(Win tickets to the Decemberists show! Details at end of post).
Reminder: We give out free tickets every week to our Portland Facebook Group including to THIS SHOW & many of the top music and art venues in Portland. Join it if you like free stuff.
Posted by Meagan Kate
In their fifth album release, Portland grown ensemble, The Decemberists, are breaking
modern ground by doing something very basic: telling a story.
The Hazards of Love (released in May) describes the life of a woman named Margaret and all she encounters. From her one true love; to a shape shifter; to a forest queen. Like any good story, it has protagonists and heroes. And like any good story, its excitement perches you on the edge of your seat.
Frontman Colin Meloy devised the concept for the album after, according to a press release, he found a copy of Anne Brigg’s 1966 EP titled The Hazards of Love. The lack of a title track on the EP peaked Meloy’s interest, and he soon began composing one of his own. The idea, however, grew into an entire album following the story line and seventeen beautifully crafted tracks who weave together in the most natural way. The rest of the band (Chris Funk, Jenny Conlee, Nate Query, John Moen) were along for Meloy’s ride as soon as the idea developed, and their musical talents are more beautifully showcased here.
Songs which pay homage to British and American folk music are regular guests on Decemberists albums, and have a lot to do with the growth of both their fan base and critical acclaim. Past songs such as “My Mother Was a Chinese Trapeze Artist” and “The Mariners Revenge Song” integrate historical themes and events which are suddenly made relevant and memorable for audiences who may have no knowlege of the references to begin with.
Though popular around the world, Portland fans are always thrilled to hear the band’s famous tall tales and sailor legends live; and I am definitely one of them. This weekend, the band plays at Edgefield to a sold out Saturday show and a Sunday show with few tickets left. (We at PDX Pipeline are lucky enough to have a few of those available for our readers!)
Opening the show will be Andrew Bird and Blind Pilot.
Bird is an indie/folk powerhouse whose fans have come to appreciate not only his songwriting but his whistling, violin, guitar and glockenspiel proficiency. If you have never heard a glockenspiel, I encourage you to check out Bird’s MySpace page to hear how he utilizes his skills to craft some really unique sounds and beautiful records which are often haunting.
Blind Pilot, a local indie-pop band, has grown in popularity over the last year after their sing “Go On, Say It” was featured as iTunes’ song of the week. Soon thereafter, the band completed a Bike Tour in 2008, carrying their equipment on their backs as they traveled from Bellingham, WA to San Diego, CA. This Spring, the band completed their first headlining tour and opened for Counting Crows and The Hold Steady in shows on their European tour.
Seeing The Decemberists play live is more intense than I’d expected the first time I saw them at The Crystal Ballroom. The band’s raw musical talent paired with their stage presence and understanding of their fans makes for an intimate affair (even at Edgefield). With the completion and touring for The Hazards of Love, there is speculation about the band’s next move.
Meloy expresses the same uncertainty on the band’s website: “This album is the apotheosis of my obsession with British folk songs. I’ve been toying with it for so long, I really needed to get this done. Doing The Hazards of Love took a lot out of me. And I’m definitely curious what will come out now that I’ve got this out of my system.”
WHAT: The Decemberists with Andrew Bird & Blind Pilot
WHEN: Sunday, July 19th
WHERE: McMennimans Edgefield
HOW MUCH?: $36 advance ($39 day of show, but this show will likely sell out, too!)
WIN TICKETS: We have 3 pairs of tickets to give out to this show (Sunday). Comment with your favorite Decemberists’ lyrics or songs to win. Will draw winners on Friday afternoon and email them. If you have no email from us by 5PM on Friday, you have not won.
Update from Monqui Presents:
We’ve released some tickets for the
previously sold out Saturday Decemberists show at Edgefield. Tickets are on sale now at Ticketmaster.
Tickets are also available for the Sunday show via Ticketmaster.
Saturday Tickets:event/0F00427297C63700
Sunday Tickets: event/0F00427297F73746
July 15, 2009 at 7:52 am
My favorite Decemberists song is “Red Right Ankle.” It’s such amazing imagery.
“This is the story of your red right ankle
And how it came to meet your leg
How the muscles, bones and sinews tangled
And the skin was softly shed”
July 15, 2009 at 8:17 am
There’s my father looking on
And there’s my girlfriend arm in arm
With the captain of the other team
And all of this is clear to me
They condescend and fix on me a frown
How they love the sporting life
July 15, 2009 at 8:33 am
I’m a county lineman.
On the high line. On the high line.
So will be my grandson.
There are power lines in our bloodlines.
July 15, 2009 at 9:15 am
But oh my love, though our bodies may be parted
Though our skin may not touch skin
Look for me with the sun-bright sparrow
I will come on the breath of the wind
July 15, 2009 at 9:20 am
“Summer arrives with a length of lights
Summer blows away
And quietly gets swallowed by a wave
It gets swallowed by a wave”
July 15, 2009 at 9:36 am
And under the bowsunbelle
I’ll hold in the snowy shroud
She had no heart so hardened
All under the bowsunbelle
July 15, 2009 at 9:37 am
I found you, a tattooed tramp
A dirty daugher from the labour cans
I laid you down on the grass of a clearing
You wept but your soul was willing
And oh, my love, my love
And oh, my love, my love
We both go down together
And my parents will never consent to this love
But I hold your hand
July 15, 2009 at 9:42 am
And I am a writer, writer of fictions
I am the heart that you call home
And I’ve written pages upon pages
Trying to rid you from my bones
–Engine Driver
July 15, 2009 at 9:44 am
When first we laid eyes
I swore to no compromise
‘Til I felt my caress on your skin
Well, how soon we were betrayed
Your sister gave us away
And your father came all unhinged
July 15, 2009 at 9:44 am
This is the story of your red right ankle
And how it came to meet your leg
And how the muscle, bone, and sinews tangled
And how the skin was softly shed
And how it whispered “Oh, adhere to me
For we are bound by symmetry
And whatever differences our lives have been
We together make a limb.”
This is the story of your red right ankle.
July 15, 2009 at 9:48 am
“This is the story of the boys who loved you.
Who love you know who loved you then.
Some were sweet and some were cold and snuffed you, some just laid around in bed.”
“Some had crawled their way into your heart.
To rend your ventricles apart.”
July 15, 2009 at 9:49 am
“Shamefully saddled with three little pests
All that I wanted was the freedom of a new life
So my burden I began to divest”
July 15, 2009 at 9:50 am
“And all this stirring inside my belly
Won’t quell my want for love
And I may swoon from all this swelling
But I won’t want for love”
July 15, 2009 at 9:53 am
“Fifteen celebrity minds
Leading their fifteen sordid wretched checkered lives
Will they find the solution in time
Using their fifteen pristine moderate liberal minds?”
July 15, 2009 at 9:54 am
I was walking across 33rd and Belmont a couple months ago and this car tore around the corner and nearly killed me. A CD flew from the roof of the car and landed at my feet. When I picked it up, it was the new ‘Blind Pilot’ CD. The irony was not lost on me, and I hurried home to check it out. From the moment I put the disc into my CD player, I was a fan.
And everybody knows if you don’t
Mind your mother’s words
A wicked wind will blow
Your ribbons from your curls
Everybody moan, everybody shake
The Shankill Butchers want to catch you awake
~ Shankill Butchers
July 15, 2009 at 9:57 am
“Meet me on my vast veranda
My sweet untouched Miranda
And while the seagulls are crying
We fall but our souls are flying”
(We Both Go Down Together)
July 15, 2009 at 10:04 am
I meant her no harm
When I left her unlocked
Outside the Orange Street Food Farm
I was just running in
Didn’t think I’d be that long
I came out, she was gone
And all that was there was some bored old dog
Leashed up to the place where your bicycle had been
Guess we’ll never see poor Madeleine again
July 15, 2009 at 10:10 am
I’m actually friends with Katie, Israel, and Luke, who make up Blind Pilot. We used to sit around in my friend’s grandmother’s house in Gearhart, OR, with guitars and cookies and just play around.
I miss those days, now that they’re all famous and stuff. *sigh*
July 15, 2009 at 10:11 am
I also used the Decemberists line from the last track of Hazards of Love on my friend’s wedding invitation (I’m the maid of honor). They’re getting married in Hood River in December (fitting for Decemberists) on the the Columbia River.
Invitations read “So let’s be married here today, these rushing waves to bear our witness.”
July 15, 2009 at 10:21 am
I would love to go to this show!
My favorite Decemberists song is I Was Meant For The Stage. I think it just shows their passion for performing and there’s something that rings true with how stage performers must feel before their shows. I wouldn’t know as I have terrible stage fright but this song makes me tingle every time.
“From the floorboards to the fly,
Here I was fated to reside.
And as I take my final bow,
Was there ever any doubt?
And as the spotlights fade away,
And you’re escorted through the foyer,
You will resume your callow ways,
But I was meant for the stage.”
July 15, 2009 at 10:24 am
Meet on me on the vast veranda
My sweet untouched Miranda
July 15, 2009 at 10:29 am
It streets and boulevards
Orphans and oligarchs are here
A plaintive melody
Truncated symphony
An oceans garbled vomit on the shore
Los Angeles, I’m yours
…If you’ve ever been to LA you know exactly what they mean and nobody has ever said it better.
July 15, 2009 at 10:44 am
I love the long epics:
The Tain
The Island
and The Hazards Of Love!
Here’s a favorite from The Island (“You’ll Not Feel The Drowning”):
Go to sleep little ugly
Go to sleep you little fool
Forty-winking in the belfry
You’ll not feel the drowning….
July 15, 2009 at 11:18 am
We Both Go Down Together is my favorite D. song. I found a video of Colin playing his guitar and singing this song in an elevator; sometimes he’d stop playing just to push the button for another floor, then he’d pick up right where he left off. Man, the acoustics in an elevator + his voice = magic!
July 15, 2009 at 11:22 am
I caught Dave Chappelle in the square last night and have to admit it was a good time. Still, I’d like to actually be able to hear the act I’m watching! I’m sure Edgefield will have audio. Haha!
July 15, 2009 at 11:24 am
I still love “Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect”…
July 15, 2009 at 11:25 am
Oh yeah, favorite lyrics….
It’s gotta be this phrase from “July, July” – morbid lyrics with such upbeat musicality. Love it!
And I say your uncle was a crooked french canadian
And he was gut-shot running gin
And how his guts were all suspended in his fingers
and how he held ‘em
How he held ‘em held, ‘em in
July 15, 2009 at 11:39 am
and, i’ll play the clarinet
use clamshells for castinets
we play with our bags on our shoulders
my sweet lady lioness
and i watch as you sleep
so indelibly deep
and i hum to you sweet clementine
-Clementine
July 15, 2009 at 11:43 am
I’ve always loved The Tain.
“and now all the marchers descend from high
i will dedicate all of my awakenings to this.”
July 15, 2009 at 11:45 am
So let’s be married here today, these rushing waves to bear our witness….
Oh Margaret, the lapping waves are licking quietly at our ankles
Another bow, another breath
This brilliant chill is comfort a shackle
With this long last rush of wair, we’ll speak our vows in starry whisper
And when the waves came crashing down
He closed his eyes and softyl kissed her.
These Hazards of Love never more will trouble us.
… this song made me cry the first time I heard it, driving down the Oregon side of the Gorge.
July 15, 2009 at 11:47 am
There is a city by the sea
A gentle company
I don’t suppose you want to
And as it tells its sorry tale
In harrowing detail
Its hollowness will haunt you
Its streets and boulevards
Orphans and oligarchs it hears
A plaintive melody
Truncated symphony
An ocean’s garbled vomit on the shore,
Los Angeles, I’m yours
July 15, 2009 at 11:52 am
pick me!
When we arrive, sons and daughters
We’ll make our homes on the water
We’ll build our walls of aluminum
We’ll fill our mouths with cinnamon
July 15, 2009 at 11:55 am
Los Angeles, I’m Yours
Oh what a rush of ripe élan
Languor on divans
Dalliant and dainty
But oh, the smell of burnt cocaine
The dolor and decay
It only makes me cranky
Oh great calamity,
Ditch of iniquity and tears
How I abhor this place
Its sweet and bitter taste
Has left me wretched, retching on all fours
Los Angeles, I’m yours
July 15, 2009 at 1:06 pm
The Shankill Butchers ride tonight. You better shut your windows tight.
July 15, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Being a huge theater geek along with long time Decemberists fan, my favorite song has always been, “I Was Meant For The Stage”.
Mother please be proud, Father be forgiving.
Even though you told me, “Son, you’ll never make a living.”
From the floorboards to the fly,
Here I was fated to reside,
And as I take my final bow,
Was there ever any doubt.
As the spotlight fades away,
And you’r escorted through the foyer,
You will resume your callow way,
But I was meant for the stage.
July 15, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Something about “Oceanside” gets me everytime…
“But oh
If I could only get you ocean side
To lay your muscles wide…
It’d be heavenly
Oh…
If I could only coax you overboard
To leave these lolling shores
To get you oceanside.”
July 15, 2009 at 8:26 pm
I am saving up for this concert, I hope tickets hold out long enough for me to save up enough cash! But, just in case I have a chance, my favorite lyrics come from “The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid”. All of the Queen’s parts on The Hazards of Love are awesome!
“How I made you…
I wrought you, I pulled you
From war I labored you
From cancer I cradled you
And now, this is how I am repaid”
July 16, 2009 at 8:40 am
And I am a writer, writer of fictions
I am the heart that you call home
and I’ve written pages upon pages
Trying to rid you from my bones
July 16, 2009 at 2:06 pm
And the water rolls down the drain
The water rolls down the drain
O, what a lonely thing
In a lonely drain
July, July, July
It never seemed so strange
July 16, 2009 at 2:08 pm
And take my hand
And cradle it in your hand
And take my hand
To feel the pull of quicksand
(The Hazards Of Love 2)
July 16, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Gentle leaves, gentle leaves,
Please array a path for me.
The woods are blowing thick and fast around.
Columbine, Columbine,
Please alert this love of mine.
Let him know his Margaret comes along.
July 16, 2009 at 2:17 pm
And we laughed off the quick tricks–
The old men with limp dicks–
On the colonnades of the waterfront park.
July 16, 2009 at 2:26 pm
When first we laid eyes
I swore to no compromise
‘Til I felt my caress on your skin
July 16, 2009 at 2:27 pm
And all my life I never felt the tremor
And all my life that now disturbs my fingers
I’ll lay you down in clover bed
The stars, a roof above our heads
July 16, 2009 at 2:39 pm
We sailed away on a winter’s day
With fate as malleable as clay
But ships are fallible, I say
And the nautical, as all things, fades
And I do recall our caravel
A little wicker beetle shell
With four fine maste and lateen sails
It’s bearings on Cair Paravel
July 16, 2009 at 2:41 pm
And I am a writer, writer of fictions
I am the heart that you call home
And I’ve written pages upon pages
Trying to rid you from my bones
My bones
My bones
July 16, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Julian Chadwick is the best!
July 16, 2009 at 2:46 pm
The song “Red Right Ankle” because I’m a romantic. I mean, how can you not love “And how it whispered ‘Oh, adhere to me
For we are bound by symmetry/And whatever differences our lives have been/We together make a limb.”?? It’s so sad and beautiful.
July 16, 2009 at 3:38 pm
my favorite decemberists song is California One/Youth And Beauty Brigade.
the song just has a fantastic mood…the closest musical equivalent of a west coast sunset.
thanks!
July 16, 2009 at 3:50 pm
True story …
I figured I had paid
My debt to society
By paying my overdue fines
At the Multnomah County library
July 16, 2009 at 6:08 pm
And so she goes from ship to ship /
her ankles clasped, her arms are rudely pinioned. /
‘Til at last she’s satisfied /
the lot of the marina’s teeming minions…
in their opinion.
“A Cautionary Song”
I think this song was about 9/11.
July 17, 2009 at 12:02 am
My favorite Decemberists song is “My Mother Was a Chinese Trapeze Artist”…in some ways all mothers are.
July 17, 2009 at 1:10 am
But oh, did you see all the dead of Manassas
All the bellies and the bones and the bile
No, I lingered here with the blankets barren
And my own belly big with child
I really liked Yankee Bayonet – as many Civil War love story movies have been made, you just don’t hear many songs set in the era.
July 17, 2009 at 9:58 am
I love these lines from “a Cautionary Song” because they give me weird chills, and I like anything that makes me feel different than I normally do. Though I have not yet decided if they are happy chills or creepy chills.
“So be kind to your mother, though she may seem an awful bother, and the next time she tries to feed you collard greens, Remember what she does when you’re asleep”
A perfect ending to a very bizarre song.
July 17, 2009 at 10:21 am
I want to wiiiin!
And isn’t it a lovely day
We got in from our play
Isn’t it ?
A sweet little baby
And wasn’t it a lovely breeze
That swept the leaves
Of arbor reeves
And bent a brush of blushing knees
July 17, 2009 at 10:29 am
There’s a tough word on your crossword
There’s a bed bug nipping a finger
There’s a swallow, there’s a calm
Here’s a hand to lay on your open palm today
July 17, 2009 at 10:31 am
I love “The Shankill Butchers”. One of the first songs I learned on the guitar. But my favorites lyrics are from “Eli, the Barrow Boy”:
“Would I could afford to buy my love a fine robe
Made of gold and silk Arabian thread
But she is dead and gone and lying in a pine grove
And I must push my barrow all the day
And I must push my barrow all the day”
Would love to go to this show!
July 17, 2009 at 10:47 am
‘Sons and Daughters’ Is it about pioneers coming west? About pushing forward to new frontiers? Or is it just a catchy song that I can’t seem to get out of my head sometimes?
When we arrive
Sons & daughters
We’ll make our homes on the water
We’ll build our walls aluminum
We’ll fill our mouths with cinnamon now
These currents pull us ‘cross the border
Steady your boats
Arms to shoulder
’till tides will pull
our hull aground
Making this cold harbour now home
Take up your arm
Sons and daughters
We will arise from the bunkers
By land, by sea, by dirigible
We’ll leave our tracks untraceable now
July 17, 2009 at 10:49 am
From “We Both Go Down Together”:
I found you, a tattooed tramp
A dirty daughter from the labor camps
I laid you down in the grass of a clearing
You wept, but your soul was willing
July 17, 2009 at 11:20 am
“Sixteen Military Wives” is the best song!! The video is awesome too!!
Sixteen military wives
Thirty-two softly focused brightly colored eyes
Staring at the natural tan
Of thirty-two gently clenching wrinkled little hands
Seventeen company men
Out of which only twelve will make it back again
Sergeant sent a letter to five
Military wives, his tears drip down to ten little eye
Cheer them on to their rivals
Cause America can, and America can’t say no
And America does, if America says it’s so
It’s so
And the anchorperson on TV goes…
La de da de da
Fifteen celebrity minds
Living their fifteen sordid wretched checkered lives
Will they find the solution in time
Using their fifteen pristine moderate liberal minds?
Eighteen academy chairs
Out of which only seven really even care
Doling out a garment to five
Celebrity minds, they’re humbly taken by surprise
Cheer them on to their rivals
Cause America can, and America can’t say no
And America does, if America says it’s so
It’s so
And the anchorperson on TV goes…
La de da de da de-dadedade-da
La de da de da de-dadedade-da
Fourteen cannibal kings
Wondering blindly what the dinner bell will bring
Fifteen celebrity minds
Served on a leafy bed of sixteen military wives
Cheer them on to their rivals
Cause America can, and America can’t say no
And America does, if America says it’s so
It’s so
And the anchorperson on TV goes…
La de da de da de-dadedade-da
La de da de da de-dadedade-da
July 17, 2009 at 12:04 pm
“We both go down together”
Love love love this song!
July 17, 2009 at 12:08 pm
“My Mother Was A Chinese Trapeze Artist”
My mother was a Chinese trapeze artist
In pre-war Paris
Smuggling bombs for the underground.
And she met my father
At a fete in Aix-en-Provence.
He was disguised as a Russian cadet
in the employ of the Axis.
And there in the half-light
Of the provincial midnight
To a lone concertina
They drank in cantinas
And toasted to Edith Piaf
And the fall of the Reich.
July 17, 2009 at 12:43 pm
And here in our hollow we fuse like a family,
But I will not mourn for you.
So take up your makeup
And pocket your pills away.
July 17, 2009 at 12:54 pm
JC: swing me a pair of Decemberists tix! You got mad hook-ups always, your pal. SS
July 17, 2009 at 1:19 pm
The island, come and see, the landlords daughter, you’ll not feel the drowning
July 17, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Cheer them on to their rivals
Cause America can, and America can’t say no
And America does, if America says it’s so
It’s so
love love love this!
July 17, 2009 at 2:14 pm
“The Crane Wife 3″
And under the boughs unbowed
all clothed in the snowy shroud
She had no heart so hardened
All under the boughs unbowed
July 17, 2009 at 3:21 pm
My favorite Decemberists song is every single one of them. Pleaseeee pick me!
July 17, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Hearing Sons & Daughters at the Obama rally in May of ‘08 was just incredible. What a perfect song for an inspired day!