It’s a horrific song, because it allows for the possibility that the unspeakable demon is Mary. She’s a coquette on the surface – "for she kept herself kept be-low / and all her feelings private" – but there’s a succubus on board, too hideous to describe, for "at night, above our sleeping heads / our sleeping dreams were haunted". The title seems to acknowledge Oldham’s past tendency to see (or at least, depict) women as Madonna / Whore, and builds up the horror rapidly, by sending Mary to sea, seemingly alone, as a ship’s maid, and the object of many boys’ lust. 'Madeleine-Mary' is a miniature Edgar Allen Poe story, with an urgent pulse of heavy bass, and sinister wah-wah guitar. It’s not all explicit representations of depression, though. "Nip nap / it’s all trap" trills the chorus, Hamlet-like – implying, however ill-starred, you can take some perverse pleasure when you "watch it all come down."
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Nothing’s resolved just yet, but there’s method in the subsequent madness: 'Today Was another Day Full of Dread' dissects awe of the Eternal (“by dread I’m inspired…”) and distinguishes it from the baser emotion that makes us all human ( "by fear I’m amused"). rises up sometimes." The chorus is triumphant, but there’s a hint this may be the candour and clarity that comes before suicide – an end to the cycle of euphoria and dysthymia simulated by the song’s structure. Thesis? Calm logic? Confident minor-chords? Do these square with our preconceptions about what makes for great tragedy? Well, Yes, because 'I See a Darkness' is so candid in its Platonic love that it underscores the despair that would prompt such a confession: "well you know I have a love / a love for everyone I know / and you know I have a drive / a drive to live, I won’t let go // but can you see its Opposition. The insistent, confident minor-chords mark that deliberation, just as the exquisitely plaintive melodies suggest the strange comfort of sadness, or the paradox that a memory can be sustaining, even as it hints that the memory of happiness may be all there is left. and just maybe because the darkness implies an eventual light. Still, we come back to this album for its run of soul-baring songs that state their thesis – That life can be almost unbearably hard – with a curiously calm logic, no hysteria or self-pity, and the constant suggestion that the singer could step into the abyss at any moment, but chooses to walk this path for the time being, all the time this close to the edge, because You need to know this the time for shame at your weakness is gone. These are just songs – not proclamations from on high – the former seems to say, and the latter: there’s nothing romantic about self-destruction you can’t play Prince Hamlet forever. Arguably, it’s in the album’s openness to whimsy that its perfection lies – opener, 'A Minor Place', makes a friend of sadness and a ditty of wallowing in self-pity toward the end of the album, 'Today I Was an Evil One' isn’t about the demon-drink, so much as that buffoon-making falling-over juice. With an album of such sublime magnificence, it’s hard not to fawn, and also be wary of disappointing the many, many people you know who regard this as not only Will Oldham’s greatest, but indeed, one of the very greatest albums made by anyone at all, since folk music went electric. If you’ve only heard one album, it’s most likely I See a Darkness (1998), or Johnny Cash’s instant-classic cover of the eponymous song, so we’ll start with the first full-length album as Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, work up to the present, and loop back to the beginning, if that's alright?
No doubt, though, you could do with a guide through his formidable back-catalogue? This won’t be exhaustive – no Box of Chocolates or Boxhead Ensemble contributions – and you’re better off going to "The Royal Stable" website for a trawl through the singles.
Beneath all the joking, perving, and camp videos for Kanye West, his appropriation of Shakespeare, his engagement with Christianity and Eastern religion, and his knowledge of American folk music makes him, literally, Eliotic in his poetic sensibilities. country since the early 1990s, and one of the most sought-after collaborators, having worked with Bjork, PJ Harvey, and recently Mark Kozelek / Sun Kil Moon. Will Oldham needs no introduction as the best-connected mainstay of US indie / alt.
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