1000 SONGS - DAY 161: SONG #192

Day 161: A song that takes you into the Heart of Darkness

This is a song that you might not understand if you did not ever experience what Soeren Kierkegaard has called the "harsh examination" ("scharfe Examinierung"; letter from Berlin to Emil Boesen, Feb 06, 1842). But if you know what it means to lie awake at night and experience the decomposition of your whole life, if you know what it means when everything comes to nought, you will know what this song is about. It is called Horseleg Swastikas, track #5 from Bright Flight, the fourth Album of the Silver Jews. The Silver Jews are mainly David Berman, who has been the only permanent member during the 20 years the band has existed. The most well-known member of the original set-up undoubtedly is Stephen Malkmus of Pavement. I do not like the illustration too much that the person has chosen who did the upload of the song on UTUBE, but it is the only version I found of the album track (lyrics provided by me):

I'm drunk on a couch in Nashville
In a duplex near the reservoir
And every single thought is like a punch in the face
I'm like a rabbit freezing on a star

On the wrong side of Sunday morning
Shattered in the terrible light
Working for a bankrupt circus
On the wrong side of Saturday night

And I wanna be like water if I can
'Cause water doesn't give a damn
Water doesn't give a damn

Chased by a floating hatchet
You can't just shoot your way out and go
I could tell you things about this wallpaper
That you'd never ever want to know

Well there's an altar in the valley
For things in themselves as they are
And the triumph of the obstacle
And horseleg swastikas

I wanna take a ride on the back of a sunbird
Up into the highest number
Up into the highest number

And I wanna be like water if I can
'Cause water doesn't give a damn
Water doesn't give a damn

As a bonus track, here comes "The Wild Kindness" from American Water, the third album of the Silver Jews:

I wrote a letter to a wildflower
on a classic nitrogen afternoon.
Some power that hardly looked like power
said I'm perfect in an empty room.

Four dogs in the distance
each stands for a kindness.
Bluebirds lodged in an evergreen altar
I'm gonna shine out in the wild silence
and spurn the sin of giving in.

Oil paintings of x-rated picnics.
Behind the walls of medication I'm free.
Every leaf in a compact mirror
hits a target that we can't see.

Grass grows in the icebox.
The year ends in the next room
It is autumn and my camouflage is dying
instead of time there will be lateness
and let forever be delayed.

I died my hair in a motel void
met the coroner at Dreamgate Frontier
He took my hand and said I'll help you boy
if you really want to disappear

Four dogs in the distance
each stands for a silence.
Bluebirds lodged in an evergreen altar
I'm gonna shine out in the wild kindness
and hold the world to its word.