So the first Swamp Baby CD has been out in the world for a couple of weeks now, finding its hand into the hands and ears of both stalwart friends and family, and those wonderful people who have never heard of little Swampy before. We are in the midst of planning a Special Event (or two) to properly celebrate all the hard work that went in to the record, not only from the band members, but the Uber-talented people who helped us package, master and produce it for physical and digital release- that will happen in due time.
Economy of the Unlost, by Anne Carson
Til then, I (‘I’ in this case being Bernie Frogmouth – when Turtleman returns, he too shall have his say) think it would be helpful to give a little background on each of the tunes on said platter of wonder, in order to bring it down into the mud and dirt from whence it sprang. All Fours can seem a little foreboding at first, heavy and heady – take the first track for instance, “Economy of the Unlost” – what the hell does “unlost” mean anyway?
Well, to tell it plainly, the phrase ‘Economy of the Unlost’ comes from the work of poet and scholar Anne Carson. Nick Turtleman discovered her when he went back to SUNY Albany to finish up his Bachelor’s (he wound up being Valedictorian of the English Dept. , natch, but his tale of dinner with William Kennedy will have to wait for another installation).
poet/scholar/genius Anne Carson
Being unlost has something to do with memory, and that space between retrieval and void. Kind of a threshold area that we often live in, an area we might find uncomfortable at first. Let’s take a look at Nick’s lyrics (what follows is my interpretation, not Nick’s):
I shot the Moon – DOA on the lake
I shot the breeze – asleep in Summer trees
Economy of the unlost – tie my shoes, 1, 2
Scares the daylights out
This brings to mind a sense of being unmoored – the protagonist/narrator is hyperaware of all around him, down to the wind moving the blades of grass beneath his feet. This isn’t necessarily good or bad – it just is.
I saw a snake, a sneak in the grass
I covered it with my laugh out loud
The Ourobouros archetype, as depicted by the Aztecs
Part of Anne Carson’s book is a study of two poets (in this case, the ancient Greek Simonides of Keos, and the modern Romanian poet Paul Celan), and how they try to wrestle the ineffable into words. This song, and I’d say much of All Fours, is about much the same thing. Songs shouldn’t have to be about something, or at most,they may be a way to explore or evoke a feeling. But Nick has a way of putting things rather simply on the face of things, but with a world of weight behind them. Much like the world we live in.
Swamp Baby recorded this song, like much of the album, in a configuration where all members faced each other, in a diamond shape, about equidistant apart. This was about the second time we ever played this as a group – the first time we ever played it was in my kitchen in the old State Street apartment. Nick is still in love with what I came up with in that kitchen, something I only approximated when it came to record in the Temple.
Bernie Frogmouth, during the All Fours sessions
Nick would repeatedly tell us to play our instruments like they were another instrument – for instance, instead of thinking of my Fender Telecaster as a guitar, I would often think of it as some grandiose wind or brass instrument with incredible range – hence the gumption to play that dropped Eb with such force, then assay the high notes as if they were trumpets on fanfare. (that might have been a Db, since you never quite know what key Nick’s “Stevie Wander” acoustic will be in on any given moment).
Upon listening back, we always thought “Economy” had the feel of fresh things, new starts – it isn’t the catchiest, most bumping track Swamp Baby will ever produce, but it sets a mood, hence the choice to have it open the record. In its abstract frame, it leaves one with a sense that all is possible – that we can look at things in a new, slightly skewed way.
In the next installment of The Annotated All Fours, we’ll take a look at the cover, and the painting by Carl Jung that helped inspire the idea behind it.
