Moving into new fox territory, let's enjoy two powerful and emotionally charged tracks spanning the career so far of the Seattle indie folk band that exemplify their distinctive vocal harmony style. White Winter Hymnal was the first single from their debut album of 2008, which featured the painting Netherlandish Proverbs by Pieter Bruegel the Elder on its sleeve. The song is relatively simple, with repeated lines, and as a variety of interpretations. Is it a pack of wolves or a group of children running through the snow? Innocence and companionship are twinned with pain image of red in the snow.
I was following the pack
All swallowed in their coats
With scarves of red tied 'round their throats
To keep their little heads
From fallin' in the snow
And I turned 'round and there you go
And, Michael, you would fall
And turn the white snow
Red as strawberries in the summertime
The second song, far more complex, comes from the third 2017 album Crack-Up, by which time the band had undergone upheavals and a long hiatus. Josh Tillman had left the band in 2012 after the second album, Helplessness Blues (released on 3 May 2011), to forge a successful career as Father John Misty. Lead singer and frontman Robin Pecknold had fallen out with lead guitarist Skyler Skjelset after touring that album, but this song is about their difficult relationship which was clearly repaired with the third album. The date of Helplessness Blues is significant because the song, which address the distance and difficulty in the friendship is based around the Goya painting Third of May about the horrors of war and conflict, in which men are facing being shot by a firing line.
Light ended the night, but the song remained
And I was hiding by the stair, half here
Half there, past the lashing rain
And as the sky would petal white, old innocent lies came to mind
As we stood, congregated, at the firing line
[Verse 2]
Night ended the fight, but the song remained
And so I headed to the wall
Turned tail to call to the new domain
As if in the sight of sea, you're suddenly free
But it's all the same...
Oh, but I can hear you, loud in the centre
Aren't we made to be crowded together, like leaves?
[Refrain 1]
Was I too slow? Did you change overnight?
Second son, on the other line...
[Verse 3]
Now, back in our town as a castaway
I'm reminded of the time it all fell in line, on the third of May
As if it were designed, painted in sand to be washed away
Oh, but I can hear you, loud in the centre
Aren't we made to be crowded together, like leaves?
[Refrain 2]
Was I too slow? Did I change overnight?
Second son, for the second time...
[Verse 4]
Can I be light and free?
If I lead you through the fury will you call to me?
And is all that I might owe you carved on ivory?
[Refrain 3]
But all will fade. All I say. All I needed
As a flash in the eye, I wouldn't deny, all receded
[Verse 5]
Life unfolds in pools of gold
I am only owed this shape if I make a line to hold
To be held within one's self is deathlike, oh I know
[Refrain 4]
But all will be, for mine and me, as we make it
And the size of the fray, can't take it away, they won't make it
[Outro]
I was a fool
Crime after crime to confess to
But I hold the fleet angel, she'll bless you
Hold fast to the wing. Hold fast to the wing
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