BONNIE 'PRINCE' BILLY "Quail And Dumplings" by domino
I have said before that I do not quite understand the Occupy Wall Street movement. Even less have I understood the Occupy [insert your town’s name here] movement. I think, however, that I am coming to understand why I don’t understand, and it’s because I don’t understand. You see, if I understood then I would understand. Ok, enough of the tautology.
When people (especially, I think, those born after about 1976) say “Occupy Wall Street!” others (especially, I think, those born after about 1976) say, “Hell yes!” or “About f*cking time!” That’s not to say that they lack subtlety, but to say that the idea of occupying wall street encompasses all of those things which have also lead them to put bumper stickers on their cars proclaiming somnambulant those who are not enraged.
And I am either somnambulant or unwilling to examine those things by which I must be enraged. Like the logical fallacy of proclaiming an intellectual construct as equivalent to a person. That’s enraging if you think about it. Or the craven manipulation of a political process for no apparent reason other that the protection and increase of the wealth of 1% of the population. (Ok, to be honest I’m not sure where the 1% came from.) That’ll make you crazy.
Unless you make some sort of compromise. At some point, you say “screw it, that’s beyond me. I’ll tend my own garden and try to be satisfied with that.” Or at some point I said that. You may not be a gardener and therefore may prefer a different metaphor. In any case, there was a time in my life when I had to decide to do this and not that. And I don’t always feel so great about the that.
And I think the Occupy Wall Street folks don’t feel so great about the that either. I think they are trying to say that their private wealth and security are not enough. (Let’s face it, you don’t go out and sleep on the street by choice unless you can be pretty sure you will be able to get back in the house whenever you want.) The OWS folks want something more. They want their dignity. And to be honest, I believe there is a part of my dignity that is diminished by the fact that there are all sorts of opinions I like to express but only from behind the dashboard of an anonymous WordPress installation and not from a position which might limit my ability to do my job. (Take the protestations about the need to protect my employers with a huge grain of salt. I’m plenty concerned about the employee.)
Call it selling out or call it being an adult, there is a compromise involved which cannot always be comfortable. My unwillingness to explore the vale in which this compromise lives has kept me at arms lengths from the like of musicians such as Eric Bachmann or Leonard Cohen. That is, of course, until I was undermined by my nemesis, Amazon.
On Monday or Tuesday, Amazon was selling the latest album by Bonnie “Prince” Billy, “Wolfroy Goes to Town,” for $3.99. Of course I bought it. I previewed one or two songs, heard his intricately simple music and arresting voice, and I was sold. It’s kind of like drinking in the morning to cure a hangover, if someone could have explained to me sooner how good it is, I would have done it more. Some thing with Bonnie “Prince” Billy.
He’s pretty good at laying out just where we have been failed and where we have failed ourselves. As much as we might want to blame God or the environment, there’s no real shirking of responsibility. Our failure of ourselves, of who we know we can and ought to be, is a prevalent theme in Will Oldham’s music. The frustration and despair which is incipient with the realization of this failing are borne through on music that simultaneously harkens back to the hillbilly music of the 19th century while reflecting the last rays of the sun as it sets on the day of punk rock.
There is more, however, to the music on “Wolfroy Goes to Town” than despair, and this is what I have failed to see in the work of artists like Bonnie “Prince” Billy up to this point. There is also compassion. There is a genuine revulsion at what we are capable of as human beings, and there is a genuine love for who we are because of that brokenness.
So maybe what has bugged my about the Occupy Wall Street folks is that they are not yet broken. Maybe I’m jealous. Or maybe they are at best naive or at worst hypocritical in their efforts. Or maybe I just don’t understand. That’s possible. It’s also possible to love those crazy kids anyway. Who knows, maybe they will pull it off after all.