me harm/ The scars of last year's storm/ Rest like maggots on my arm'.
All is well, but the singer asks to work no longer and for the weather to be made cooler. Perhaps the warm weather augurs the storm which scarred him. A scar which is active and moving - maggots writhe and move, but these maggots, too, rest on his arm.
The chorus again, still jaunty, still simple, and then:
'Thank you man if for the thought/ That all my loving can be bought/ Was wisely in your gullet caught/ Before my loyalty you sought'.
Beneficience; harmony. The singer celebrates the one who knows his love has no price. He thanks the one who might have thought otherwise, but who stopped himself before he spoke, coming to the singer with loyalty.
The chorus for a last time, then a reprise and a final verse:
'O it's not a desert nor a web/ Nor a tomb where I lay dead/ Minor in a sound alone/ yes a clear commanding tone'.
That was the reprise. The minor place is not the lonely expanse of the desert, nor is it the sticky web that entraps. It is not the tomb where the singer is dead. What is minor is the sound in its clarity and its strength. It is in sound the singer will rest. The minor place is a minor key or interval or scale; it is that minor work played on a minor scale.
'Singing from my little point/ And aching from my every joint/ I thank the world it will annoint me/ If I show it how I hold it'.
The word 'little' is always important for Will Oldham. He belongs on the side of the small, of those inconsiderable places others do not see. His is the smallest portion, the share deemed unimportant, the littlish animal or child. The little is the place from which he sings, that place he occupies, which is his and which he carries as he wanders. For the minor place is not a delimitable site, it belongs to Bonnie 'Prince' Billy (let us say it is him who sings this song, that it is about himself, that it is a little manifesto, a manifesto above the little) as a shadow (just as Bonnie 'Prince' Billy belongs to Will Oldham.
But the singer aches, too. He has expended effort. Perhaps it is his job which tires him, perhaps the warm weather or the threat of the storm. But he thanks the world that he is able to bear in song. He knows the world will thank him, too, for bearing him thus.
2. Nomadic Revery (All Around)
'Today was one where, lost in thought/ I really feel I am/ Losing not an ounce of what you see in me, my lamb'.
Rhymes again. The singer has been able to maintain what another loves in him. He was lost in thought, perhaps he achieved very little, perhaps no outputs resulted, but he has lost nothing of himself. The one he loves ('my lamb') need love him no less; he has held onto himself.
'If you're not with me tomorrow/ that would be the worst/ I'm glad I dream of what I dream of/ today a thing was burst'.
The singer is happy for his dreams. Lost in thought, losing nothing of himself, he fears only to lose the one he loves. Today something happened - what? - a bursting. A thing was burst: did it threaten to distract him from his daydreams? Is he pleased because it did not so distract him?
Chorus:
'O all around/ O all around/ It's kept together moving all around/ O all around/ O all around/ it's kept together moving all around'.
What is kept together? The singer's world? His love, his lover? Of that which he writes, it is held together in movement; it must move. Does it move in a circular movement, turning on itself like a star or a galaxy? Or does it move around something in the manner of the rings of Saturn?
'My brain it dreams, it's here at all/ And living, I must work/ To make our lives here justified/ And not let trouble lurk'.
The singer does not dream, he says, it is his brain that dreams. What curious self-detachment? Why does he distinguish himself from his brain. Meanwhile, he works, he needs to work, not for income - or at least not directly, but to maintain what is right and good. Trouble must not be allowed to prowl about. He works to avoid ambush, to protect himself and those around him from hidden forces. He is a protector.
'Instead of seeing monkey's biting/ I lay on the ground/ While my hectic travelling partner/ Wandered all around'.
Past tense. He is writing of what happened earlier - perhaps of the thing which 'burst'. He does not want to see the melee. He lies down while the one with whom he travels moves. He is lying, face turned to the ground, unwilling to move or to witness the struggle.
The chorus again. And then:
'O all around a left buttock/ And all around a right/ All around your every curve/ I'm going to go tonight'.
Tonight after work, after thoughts and daydreams, after the great effort to preserve himself as himself and as the one his lover loves, there will be time for love.
'But only hold me, hold me/ All the city's on me/ And all they wish to scold me/ And lay their hands upon me/ So only hold hold me/ And I'll return't you baby/ I just need an evening/ With someone nice to hide me'.
The monkey's biting, the thing that was burst: all this speaks of the ones the singer feels threatened by. He wants solace, peace, a little respite. He wants to be held and hidden from the city. He wants protection.
The chorus comes again. But why is the song called Nomadic Revery (All Around)? The dream of someone who moves? Certainly there is reference to a travelling partner. But there is a sense of protectiveness, of that space to which he comes to his lover. That place of safety and recuperation to which he returns that evening.
3. I See a Darkness
It's my favourite song. We used to play it in the office last summer and R.M. would sing harmonies. Then we happened on Johnny Cash's cover on the tropical island we stayed on over Christmas and we listened to it there, too passing between the rooms of a condominium so large it took time to get from one end to the other (I used to take a rucksack when I made such journeys).
'Well you're my friend/ (It's what you told me)/ And you can see/ (What's inside of me)'.
The phrases in brackets are backing vocals.
'Many times we've been out drinking/ And many times we've shared our thoughts/ But did you ever, ever notice/ The kind of thoughts I got?'
It's a long verse, steadily building. One man talks of his friendship with another. But now the ominious tone. He's the narrators friend - that's what he told him. And no doubt he thinks he can see what's inside his friend. But can he? Has he ever noticed the thoughts the narrator has?
'Well you know I have a love/ A love for everyone I know/ And you know I have a drive/ To live I won't let go'.
This lifts the song again, but the long verse winds on. Where is the chorus?
'But you can see it's opposition/ Come's a-rising up sometimes/ That it's dreadful imposition/ Comes blacking in my mind'.
Love is opposed to hate and the will to live to a will to die. So it is that hatred and death rises up in the narrator, blacking his mind. These are his thoughts, full of dread. Now, at last, the chorus:
'And that I see a darkness/ And that I see a darkness/ And that I see a darkness/ And that I see a darkness/ And do you know how much I love you/ In a hope that somehow you you/ Can save me from this darkness'.
He no longer sees the ones he loves. His seeing is a seeing of love or of life. His sight is blackened; he is not blind, but sees darkness. Darkness is what he sees even as his love for his friend is a hope for light. He loves his friend in his hope for light. To be saved from darkness.
Now a verse of incomporable beauty that I like to sing.
'Well I hope that someday, buddy/ We have peace in our lives/ Together or apart/ Alone or with our wives/ That we can stop our whoring/ and pull the smiles inside/ and light it up forever/ and never go to sleep/ My best unbeaten brother/ This isn't all I see'.
It builds up again to the chorus. What does he want, the narrator? For a future, for a peaceful life, happy in the world. Now the smiles of him and his friends will be pulled inside. No longer smiling on the surface, no longer a smile which meets the world, but a smile drawn into the darkness it now lights up. No more whoring and no more sleep. Only the day, the day inside, the brightness of the day in the darkness of what he sees.
The chorus comes again, very strongly. It is sung against the present and against darkness. It is sung from love and from life, holding out against hatred and death. It is a song of light against darkness, sung from that strength which has not collapsed in darkness. And a song of companionship, sung of his friend and of his friendship as it is a friendship shared in hope.
4. Another Day Full of Dread
'I like to have a good time/ Any of my friends will tell you/ So if you confront me with stupidity/ I'm doubly angry with you'.
The singer is good-humoured and happy to be with others. Stupidity, then, is doubly unwelcomed, for the singer did nothing to earn it. He's angry twice over, his anger is redoubled because of his desire for fun.
A long chorus:
'And I say: nip! nap! it's all a trap/ Bo! bis! and so was this/ Whoa! Whoa! to haiti go/ and watch it all come down/ Ding! Dong! a silly song/ Sure do say something's wrong/ Smile awhile, forget the bile/ And watch it all come down'.
If this is a silly song, it's one sung seriously, as though silliness itself was a task, and had to be earned. Smile; do not rest what is wrong. Let it come down; do not hate it. Yes, it is wrong, but know this happy in your silliness. Sing along.
'So I become more lively/ to bury all of the ugly/ whole persons sometimes/ Must be them bodies buried'.
Strange slang - them bodies. He speaks as one who is not in charge of the official grammar. He has his own idiom. So I became ... it follows from the chorus, from what is coming down and from the struggle for silliness that the ugly must be buried. Who are they? Sometimes whole persons - and at other times, one presumes, parts of persons, smaller things, must be buried. And the singer will bury them.
Chorus, and then reprise:
'And I toe the water/ And an urchin poke me/ An' I must be godfather/ To anyone who'll have me'.
He sticks a toe in the water. An urchin - but why not a child, why this older word? - pokes him. But he is willing to be a godfather, one who provides care or support for others, for all urchins. He wants to look after or protect.
'Today was another day full of dread/ But I never said I was afraid/ dread and fear should not be confused/ By dread I'm inspired, by fear I'm amused'.
That was the reprise, which follows a guitar solo. Today - but we have learnt nothing of what happened in his day - he was full of the dread which inspires him. He is immune to dread in some sense - is it because of his song and the silliness of his song, which is sung so seriously? He is immune to dread and to fear.
5. Death to Everyone
'I am here, right here/ Where god puts none asunder/ And you, in black dress and black shoe, you do invite me under'.
The singer is in a place without separation. The seductress invites him away from that place. She wears black and she asks him to go under. The one in black dress and shoe is death, inviting the singer to die.
'You can see me aging/ Stars turn, balls burn/ Coming kids are raging'.
The cosmos changes. Stars wheel above him. The singer ages in the instant. The ones who come are full of rage. They are children and he is aging. Death knows what the singer's aging means. And the singer knows by knowing death that time will pass and others, the young ones, will arrive.
Now the chorus:
'Death to everyone is gonna come/ And it makes hosing much more fun/ Death to everyone is gonna come/ And it makes hosing much more fun'.
But death will come to everyone, even to the 'kids'. And as it comes it means 'hosing' - sex - is more fun. Sex takes place in the face of death. Yet death, too, is presented as a seductress. Perhaps to have sex is a way of fucking death, of fucking death over even as death must win in the end.
'Every terrible thing is a relief/ Even months on end buried in grief/ Are easy light times which have to end/ With the coming of your death, friend'.
The friend's terrible death is a relief, ending the grieving that has engulfed the singer for months. A relief which is terrible and far worse than grief. Now the chorus again.
'So strap me on and raise me high/ Cause buddy I'm not afraid to die/ But life is long and it's tremendous/ And we're glad that you're here with us/ And since we know an end will come/ It makes our living fun'.
The friend is dead and now the singer's unafraid of death. He grieved while his friend was alive (a long illness?); now his death has had done with the singer's grief. The singer, too, could die, but he's unafraid. Now life too seems tremendous as it is lived in the face of death.
Now the reprise:
'Death to me and death to you/ Tell me what else can we do die do/ Death to all and death to each/ Our own god-bottle's within reach'.
God-bottle? Does this mean a draft of death, something that can be drunk? Then does death belong to God? Is death a way to go unto God? Perhaps it is to God that the singer know his friend has gone. And hosing, too, would be of God.
6. Knockturne
A simple song, three verses, which you might pass over listening to the album.
'Fire burned and blew out flowers/ Showing me its comely powers/ Still and all it would be hours/ Before I would get burned'.
What does it mean to blow out a flower? Does the fire rage through a garden? Either way, it is pleasing to the eye. It is becoming and decorous. The singer is safe from the fire. 'Still and all' - what a curious locution.
'Someone mawed and put my cock in/ Corner-eyed I saw it lock it/ Twisters rolled but no-one walked in/ And only love was learned'.
'Mawed' - a word that suggests the stomach, the gullet or the throat of a beast (the maw), but you can also hear mewed in this word: the sound of a cat. The singer 'put my cock in' - no 'I' as the agent of the action; it occurs. Corner-eyed - is this a dense way of singing, from the corner of my eye? But what is the it that locks? His cock? The one who maws? And what is locked? Now there are twisters - not one but many. No one comes. But through all these events, each pressed upon one another, 'only love was learned'. What mystery!
'Now I truly love you wholly/ No-one else could e'er have stole me/ And the world so far below me/ For ye and me it turned'.
Wonderful archaisms again. Love is now whole - why now? After the event of the fire and the mawing. After the twisters came. Only now is love whole, that is to say, hale and holy. Love is complete and completes itself. The world turns now for the lovers. It is a spectacle to delight the lovers.
What, though of the mysterious title? A nocturne is usually a dreamy piece of music. The knock is what comes at the door. A dream that knocks? An unbidden dream that seeks entry?
7. Madeleine -Mary
'Sing a song of Madeleine-Mary/ A tune that all can carry/ Burly says if we don't sing/ Then we won't have anything'.
The singer commands us to sing, and perhaps to sing with him in a tune so simple all of us can sing. And it is a simple tone, folk-like. The singer is advised that singing is necessary.
'All the boys on ship set sail/ And the mate was Madeleine-Mary/ When her eyes did fill with tears it was extraordinary/ it was extraordinary'.
The last two lines stretched out and plaintive.
'For we none of us could see it/ For she kept herself kept below/ And all her feelings private'.
Then it is extraordinary to hear this doubly-named individual sing. Her privacy is broken.
The chorus comes again.
'None of us could get a glimpse/ But of all us did want it/ At night above our sleeping heads/ Our sleeping dreams were haunted'.
They all wanted to see her tears, but they could not. Is it with tears with which their dreams were haunted?
'So now my kids you'd like to hear/ Of one who reached and got her/ Well if there was well I think/ He sleeps beneath the water'.
She must have fell into the sea, or have been claimed by someone there, some sea-monster. The singer addresses the kids - one of Will Oldham's favourite words - the ones who come after, who have asked to hear of Madeleine-Mary, the only woman on board the ship. Beneath the water, on the sea bed, is where he took her.
8. Song for the New Breed
Another song of horror and hope. The lyrics are written by Dianne Bellino.
'Your little feet/ your sharp teeth/ The way the light hits your eyes/ Your scrappy fur/ Your fists/ The light from the lord that shines inside'.
Of what is the narrator singing? A cat, you might imagine, but then comes the phrase 'your fists'. A cat does not have fists.
'Inside of me', then, rising to a falsetto: 'Something is growing/ something is growing/ Someone is showing'.
The beast grows inside him. Its feet, teeth and fur are growing inside him. His soft places have been invaded with hardness and sharpness. It grows.
Now the chorus: 'Sing a song for the new breed/ Inside of me'. This is a song for what is growing inside him. He commands himself to sing and asks us to sing for the coming breed.
'Your deep growl/ Your high whine/ The uneven way that you move/ Your pure heart/ Your love/ The Lord made you to prove something'.
From where does the new breed come? Why it is necessary? The Lord is trying to prove something, perhaps to test himself or to test humankind. The ones who come is different from the rest. The ones who are coming are creatures of God but they move unevenly, growling low and whining high. But they love and their hearts are pure. Perhaps they are pure in the manner an eagle is pure. Perhaps they have the innocence of birds of prey or of Nietzsche's masters.
But the new breed are small. Perhaps we, like the narrator, are each to birth the new breed. Perhaps he sees them in each of us, the beasts we will become, the beasts that will replace us. Will Oldham is always close to animals and to becoming-animal.
Now the 'Inside of me' refrain and the chorus one more time.
9. Today I was an Evil One
'Tonight my eyes were hurting much/ as I had strained them all day long/ I don't remember waking up/ My memory is not all that strong'.
10. Black
This is the penultimate song. Just Will Oldham and guitar.
'Black, you are my enemy/ And I cannot get close to thee/ Our life is ruled by enmity/ And I can't weaken that'.
Is black a name? Is it a colour, or the absence of colours, or as the narrator of Smog's The Well sings, all colours at once? The singer cannot come close to black (capital B or small b); enmity is the law; he has an enemy and must accept that. Does the 'Our' here refer to all of us, all humans, all life, or to he and black?
'The only way that I can see/ Is to hold you close to me/ To love you for it's meant to be/ I weaken your attack'.
To love black, the enemy in his enmity, to respect the law of enmity but to love the agent of enmity: this is the only escape that presents itself to the singer. But an escape that requires he come close to black, that black is held close.
'Everything was lucked and downy/ What was good was up from under/ Until black, that awful tender/ Came and popped my sense of wonder'.
The good filled everything; the world was full of luck, there was the happy chance and strength of wonder in the downy place, the comfortable place that black invaded. The world itself was lucked, it gave luck and it was lucked; luck had been given to it by the good. But black came, tenderly.
'All at once my eyes turned at him/ Leaving me an unwatched body/ And it sagged, my body's trip cage/ Out from under ogler's study'.
The singer's eyes are absorbed by black. But now he is danger, for he is not watching himself. He drops his guard; his body is unwatched.
'Black was decomposing quickly/ This was found offensive to me/ His disrespect for life's proprieties/ Made me scared he would destroy me'.
Black decomposes; he breaks down. But perhaps black just is this breaking down, the falling apart of the narrator's body that happens when it is unwatched. The singer's distracted by black; he does not watch himself. And now he is scared he will be destroyed, that the old enemy will destroy what is proper and what belongs to life. He is danger, and he sings the chorus again.
'So I thought I'd try to cut him/ Try to force him 'neath my level/ The only way to equal him/ would be to hit him with a shovel'.
A course of action had been decided. How else to allow the good to rise from under than to banish black to that place under?
'But to really rise above him/ That would be the final evil/ So instead I asked the sucked/ If he'd care to see my rooms/ And as a friend and as a comrade/ And all the things that these implied/ I made him leave leave what it was that he had/ Use to keep us unallied'.
The singer's ruse is to embrace black, to bring him yet close, showing him his living quarters as he would a friend or comrade. He would make an ally of his enemy.
The chorus comes again. And then:
'Now black and I we are together/ Farily just inseparable/ And in the terriblest of weather/ Our bonds are incorruptible'.
This is the last verse. The enemies are friends. Or friendship is a friendship of enemies, an alliance which sees both through the worst. But when the chorus comes for a final time you wonder whether good or black is above and which one is under.
