Music |
O
Damien Rice
By
Published: Jan 01, 2005
Category:
Rock
O
Damien Rice
Is there anyone out there who needs more sadness? Who craves another too-sensitive-to-live Irish singer-songwriter? Who wants to hear yet another home-recorded CD with a cello player to underscore the sadness?
Not Butler. I’ve already got the full set: every Leonard Cohen CD, Jeff Buckley, Nick Drake, etc. And if I want to forsake gloomy art for gloomy life, cable news is waiting, just across the room, eager for me to switch it on and sadden my soul.
Yet there I was, strolling down Madison Avenue on my way to the gym, with Damien Rice on the iPod, tears streaming down my cheeks.
And I’m here to tell you — the last thing I felt was gloom.
There is a moment when it doesn’t matter what the emotions are. That moment comes when someone does something so well you just can’t argue with the sentiments or the message. You’re in the presence of beauty, and if you have any sense at all, you genuflect. Because real beauty — beauty merging into gorgeousness — doesn’t come along often.
“O” was a late discovery for Butler (and pretty much everyone else). It’s been out for two years. “The Blower’s Daughter” was a hit in Ireland in 2001. Mike Nichols figured out that “The Blower’s Daughter” was powerful enough to propel a movie, and he made the music deal before he hired the actors for “Closer.”
Closer is how I came to Rice. The movie is alternately captivating and infuriating — you cheat on your lover, and then you insist on telling him/her about it? Maybe that’s clever drama. But is it life? Anyway: Whatever the quirks of the movie, Nichols had the good sense to “cast” the music before he hired the actors — and then to share the music with them so they’d get the bleak glory of “The Blower’s Daughter.”
In case you missed it, the start of the lyrics:
And so it is just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
most of the time
And so it is the shorter story
No love, no glory
No hero in her sky
I can’t take my eyes off of you
I can’t take my eyes off you
I can’t take my eyes off of you
I can’t take my eyes off you
I can’t take my eyes off you
I can’t take my eyes …
And onward, until the blistering final lines:
I can’t take my mind off of you
my mind…my mind…
‘Til I find somebody new
Which pretty much undercuts the over-the-top pronouncements of love in the beginning of the song, don’t you think?
Rice has an unadorned voice that’s well-suited to naked lyrics and spacious music. Veterans of the genre will hear a shard of Jeff Buckley here, a borrowing from Leonard Cohen there. I can think of worse sins. But I can’t think of another new CD that so accurately targets my soul.
To buy “O” from Amazon.com, click here.
