Daily Rec [better than the Thermidorean Reaction]
So, I received an e-mail from E last night stating something like the following: “O Snapz, Kid. I jus’ dropped DA BOMB with my daily rec for tomorrow. Prepare to be embarassed by comparison.” Well, I’m not here to compete with my fellow writer. I think he’s done an excellent job all week, and this broadcasting of his insecure need to be the best demeans us both. The real purpose of the week is to share our mutual love for The Decemberists, and I’m going to continue along that path, unaffected by the sting of E’s virtual glove upon my cheek. Heisenberg might say that this is impossible, but if he’s so smart, why is he dead?
The above discussion is directly spurred by what happened today. As I headed in to work, I threw on my playlist comprised only of my favorite Decemberists songs. Along the way, I found today’s song and I discovered that it might actually turn out to be the song that’s most representative of what the band’s capabilities.
So, Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect. Let’s get this out of the way from the very beginning: this song is too dense for a complete analysis. I’m going to go with why it works for me, and if you’re so inclined, I hope you pitch in on the comments with your reading of the song.
The first verse is the narrator telling his lover about a dream in which he was a soldier in the midst of a carnival. For your reading pleasure:
And here I dreamt I was a soldier
And I marched the streets of Birkenau
And I recall in spring
The perfume that the air would bring
To the indolent town
Where the barkers call the moon down
The carnival was ringing loudly now
And just to lay with you
There’s nothing that I wouldn’t do
Save lay my rifle down
It’s all fairly straightforward. The narrator has had a dream that he’s a soldier in a town that’s awoken from its indolence by a spring carnival. But, it’s important to notice that, despite the joy that the carnival brings to the town, the narrator himself doesn’t get to take part. Instead, he’s shackled by his duties as a soldier while the rest of the town celebrates. In fact, he’s so dedicated to his soldiering that he won’t even leave his post to spend time with his girlfriend.
Cue the hook and verse two:
And try one, and try two
Guess it always comes down to
All right, it’s okay, guess it’s better to turn this way.
And I am nothing of a builder
But here I dreamt I was an architect
And I built this balustrade
To keep you home, to keep you safe
From the outside world
But the angles and the corners
Even though my work is unparalleled
They never seemed to meet
This structure fell about our feet
And we were free to go.
So, again the narrator is relating a dream. This time, he’s an architect, building a balustrade (think a railing or a bannister. But, for purposes of the song, think about it as a fence) that, despite his efforts to build a safe house for his love, broke down. Metaphorically, he’s clearly afraid of losing her, and his attempts to fence her in aren’t working. No matter how much effort he puts forth and how much attention he pays to his work, it is ultimately self-defeating. By using his feelings for her to fence her in, it ensures that he’ll ultimately end up pushing her away and destroying his carefully constructed house.
Chorus, and Verse three:
And here in Spain I am a Spaniard
I will be buried with my marionettes
Countess and courtesan
Have fallen beneath my tender hand
When their husbands were not around
But you, my soiled teenage girlfriend
Or are you furrowed like a lioness
And we are vagabonds
We travel without seatbelts on
We live this close to death
So, this verse, noticeably, does not indicate that it’s a dream. I’m not sure that means that it’s not a dream…the odd phrasing of the first line suggests to me that being a Spaniard in Spain is alien to the narrator. Regardless of whether this is a dream, the narrator is now describing a man who’s prone to risk-taking and flaunting society’s conventions. Sleeping with the wives of nobility is not the best way to ensure a long, happy life, nor is driving without seatbelts. The narrator himself recognizes that he’s living close to death. The fact that he’s got a teenage girlfriend (and a soiled one, at that) only adds to the suggestion that this is a man flaunting society’s conventions and unafraid to live how he wants.
Cue final chorus:
And try one, and try two
Guess it always comes down to
All right, it’s okay, guess it’s better to turn this
But I won, so you lose
Guess it always comes down to
All right, it’s okay, guess it’s better to turn this way
With all the lyrics out there, it’s time to lay out my theory of the song. I see this as the narrator laying out the story of how he came to give up on the concept of love. However, rather than tell us the story in anything resembling a straightforward story, he’s chosen to use his dreams as a metaphor.
This is actually pretty clear in verses one and two. Contrast the soldier in verse one, who puts his duty above his girlfriend with the architect in verse two who loses his lover when his attempts to keep her to himself fall apart. Neither verse explicitly states that the relationships in question ended, but the chorus suggests it strongly enough, with “try one, and try two, guess it always comes down to…”**
At the conclusion of try one and try two, our narrator has placed himself at both extremes of attention paid to his relationship and found that neither one works. So, whether verse three is a dream or not, it’s clearly present tense. He’s describing his life as it stands at the moment, even if he’s doing so metaphorically. Since he’s busy flaunting societal conventions and contemplating his death, it suggests to me that he’s done trying. He’s got a teenage girlfriend, potentially a pregnant one, and he’s just living for the moment, not caring about anything or anyone. This reading is supported by the modified final chorus, with its newly juvenile take on relationships, the “I won, so you lose” perspective.
So, that’s my reading on the song. I won’t claim it’s right, or that there even is a “right” reading of this song. It’s awfully dense, and anything that’s this filled with metaphor is begging to have new perspectives shine a light on it. But, I do believe that it’s this very quality that makes the song quintessentially Decemberistian. Each of the three verses manage to sketch out an interesting, quirky love story that’s rich with meaning and completely different from the other stories in the song. The level of skill involved in pulling this off and having each of the three stories as part of a malleable but clearly greater larger story is astonishing. Maybe moreso that any other song, Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect illustrates what makes Meloy such a special songwriter. ***
Tomorrow: Unquestionably the greatest Decemberists song!
* Birkenau was also the location of a Nazi concentration camp, but try as I might, I can’t see how using that fact to twist the first verse into being unbelievably dark does anything to advance the song.
** I love the homonymic nature of “try two”/”try to”
*** Also, this is exactly the kind of song I’d expect from the narrator of The Engine Driver…he’s writing the song to rid the pain from his bones.
I’ve never really done much close reading when it comes to Castaways and Cutouts, so both (or all three if we break out E’s two songs) of today’s selections were pretty enlightening. For a while, I was convinced that the songwriting was just weaker, in general, so I glossed over the words, but seeing the lyrics in print convinces me otherwise (although, I still prefer the later stuff, musically).
I think I’d be inclined to interpret the last verse as a dream, as well, mainly from a practical standpoint. There’s something about the language and setting that suggests someone who probably wouldn’t dream of being a soldier or an architect. And, as you mention there’s something alien about him being in Spain and a Spaniard.
Like “The Engine Driver,” I think we’re being presented with various fictional scenarios in the verses to help illustrate the somewhat ambiguous point of the chorus. Speaking of which, I love that Meloy adds to the ambiguity and his narrator’s character by nervously interrupting himself mid-thought with “alright”s and “okay”s.