Head full of sermons, mouth full of spiders.

Some musicological notes that are interesting to me, but may not be given a damn by you.
On Sinead O'Connor's masterful album of traditional Irish music, she enchants the lyrics and melody of the tale of Lord Franklin and his doomed expedition to the North Pole. Her voice is as haunting as the spectres of Lord Franklin's seafarers traipsing upon the Arctic waves, and I've rarely heard anything as beautiful. What really caught my attention though, is its melodic and lyrical similarity to "Bob Dylan's Dream," from the "Freewheelin'". For instance:

Lord Franklin:
We were homeward bound one night on the deep
Swinging in my hammock I fell asleep
I dreamed a dream and I thought it true
Concerning Franklin and his gallant crew


Bob Dylan's Dream:
While riding on a train going west
I fell asleep for to take my rest
I dreamed a dream, that made me sad
Concerning myself, and the first few friends I had

and

Lord Franklin:
And now my burden it gives me pain
For my Lord Franklin I'd sail the main
Ten thousand pounds I would freely give
To know Lord Franklin and where he is

Bob Dylan's Dream:
I wish, I wish, I wish in vain
That we could sit simply in that room again
Ten thousand dollars at the drop of a hat
I'd give it all gladly, if our lives could be like that


I don't usually catch these things, so I'm kind of proud of myself. Bound up in the folkways that have traversed the North Atlantic (from Dublin to Hibbing, MN and back again) is a treasure trove of history, people, and sound. Having the opportunity to scratch the surface by comparing these two songs is quite thrilling, actually.

The songs also reminded me that what's lacking in contemporary music is a healthy sense of place. O'Connor's song evokes Ireland and the North Atlantic, and I find myself wistful for those places, even though I've never been. Dylan's song depicts a landscape much more familiar to me, namely the American midwest. Both songs evoke their respective regions subtly and gently. They don't give too much away, and the resulting allure is palpable.

Place or region is still in a lot of music, I guess, but it's not as central to the music like it used to be. When place is expressed, it's usually engulfed in a moronic inferno of jingoistic superiority. Take, for instance, Brooks n' Dunn's "Only in America," or Toby Keith's "Angry American." Remember the East Coast vs. West Coast rap battle? Those evocations weren't subtle, well crafted or even artistic. They don't foster an allure or arouse a curiosity about those regions. They're manipulative and tyrannical, force-feeding a "love it or leave it" mentality into the listener's ears that should effectively squelch any possibility of emotional resonance or attraction. Yet the masses gobble it up, perhaps because so many of us find ourselves in the failed public spaces of American cities. It's hard to know how to appreciate the space you're in when your space looks ever more like a million other places all over America. Thus, we need someone to tell us what to love about the places in which we find ourselves.

For music to have that sense of place, it must originate in places that have a quality worth being lionized in a song. Thanks to Wal-Mart, McDonald's and the assorted junk-architecture of a million other viral corporations, those sorts of places are increasingly harder to find.