(No relation to Katy Perry.) They sound like Taylor Swift; they look like a cross between Interpol and the Decemberists; they write lyrics like Evanescence; they are shaped like Cripple Creek. They are a girl singing and her two brothers playing guitar or bass or mandolin or accordion.
You do realize, of course, that "If I Die Young" means "If I Die A Virgin." If you disagree, you clearly haven't listened to the lyrics: "I've never felt the love of a man/but it sure felt nice when he was holdin' my hand." And this is right after "I'll be wearin' white/when I come into Your kingdom."
Maybe you should read the previous paragraph again, and spend some time thinking about how fucked-up this song is. The song is about dying a virgin. This is a song for girls who would rather die than have sex, or maybe for parents and brothers who would rather see their little girl dead than in the carnal embrace of a man, as long as she dies quietly and leaves behind a peaceful-looking corpse. No one even seems that upset. They're just relieved that she never had to lose her virginity. "I had just enough time," she says. Maybe you should read that lyric again.
You might read the end as a reenactment of the Resurrection, but this band is Christian in rhetoric only, and the miraculous reversal at the end is just a typical Hollywood ending. The lyrics express nothing more than a desperate reluctance to relinquish childhood innocence. Christian kids these days seem especially slow to put away childish things, maybe because they get their Christianity from C.S. Lewis instead of St. Paul.
Note as well that, when her loyal brothers send her pretend-dead body Boromir-style into the river, instead of a sword she is clasping to her bosom book whose cover reads: "POETRY: TENNYSON." This is the band for quiet, literary, Christian girls. That demographic was previously only tapped indirectly by Taylor Swift, who clearly paid good attention in 9th grade English class; now it has been colonized.
(addendum: At first I said Taylor Swift, but I actually think they sound more like Alison Krauss.)
Re: 'slow' Christian kids: Oh No! Not people with a certain level of naivete and innocence who find it unpleasant to give these things up, as opposed to a strongly developed sense of cynicism from mainstream culture!
ReplyDeleteDon't hate the player, hate the fucked up attitudes towards sex that spawn children who have been raised such that the prospect of sex and wanting sex is a deeply traumatic thing (and then spend the rest of their lives unconsciously hating themselves for having sexual desires even while they're married).
What I mean is that I would look at this song less as a proclamation and more as a statement of the intense guilt and self-disgust that would fuel such a proclamation.
Re book: You forget that to this demographic 'literary' is often a suspicious word, and i find it a little confining in this context. in my own words it's meant to show that she's sensitive and smarter than you, because she likes poetry. "POETRY" is more important than "TENNYSON" there.