Six days at the bottom of the ocean: Man O' War

Explosions in the Sky is an indie band - instrumental, post rock - from Austin, Texas, and it has a marvelous talent for titling music. These are titles that give rise to stories, ideas, dreams - First breath after coma; The only moment we were alone; Where do you go home to?; The birth and death of the day; Welcome, ghosts; A poor man's memory; With tired eyes, tired minds, tired souls, we slept; Snow And lights; Glittering blackness; Time stops; Remember me as a time of day. The band's own name - Explosions in the Sky - makes you wonder. Do you picture bombs and black spiraling smoke? Fireworks? A celestial event?

For the past month, I've been listening to a piece of music from their album, "The earth is not a cold dead place." It's called "Six days at the bottom of the ocean" and it got me imagining the things I would see, or hope to see, if I could spend six days at the bottom of the ocean.

Sea creatures would be high on the list. There'd be the usual suspects - narwhales, giant squids, sea horses. And then the more mythical ones - Scylla, mermaids, leviathans of all kinds.

Or perhaps, a Portuguese Man O' War.

This is a song I found by chance, whose source I forgot quickly enough, but not its melancholic meandering metaphors. Is it a song about the scars of battles in Spain or about loneliness and displacement? Either way, I haven't seen song-writing of this caliber in a while. It's a sprawling, nearly epic song, but isn't outfitted to appear so. There's only a guitar, Bachmann's calm, assured vocals, and a woman singing in the background. Pared-down instruments, but what a journey they send you on.

"Man O' War" by Eric Bachmann

Floating in the cold water the ghosts of sorrow haunt the deep
Reaching down to drag the ruins and roam the lone deserted streets
Of an old abandoned temple buried in the narrow strait
Off the coast of Tarifa, Spain

Gypsies scatter through the desert across the Atlas Mountain Range
Hoarding remnants from the devil from the empire's iron reign
While cluttered down the mouths of rivers, widowed lovers bathe and clean
Silken scarves embroidered for their brand new Queen

And every time she rises up the ocean sinks
Her memory drags a drape of a thousand angry stings

And like the moon doesn't mind if the sun doesn't shine
The sea doesn't care if you're lonesome tonight
Like the love that she gives condescendingly tries
In its way to comfort you

Set adrift into her swarm-man o war
Caught up in her dangling sting-off the shore
Of a foreign brown sand beach as blue as bottles cover you

Many messengers and rebels have come and gone without a trace
And many more will come tomorrow and many more will be erased
Cause out beyond the docks of Rota upon the bottom of the sea
Along the miles of copper cable from the Gulf of Cadiz

They tap the lines to hear the sounds that start the songs the rebels sing
And drag a net to seine the bottom for the purse the bastards bring

And like a lion don't mind if a lamb takes her time
A beast doesn't care if you surrender tonight
Cause a beast knows she'll get what she wants in good time
What she wants all in good time

Set adrift into her swarm-man o war
Caught up in her dangling sting-off the shore
Of a foreign brown sand beach as blue bottles cover you

Posted by Monoceros at February 17, 2008 2:17 PM