Band of Horses: Sorry I came so late to the Party!
As I approach my sixtieth birthday, I have always considered myself to have a fairly wide knowledge of rock music and rock bands. I am not going to even start to acquaint myself to all of the much younger music and different genres. When I watched the BRIT Awards recently, I hardly recognised any of the bands. I make no apologies; I am a rock dinosaur, so I am not expected to know about all the up-and-coming young hip musicians.
Nonetheless, I also consider my playlist to be fairly broad. There is a lot of Springsteen, An awful lot of Springsteen! I blame sites like Nugs.net where you can purchase numerous live concerts and I am sucker for it.
However, as my wife and I are listening to my playlist on shuffle on one of our music nights, we can go from sweating it out on the streets of a runaway American dream to the haunting “Adagio for Strings” or the operatic voice of Andrea Bocelli. I even have a Harry Styles song on my playlist, not to mention a few Chris De Burgh tracks.
Placing Springsteen aside for a minute, the list of bands and artists I like include U2, The Killers, The Eagles, Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, Arcade Fire, Genesis and The Clash and the list goes on. Most of these bands I have seen live on at least one occasion, so I have always considered myself fairly savvy in this genre.
How wrong I was! Where on earth was I when Band of Horses came along? Has my obsession with Springsteen hampered my opportunity to explore other great music? Have I spent too much of my life waiting for a moment that just don’t come? I am now questioning my whole outlook on rock music. Why have I not purchased any of their material until very recently? How have I not seen them live? For me it is a musical sin!
As an avid fan of the radio, if I hear a track then I will download it and add to my playlist. There are some artists where you like the odd song but not the rest of their music, which is fine. I must have heard songs such as “The Funeral” and “No One’s Gonna Love You before”. Why or why did my ears not prick immediately? Were my ears clogged up at the time. Did I fall asleep to the greatest movie of the year? (excuse my poor pun on a line from their song “Factory”). Each Band of Horses song I started listening to was simply fantastic. In my humble opinion of course. It is so good that we all have different musical tastes. Their songs are so rich in melody with a hint of The Eagles and country on certain tracks.
“The Funeral” is such a great song. I believe it concerns the lead singer, Ben Bridwell’s, disdain for ceremonial events rather than an actual funeral.
The band have just released their first album in five years, Things Are Great (an ironic title for our current worrying times). I have only been able to listen to it once all the way through, but initial thoughts are of another high five. They have released five previous records and I am aware that they have had a number of line-up changes over the years. All of their albums contain such catchy songs ranging from country to rock/pop and some excellent moody tracks. My current favourite album is their first, Everything All the Time which contains “The Funeral”, “The Great Salt Lake” and the brilliant broody and haunting “Monsters”.
I so love the song “Factory”. I have been totally absorbed in reading people’s understanding of this song. It appears to be based on a sad reflection about a past relationship.
The elevator, in the hotel lobby has a lazy door
The man inside is going to a hotel room
He jumped out right after seeing just the very sight of me
Decided he better hike it to the second floor
Public perception of these lines go from someone being drunk, naked or to being a cross dresser! It is so brilliant how our interpretation of certain lyrics can be so different. The wonderful lines below can relate to all of us who have reflected on a broken relationship:
Well it’s coming down outside like I’ve never even seen before
I fell into some kind of sorry state
But looking back now, I think it’s time for me to laugh about it
And get my things together and find something to say
I am on board now and trying to make amends for my foolish neglect. I have purchased nearly all their back catalogue and have tickets to see them in London later this year which is so exciting. Now if the Boss and The E Street Band could announce a tour as well, then that would be the icing on the cake.
When my wife and I have our musicical YouTube evenings, there is sometimes a rivalry between how many Springsteen performances I can get in compared to how many of my wife’s Killers songs. It doesn’t really matter as I love them both, but she now has even fiercer competition as I am throwing in loads of Band of Horses! There are a couple of great full concerts of theirs on the site. The highlight for me is Live Rockpalast but I will leave you with this performance of Factory.
If anyone knows of any other bands that I may have missed, please tell me. I need to get a move on. Music is so important to heal the troubles of this world and I need educating fast!
In summary and a message to fans of Band of Horses, I’m sorry I came so late to the party.
