(Sad Songs & Waltzes is a recurring feature on Muzzle of Bees, where artists share their favorite sad songs. Previous contributors include Damien Jurado and Kasey Anderson.)
By Will Phalen
April the 14th pt 1 / Ruination Day pt 2
Gillian Welch – Time (The Revelator)
I clearly remember the first time I heard Time (The Revelator). In fact it was the first time I really listened to Gillian Welch. Though I had heard her voice on the Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? Soundtrack, I hadn’t yet recognized her genius. I put the record on in the background while I was working on some things on a day in late Spring. I was still living in Madison at the time, and my first “serious” band had just split up. I was feeling pretty down in general. This record turned out to be the perfect accompaniment to my somber mood.
I got about three-quarters through the album when it suddenly struck me that I was hearing something special. I dropped what I was doing, started the record over and sat down and listened to the whole thing mesmerized. I’ve probably listened to the record 500 times since that day.
It really is one of the saddest albums I know, so I could have picked just about any cut to write about for this essay. But the two-part time travel ballad, April the 14th/Ruination Day is particularly sad and poignant on so many levels: it brings me down every time I hear it.
Essentially, the song strikes at the album’s two central themes: time (as the title track would suggest) and the state of American popular music (addressed in songs such as Everything is Free Now, Elvis Presley Blues and I Want to Sing That Rock and Roll).
Somehow Welch and Rawlings discovered that April 14th is the anniversary of three fateful events in American history: Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in 1865; the wreck of the Titanic in 1912; and Black Sunday, a deadly dust storm that struck during the Dust Bowl migration of 1935. They weave these three tragic tales into a time travel story which, oddly enough, begins at a local rock concert. After briefly glimpsing the moment when the Titanic collided with the infamous iceberg, we’re suddenly transported to a present day rock club. And it’s this strand of the story that actually turns out to be the most depressing and visceral.
It was a five-band bill,
A two-dollar show.
I saw the van out in front
From Idaho,
And the girl passed out
In the backseat trash.
There was no way they’d make
Even a half a tank of gas.
They looked sick and stoned
And strangely dressed.
No one showed
From the local press.
But I watched them walk
Through the bottom land,
And I wished that I played
In a rock & roll band.
Hey, hey,
It was the fourteenth day of April.
Well they closed it down,
With the sails in rags.
And they swept up the fags
And the local rags.
Threw the plastic cups
Into plastic bags,
And the cooks cleaned the kitchen
With the staggers and the jags.
Ruination day,
And the sky was red.
I went back to work,
And back to bed.
And the iceberg broke,
And the Okies fled,
And the Great Emancipator
Took a bullet in the back of the head…
While the story and subject matter are sad and real enough (especially for someone in my line of work), it’s really the loping tempo and the bittersweet delivery of Welch’s vocal (aided by Dave Rawlings’ sublime harmonies) that breaks your heart.
Part II, Ruination Day, grants more focus to the historical significance of April 14th, and it sounds like it. The music has a stark, old-timey feel with a thumping repetitive bass note hammered out on the guitar. Without even changing verses Welch travels from the decks of the sinking Titanic to the box at the Ford Theatre and then sweeps back out to the dusty fields of Oklahoma. The old engineer, Casey Jones, even makes an appearance. And it hits you: this really is one of the saddest days of American history — made all the more mournful by Welch’s ominous chord structures and her sad voice. Somehow, I feel and understand the tragedy of these events more through listening to these two songs than I’ve ever felt reading a book about Lincoln or seeing a movie about the Titanic.
Not long after I first heard Time (The Revelator) I got myself back together and put out a record of my own made with the help of my friends. Today I play in a rock & roll band. And as sad as it is to hear Gillian sing that story about the band from Idaho (and to realize how real that story is for so many touring musicians), I know that there’s nothing else I’d rather do.
But I watched them walk
Through the bottom land,
And I wished that I played
In a rock & roll band.
Sometimes it just feels really good to feel really low. Gillian Welch and David Rawlings will take you there if you want to go.
Buy: Gillian Welch – Time (The Revelator)
| Will Phalen and the Stereo Addicts – Middle West
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MP3: Gillian Welch – “April the 14th pt 1″
MP3: Gillian Welch – “Ruination Day pt 2″
MP3: Will Phalen and the Stereo Addicts – “I Can Run”
MP3: Will Phalen and the Stereo Addicts – “Like Rain”
MP3: Will Phalen and the Stereo Addicts – “This Time”
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and followed that up with a beautiful take on the Dlyan’s “