|
|
|
|
|
|
HOME | ABOUT | BIOS | EMAIL |
|
 |
| |
Friday, August 05, 2005
A PAIR OF BROWN EYES
The Pogues
Rum, Sodomy, & The Lash
WEA/Pogue Mahone : 1985
[Buy It]
I have no experience of war, and am humbled by the thought of it. But there is a song I think of when war occurs to me.
"A Pair of Brown Eyes" is the fourth song on the Pogues second album, "Rum, Sodomy, & The Lash," which takes its name from Churchill's take on the Royal Navy. The album was produced by Elvis Costello and released twenty years ago - though never, to the best of my knowledge, in the US. It is the band's most traditional work, perfectly-formed and timeless. But "A Pair of Brown Eyes" was my favorite song long before I knew who the Pogues were, and I'm still a bit in awe of it.
I heard it when I was 17, when a friend included it on a mixtape I've since lost. Fifteen years later, I've listened the song so many times - the things that come to mind now I only felt back then. There are cinematic songs out there. Others seem to hand you a telescope (you can almost count the nails and nickels some of Springsteen's people carry around in their pockets). Here, the scene begins in a bar, with Shane MacGowan's self-obliteration jammed up against a simpler, drunken nostalgia:
One summer evening drunk to hell
I sat there nearly lifeless
An old man in the corner sang
"Where the water lilies grow"
A jukebox in the corner kicks in, and Johnny Cash- the third singer we've heard so far, if we count the old man and MacGowan himself - sings an even simpler song:
And on the jukebox Johnny
Sang about a thing called love
And a conversation begins:
And it's "how are you kid and what's your name?"
And "how'd you bloody know?"
Suddenly, the scene shifts to something out of Flanders Field:
"In blood and death 'neath a screaming sky
I lay down on the ground
The camera zooms in close:
And the arms and legs of other men
Were scattered all around
and closer:
Some cursed, some prayed, some prayed then cursed
Then prayed and bled some more
before pulling back:
And the only thing that I could see
Was a pair of brown eyes that was looking at me
But when we got back, labeled parts one to three
There was no pair of brown eyes waiting for me"
and into the present tense:
I looked at him he looked at me.
All I could do was hate him
The old man's song is horrific - a sudden burst of violence and, as if in war, the language itself breaks down (isn't "some cursed, some prayed, some prayed then cursed/then prayed and bled some more" almost funny at first?). To make it worse, we've got Johnny's illusive "thing called love", the old man's elusive "pair of brown eyes" - love takes a hard hit in this song, but the singer's contempt is harder. True, there's a certain bit of identification going on:
While Ray and Philomena sang
Of my elusive dream
I saw the streams, the rolling hills
Where his brown eyes were waiting
And I thought about a pair of brown eyes
That waited once for me
But a few lines later, there's a certain amount if identification going on with brick walls:
So drunk to hell I left the place
Sometimes crawling sometimes walking
A hungry sound came across the breeze
So I gave the walls a talking
We do get a bit of a reprieve - a long last shot that's as flowery as anything Johnny, Ray, and the mythopoetic Philamena would sing:
And I heard the sounds of long ago
From the old canal
And the birds were whistling in the trees
Where the wind was gently laughing
But the only real light comes from the fact people still find reasons to sing, and not shoot themselves:
And a rovin' a rovin' a rovin' I'll go
For a pair of brown eyesLabels: alex
posted by Alex
LINK |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
