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Myrrh
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Re: Myrrh
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steve goodwin
paste it, post it, talk about it...
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Oct 18 02 4:39 PM
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Problems all sorted now, TB?
Myrrh has been discussed in the "Christian themes" thread (TimeBeing of all people splitting a thread!) and last night I just mentioned some of the things that had been said there - the conclusion was a resounding "Yeah...maybe."
To save anyone who's interested searching around, as Ripple has already mentioned; Kilbey described Myrrh as 'a kind of travelogue of my then literary input'. He talks about reading a lot (in a hammock) in the period leading up to Heyday.
In an interview in the Melody Maker, May 31 1986, he talks about the song "summing up what The Church are about."
In his essay "Musician among the Images - Reading the Lyrics of Steven Kilbey", Paul Hullah has quite a lot to say about this particular track;
"In 'Myrrh' the questing Magi, recast as extra-terrestrials who 'plummet down here to earth', are recontextualised into a modern setting, 'cruising down this shuddering highway' into Jericho. Kilbey's surrealist-imagist manifesto is thus married to a mystical, mythical undertow with compelling results. Early in the lyric, the imagist directive is neatly satisfied in the line 'New Christ beneath a drumkit moon' - a moon like a drumkit!? - which invites us to join the dots, make a simile, as do the petals and faces of Pound's 'In a Station of the Metro', but deliberately jars the effect in non-sequitural fashion. Chronology is dislodged as the text simultaneously crushes certainty of reference at the level of its images:
We're interrupted by the telephone,
You didn't think they were invented then.
Oh Lord we need miracles,
We need more wine and gold,
We need slaves and roads and personal favours,
We need microphones and manifolds.
Assonantally and positionally, 'miracles', 'microphones', and 'manifolds', are to be read in terms of one another here: the present-day Magi urge us to reassess communication ('microphones') and travel ('manifolds') and ask what 'miracles' we believe in now. Temporal blurring, as ancient and modern are fused, achieves a knock-on effect in that referential power of images within the lyric is also thus no longer stable. The lyric's chorus refrain hints at Kilbey's prime concern, as the summoned 'Lord', but also the 'image' is challenged:
How can you be so invisible? Give me the nerves to see
The issue of images and meaning is addressed here as much as the deity the questing Magi of the narrative are trying to locate. In fact, the two inseparably co-exist for Kilbey. 'Image' is that which is ultimately unfathomable and thus, potentially and in a spiritual sense, 'God'. In Kilbey's most sophisticated lyrical work, in which imagist technique is applied to religious conundrums, we witness a neo-Yeatsian configuration of image and underlying spiritual belief as the author attempts to make (a) sense of the world by teasing plurality of meaning out of its signs, with no position privileged above another, abruptly recontextualising symbols and images, waiting for underlying patterns to randomly show themselves but not anxious when they do not do so."
While you're digesting that you might want to have a look at Paul Hullah's poetry site if you've not seen it. There's a link from this article at Shadow Cabinet.
In the Heyday press release, Steve is quoted as saying (although it has been noted that it doesn't really sound like him speaking and may be a record company job);
"Gradually, in my mind, a theme for the album developed: at first nebulous concept - fame, success, the aftermath and the decline, not just on the small and narrow level of a "pop group" (though that too). But in any and all broader contexts imaginable, hoping to explore this concept with some kind of backwards/forwards hindsight starting with "myrrh" (an old gift for a new god) and ending with "roman" (an endless historical feedback loop). I just seemed natural to call this album Heyday."
There are other mentions of Heyday being a kind of concept album along these lines albeit more by chance than design.
I think before trying to establish any definite meaning for a particular song, it's interesting to look at what Kilbey's said about his lyrics in general;
"I try to set up lyrical situations where people start using their own imaginations as sort of a diving board."
"The words are vague and opaque and they are a quick amalgamation of people, places and events. They are about things that could have happened but did not, and things that did happen but could not have."
'loose threads of myth, legend, dream, non-sequitur, science fiction, automatic writing and the occasional punctuation error'
Given this automatic writing "quick amalgamation" kind of approach with a heavy emphasis on free association of words and images (and let's bear in mind that the lyrics are often put together very quickly, often in the studio once the band's jamming has been worked up into some kind of track), it seems to me that we should take him at his word and allow the songs to act as "diving boards" for our own thoughts and imaginings.
In this sense any and all interpretations are equally valid.
For me, Myrrh does seem to have a definite sense of Kilbey taking stock of his life, on and off the road, with the Church up to that point.
Oh my Lord I trust your intentions
But money strangles our love
Struggling like a fool with my junk and my jewels
You would have thought I'd had enough
With maybe a few touches of "nobody likes/understands us" type persecution creeping in. Kilbey had already, rightly or wrongly, made something of a name for himself as being outspoken and maybe even a little "difficult", and clearly feels to this day a certain amount of resentment towards various record companies, promoters, and critics.
Oh Lord we are threatened again
In the slipstream pull of the federal men
Plummeted in some seamless night
Down here to earth it's hopeless then
And we talk about the way people treat us back there
Their hollow laughter, the pain in their eyes
There's also what sounds like a reference to some sort of rider, partly spiritual but mostly material, which the band are asking to be provided;
Oh Lord we need miracles
We need more wine and gold
We need slaves and roads and personal favors
We need microphones and manifolds
Around this time Kilbey gave an interview (HERE COME THE PARACHUTE MEN, Christie Eliezer, JUKE Feb 8, 1986);
...I ask why the lyrics are so religious - had he gone through some emotional up heaval or religious turnabout?
"I think it's spiritual without being religious. I think there's a very strong difference there.
"The four of us have gone through some experiences together and apart. But basically, we've been trying to change from being material-obsessed people to something nicer. It's an ongoing process."
There does seem to be some spiritual questioning/searching going on - parts of the song are addressed directly "Oh Lord..."
How can you be so invisible
Give me the nerves to see
Privilege on privilege
An unwanted discovery
The dominant imagery here, presumably used as some kind of counterpoint or commentary, is clearly the arrival of the Magi to pay tribute to the newborn messiah.
What connection, if any, exists here is never made clear but Kilbey, as narrator, is casting himself (and possibly the band) as magi rather than messiah. The chosen gift is not gold but myrrh - the bitterest of the gifts and one associated with death through it's use in embalming rituals. The gift of myrrh by the magi is said to foreshadow Christ's eventual death on the cross.
A friend of mine at the time the album was released noted that although the correct pronunciation is obviously "murr", it could also be read as "mirror". More Kilbey word play?
One last thing, in a post which has long since spiralled out of all control, and which properly belongs in the companion "Columbus" thread but which I no longer have the energy to find. This quote is a good example of the random origins of some of the lyrical ideas;
"The track 'Columbus' came together simply because we were in Columbus, Ohio, at the time and we decided to call it that for the sake of convenience, and somehow the title remained."
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