Kleine Gottesgeschichten, Teil 2

Wem Brother, Sister zu sanft war, der darf sich über das nächste Album von mewithoutYou freuen, denn hier geht es eindeutig rockiger zur Sache. Was die bärtigen Jungs beibehalten haben, sind der ungewöhnliche Sprechgesang, die Abneigung gegen jeden Takt und jede übliche Regel der Musik – und natürlich die niedlichen Geschichtchen innerhalb der Songs.
Ach, und das Cover ist auch wieder sehr… speziell.

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Lesen auf Last.fm

Tracklisting

Ich hab ja schon angedeutet, dass dieses Album rockiger ist als das vorherige, und die kleinen Christen beweisen das auch direkt in den ersten zehn Minuten eindrucksvoll. Spätestens das treibende January 1979 sollte jeden ein bisschen mit dem Kopf nicken lassen.
Eine Anmerkung: Die Tracklist hier stimmt, die die oben auf dem Cover zu lesen ist, allerdings nicht. Wäre ja auch sinnlos, die Ballade Son Of A Widow schon als vorvorletztes Lied laufen zu lassen.

1. Torches Together


2. January 1979


3. Tie Me Up! Untie Me!


4. Leaf


5. Disaster Tourism


6. Seven Sisters


7. The Soviet


8. Paper Hanger


9. My Exit, Unfair


10. Four Word Letter (Pt. Two)


11. Carousels


12. Son Of A Widow

Mein Tipp!

Ich musste mich jetzt echt zusammenreißen, um nicht allen Tracks ein Herzchen zu geben, denn – wie so oft bei der Musik, die ich gern höre – das ganze Album hört sich wie aus einem Guss. Man hat das Gefühl, mewithoutYou hätten das komplette Album in einem Rutsch aufgenommen und bei jedem Song ein bisschen Power vom letzten mit rübergenommen.
Aber ich muss mich ja beschränken, also werde ich jetzt hier wieder nur zwei der besten Tracks vorstellen, was mir zumindest in einem Fall nicht schwer fällt.

January 1979

January, 1979. Saw a terrible crash and i couldn’t help but laugh,
As my ear pressed against the past like a glass on a wall of a house in a photograph.
My forehead no longer sweet with holy kisses worthy of your fiery lips.
I was floating in a peaceful sea ‘rescued’ by a sinking ship.

If I could become the servant of all, no lower place to fall. (If could be your servant)
If I could become the servant of all, no lower place to fall. (If I could be your servant)
If I could become the servant of all, no lower place to fall. (If could be your servant)
If I could become the servant of all, no lower place to fall. (If I could be your servant)

You watch me like a ten car highway wreck with detached, vulgar curiosity.
This looking down at the tops of the hats of us passers-by from your 7th floor balcony.
From such a height you missed creatures too small for sight carry on covert conversations.
And the misguided insects crown me their grasshopper king with a dance of celebration.

After years with a crown on my head, I’ve grown overfed, unconcerned and comfortably numb.
Kept busy indulging in the pleasures of the wealthy.
(Someone make me afraid of what I’ve become!)
At the first sign of possible sorrow, I turned my heels and ran.
(Oh, I’ll never learn.)
My life is a cup of sugar I’ve borrowed before time began and forgot to return.

It was a matter of time–I always said I could see so now I’m going blind. (I could be your servant)
It was a matter of time–I always said I could see so now I’m going blind. (If I could be your servant)
It was a matter of time–I always said I could see so now I’m going blind. (I could be your servant)
It was a matter of miserable time– but I heard somewhere there was a cure for useless eyes? (If I could be your servant)

Es ist kein Wunder, dass es davon so viele Live-Versionen bei Youtube zu finden gibt – haha, mewithoutYoutube, Wortwitz – bei der treibenden Kraft, die in dem Song steckt. Wer will, kann sich ja mal danach umschauen. Wer es allerdings lieber wieder etwas harmonischer hat, bleibt vielleicht lieber bei Carousels…

Carousels

On a bus ride into town
I wondered, “Why am I going to town?”
As I looked around
At the billboards and the stores
I thought, “Why do I look around?”
I got up and bowed
And I kissed the filthy ground
And in the first dry spot I found I laid back down
Without having to wonder
Why I was laying down

Before long I was too cold
And so I took a bus back to the station
I found a letter left by a pay phone
With no return contact
And it read like a horn blown
By some sad angel:
“Bunny, it was me
It was me who let you down”
It was the shyest attempt
I’d ever seen at conversation

And if I didnt have you as my guide
I’d still be wandering lost in Sinai
Counting the plates of cars from out of state
(How I could jump in their path as they hurry along!)
You surround me
You’re pretty but you’re all I can see
Like a thick fog
If there was no way into God
I would never have laid in this grave of a body
For so long

St. Cyril’s fair always came through
The first week of September
But it’s already the 19th
And there’s no sign of it yet
I have a hard time remembering
The things I should remember
And a hard time forgetting
All the things I should forget

Oh Christ, when you’re ready to come back
I think I’m ready for you to come back
But if you want to stay wherever exactly it is you are
That’s okay too -
It’s really none of my business

And if I didn’t have you as my guide
I’d still be wandering lost in Sinai
Or down by the tracks
Watching trains go by to remind me:
There are places that aren’t here
I had a well but all the water left
So I’ll ask for your forgiveness
With every breath
If there was no way into God
I would never have laid in this grave of a body
So long, dear

So eine tolle Ballade, die muss man auch einfach mal als Live-Version gesehen haben. Der Sänger Aaron Weiss wirkt so zerbrechlich, man kriegt fast Tränen in die Augen. Herrliche Musik, oder?

Kleine Gottesgeschichten, Teil 1

Das Erste, was einem auffällt, wenn man mewithoutYou hört, ist der ungewöhnliche Gesang. Es ist nämlich kein Gesang, sondern eher gesprochene Lyrik. Takte werden bewusst missachtet, Reime werden geschickt versteckt, Refrains sind kaum erkennbar. Und doch – irgendwie fesselt diese Art von Musik. Und so schwer es fällt, das zu glauben: Die Musik hört sich genauso an, wie das Cover aussieht.

Kaufen auf Amazon.de

Lesen auf Last.fm

Tracklisting

Was aber wirklich interessant ist: Die Lieder sind so völlig anders als das, was man sonst so kennt. Wenn bisher immer das Schema Vers 1, Refrain, Vers 2, Refrain, Bridge, Refrain galt, wird hier alles komplett untypisch angeordnet und auch so miteinander vermischt, dass man als nicht-aufmerksamer Hörer wahrscheinlich kaum noch hinterher kommt. Und jedes Lied ist eine kleine Geschichte für sich.

1. Messes Of Men


2. The Dryness And The Rain


3. Wolf Am I! (And Shadow)


4. Yellow Spider


5. A Glass Can Only Spill What It Contains


6. Nice And Blue (Pt. Two)


7. The Sun And The Moon


8. Orange Spider


9. C-Minor


10. In A Market Dimly Lit


11. O, Porcupine


12. Brownish Spider


13. In A Sweater Poorly Knit

Mein Tipp!

Am Liebsten höre ich mewithoutYou eigentlich zum Einschlafen, weil das Album mit dem genial-rockigen Schlaflied In A Sweater Poorly Knit beendet wird. Ich weiß nicht warum, aber ich kann da immer sanft entschlummern. Aber genug der Rede, hier meine Lieblingslieder.

A Glass Can Only Spill What It Contains

A cat came drifting onto my porch from the outside cold
And with eyes closed, drinking warm milk from my bowl
Thought,
“Nobody hears me! Nobody hears me!
As I crept in so soft
And nobody sees me! Nobody sees me!”
As I watched six steps off

Like peacocks wandering the walkways of the zoo
Who have twice the autonomy the giraffes and tigers do
Saying,
“No one can stop me! No one can stop me!
No one clips my claws.
Now everyone watch me! Everyone watch me
scale these outside walls!”

Oh you, pious and profane
Put away your praise and blame
Said, “A glass can only spill what it contains”
To the perpetually plain, the incurably inane
A glass can only spill what it contains

What new mystery is this?
What blessed backwardness?
The Immeasurable One is held and does not resist!
Struck by wicked words and foolish fists of senseless men
The Almighty One does not defend

I was halfway listening to what she thinks she knows
We’re like children dressing in our parents’ clothes
Saying,
“Nobody knows me. Nobody knows me.
No one knows my name.
Nobody knows me. Nobody knows me.
No, nobody knows me.”

I half-heartedly explained
But gave up peacefully ashamed
A glass can only spill what it contains
We went to Portugal and Spain
And in her mind the entire time it rained
A glass can only spill what it contains

What new mystery is this?
In overflowing emptiness
The Invisible is seen among the shadows and the mist
Before my doubting eyes the Infinite appears in time
The Unquestionable is questioned but makes no reply

What new mystery is this?
What new mystery is this?
What new mystery is this?
What new mystery is this?
What new mystery is this?
“My Rabbi!”
My lips betray with a kiss
What new mystery is this?

Die Geschichten von Katze und Pfau sind hierbei so schön harmonisch verpackt, dass ich mich richtig in das Szenario reindenken kann, auch wenn ich die Gottesliebe nicht mit den Jungs teilen kann, aber es klingt einfach klasse.

In A Sweater Poorly Knit

In a sweater poorly knit and an unsuspecting smile
Little moses drifts downstream in the Nile
A fumbling reply, an awkward rigid laugh
I’m carried helpless by my floating basket raft
Your flavor in my mind swings back and forth between
Sweet rhan any wine and bitter as mustard greens
Light and dark as honeydew and pumpernickel bread
The trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead!

As you plow some other field try and forget my name
See what harvest yields, and, supposing I’d do the same
I planted rows of peas but by the first week of July
They should have come up to my knees
But they were maybe ankle high
Take the fingers from your flute to weave your colored yarns
And boil down your fruit to preserves in mason jars
But now the books are overdueand the goats are underfed
The trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead!

You’re a door-without-a-key, a field-without-a-fence
You made a holy fool of me and I’ve thanked you ever since.
If she comes circling back we’ll end where we’d begun
Like two pennies on the train track the train crushed into one
Or if I’m a crown without a king, if I’m a broken open seed
If I come without a thing, then I come with all I need
No boat out in the blue, no place to rest your head,
The trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead!

I do not exist, only you exist.

Einfach fantastisch, die Harfe am Ende reißt es eigentlich noch doppelt raus, finde ich. Wer bei so sanften Klängen nicht gut einschlafen kann, der sollte sich vielleicht mal den Kopf freimachen. Wie wäre es dazu mit dem nächsten Album Catch For Us The Foxes?