DBT Tracks #62: The Monument Valley
Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2011 11:47 pm
So this was shaping up to be perfect. Right as I was settling down to write this, Patterson Hood posted his note on "Buttholeville", a song about striking out from, and against, the non-comforts of home. He even used the same John Ford quote that he used in "The Monument Valley". And there, right up at the top of this thread, was last week's track: "Buttholeville".
Too good to be true, of course. Last week's track was "Life in the Factory". "Buttholeville" was at the top only because Patterson had just posted about it elsewhere. And therein he wrote (and I knew already, dammit), that "Buttholeville" wasn't about his own home but about the Buttholeville state of mind. Way to kill my buzz, dude. I'm writing this cold sober.
And I must admit up front that I know next to nothing about The Great Director, John Ford. I know more about the great playwright, John Ford, and a whole lot more than that about the great novelist, John Ford, but bupkis about the director and his movies, except that he created the western, and later on ended the western with The Searchers, only to have other directors create the western all over again. And I know from the career of the novelist John Ford that slotting art works into genre categories is a marketer's work and a fool's game. So I'm going to miss a lot of what's in this song, just like I miss a lot of what's in "Slapped Actress", the Hold Steady song about John Cassavetes, the one Craig Finn wrote to end an album, just as Patterson wrote this one to end an album, the two albums those two bands toured together behind on the tour when I first saw them.
But as a great man once said, it's too late to stop now. Onward:
It's all about where you put the horizon
Said the Great John Ford to the young man rising
You got to frame it just right and have some luck of course
And it helps to have a tall man sitting on the horse
Tell them just enough to still leave them some mystery
A grasp of the ironic nature of history
A man turns his back on the comforts of home
The Monument Valley to ride off alone
And when the dust all settles and the story is told
History is made by the side of the road
By the men and women that can persevere
And rage through the storm, no matter how severe
And whether it's a horse or a car or a train
There's gonna be some fine times and there's gonna be some pain
In the end it's a silhouette framed by the sun
And just The Monument Valley when the evening comes
It's a strong wind blowing on the open range
It's gonna be beautiful and it's gonna be strange
It's where to plant the camera and when to say action
When to print the legend and when to leave the facts in
And when to turn your back on the comforts of home
And wander round The Monument Valley alone
More than any other Patterson song, even more than "A World of Hurt", I'm needing to hear this one live. Let me take it apart. Probably I'm going to break it. But you have your own.
That first verse, it sets the song up. It gives us the frame to look through. But--"You got to frame it just right"--it being the horizon, right?--"It's all about where you put the horizon"--yes, you can frame the horizon, but really, you can't put it anywhere. Wherever you are, the horizon is Out There, always. It's the exact opposite of The Edge, which you only find by going over it. Personal knowledge. Experience. Gnosis. One goes over The Edge oneself, but one sees others go over the horizon. Are they going over? How can you know without being there with them? If they come back and tell you, can you believe it?
Tell them just enough to still leave them some mystery
A grasp of the ironic nature of history
Is that really how Patterson sings it on the record? I'm not where I can listen to it right now, but I don't hear "just" or "still" in my head when I hear that song. That first line stumbles, just a little, and then the second line fits onto the rhythm precisely, in a way more typical of Cooley ("They turned what was into something so disgusting even wild dogs would disregard the bones") or Isbell ("They said that he was moving at a federal level but they couldn't really make it stick"). No matter. It's a beautiful couplet no matter how that first line scans.
And then we get to the refrain:
A man turns his back on the comforts of home
The Monument Valley to ride off alone
That's what the director shows us. This first verse gives us the director explaining his art, and tops it off with those two lines. We see what the man sees, what the director shows us, The Monument Valley. That's the ending, but not yet the end.
The second verse drops us into the history
made by the side of the road
By the men and women that can persevere
And rage through the storm, no matter how severe
I don't like that last line. "Range through the storm" would be better. But I don't see any way around ending the line before with persevere, either, so let's let it lay and look at what's great about this verse. Look at the scope of it, how wide a field it covers! Those of us who, like the John Ford who directed The Searchers (I am told), have grown sensitive to those other heroes, those secret heroes of the western, the Indians, will find they, too, made history by the side of the road. It's universal, this part of the lyric, it contains multitudes, their fine times and their pains, and the refrain that shows us what they see, again, The Monument Valley.
And then that third verse. This is the writer, speaking to us direct. This is what he knows:
where to plant the camera and when to say action
When to print the legend and when to leave the facts in
When to roll the credits, how to revel in the everyday. This is what Patterson sees:
when to turn your back on the comforts of home
And wander round The Monument Valley alone
The "comforts of home" isn't some cheap-ass coked-up eighties irony. It's honest-to-god comfort, and it hurts to leave it, by a horse or a car or a train or a tour bus. And you must leave it and you may not make it back and even if you do it may not be there any more and even if it is it might have turned to shit while you were away on business. That's the mirror image, the negative of "Buttholeville". "Buttholeville" lets go and flees. "The Monument Valley" leaves slowly, regretfully, even as it grasps at what it can't hold.
This album, Brighter Than Creation's Dark, was different from the albums that came before it, less rocking, more meditative, certainly for Patterson. "Two Daughters and a Wife". "Daddy Needs A Drink". "The Opening Act". "The Monument Valley". The two albums that came after it were even more different from the albums which came before, including this one, grooving more than rocking (though indeed rock they can and do). They, too, "turn their back on the comforts of home". Right here is that turning point, that fulcrum, that place where the balance lies, or where the balance is ruined forever.
Damn. Seventeen minutes till I've missed my deadline to get this posted. No time to rewrite it. Somebody help us out here. Someone who doesn't need this song so much.
Too good to be true, of course. Last week's track was "Life in the Factory". "Buttholeville" was at the top only because Patterson had just posted about it elsewhere. And therein he wrote (and I knew already, dammit), that "Buttholeville" wasn't about his own home but about the Buttholeville state of mind. Way to kill my buzz, dude. I'm writing this cold sober.
And I must admit up front that I know next to nothing about The Great Director, John Ford. I know more about the great playwright, John Ford, and a whole lot more than that about the great novelist, John Ford, but bupkis about the director and his movies, except that he created the western, and later on ended the western with The Searchers, only to have other directors create the western all over again. And I know from the career of the novelist John Ford that slotting art works into genre categories is a marketer's work and a fool's game. So I'm going to miss a lot of what's in this song, just like I miss a lot of what's in "Slapped Actress", the Hold Steady song about John Cassavetes, the one Craig Finn wrote to end an album, just as Patterson wrote this one to end an album, the two albums those two bands toured together behind on the tour when I first saw them.
But as a great man once said, it's too late to stop now. Onward:
It's all about where you put the horizon
Said the Great John Ford to the young man rising
You got to frame it just right and have some luck of course
And it helps to have a tall man sitting on the horse
Tell them just enough to still leave them some mystery
A grasp of the ironic nature of history
A man turns his back on the comforts of home
The Monument Valley to ride off alone
And when the dust all settles and the story is told
History is made by the side of the road
By the men and women that can persevere
And rage through the storm, no matter how severe
And whether it's a horse or a car or a train
There's gonna be some fine times and there's gonna be some pain
In the end it's a silhouette framed by the sun
And just The Monument Valley when the evening comes
It's a strong wind blowing on the open range
It's gonna be beautiful and it's gonna be strange
It's where to plant the camera and when to say action
When to print the legend and when to leave the facts in
And when to turn your back on the comforts of home
And wander round The Monument Valley alone
More than any other Patterson song, even more than "A World of Hurt", I'm needing to hear this one live. Let me take it apart. Probably I'm going to break it. But you have your own.
That first verse, it sets the song up. It gives us the frame to look through. But--"You got to frame it just right"--it being the horizon, right?--"It's all about where you put the horizon"--yes, you can frame the horizon, but really, you can't put it anywhere. Wherever you are, the horizon is Out There, always. It's the exact opposite of The Edge, which you only find by going over it. Personal knowledge. Experience. Gnosis. One goes over The Edge oneself, but one sees others go over the horizon. Are they going over? How can you know without being there with them? If they come back and tell you, can you believe it?
Tell them just enough to still leave them some mystery
A grasp of the ironic nature of history
Is that really how Patterson sings it on the record? I'm not where I can listen to it right now, but I don't hear "just" or "still" in my head when I hear that song. That first line stumbles, just a little, and then the second line fits onto the rhythm precisely, in a way more typical of Cooley ("They turned what was into something so disgusting even wild dogs would disregard the bones") or Isbell ("They said that he was moving at a federal level but they couldn't really make it stick"). No matter. It's a beautiful couplet no matter how that first line scans.
And then we get to the refrain:
A man turns his back on the comforts of home
The Monument Valley to ride off alone
That's what the director shows us. This first verse gives us the director explaining his art, and tops it off with those two lines. We see what the man sees, what the director shows us, The Monument Valley. That's the ending, but not yet the end.
The second verse drops us into the history
made by the side of the road
By the men and women that can persevere
And rage through the storm, no matter how severe
I don't like that last line. "Range through the storm" would be better. But I don't see any way around ending the line before with persevere, either, so let's let it lay and look at what's great about this verse. Look at the scope of it, how wide a field it covers! Those of us who, like the John Ford who directed The Searchers (I am told), have grown sensitive to those other heroes, those secret heroes of the western, the Indians, will find they, too, made history by the side of the road. It's universal, this part of the lyric, it contains multitudes, their fine times and their pains, and the refrain that shows us what they see, again, The Monument Valley.
And then that third verse. This is the writer, speaking to us direct. This is what he knows:
where to plant the camera and when to say action
When to print the legend and when to leave the facts in
When to roll the credits, how to revel in the everyday. This is what Patterson sees:
when to turn your back on the comforts of home
And wander round The Monument Valley alone
The "comforts of home" isn't some cheap-ass coked-up eighties irony. It's honest-to-god comfort, and it hurts to leave it, by a horse or a car or a train or a tour bus. And you must leave it and you may not make it back and even if you do it may not be there any more and even if it is it might have turned to shit while you were away on business. That's the mirror image, the negative of "Buttholeville". "Buttholeville" lets go and flees. "The Monument Valley" leaves slowly, regretfully, even as it grasps at what it can't hold.
This album, Brighter Than Creation's Dark, was different from the albums that came before it, less rocking, more meditative, certainly for Patterson. "Two Daughters and a Wife". "Daddy Needs A Drink". "The Opening Act". "The Monument Valley". The two albums that came after it were even more different from the albums which came before, including this one, grooving more than rocking (though indeed rock they can and do). They, too, "turn their back on the comforts of home". Right here is that turning point, that fulcrum, that place where the balance lies, or where the balance is ruined forever.
Damn. Seventeen minutes till I've missed my deadline to get this posted. No time to rewrite it. Somebody help us out here. Someone who doesn't need this song so much.