Hard Life

We've done a lot of moving around and now it's time to get back to a more traditional type of suicide song. we're going back to our roots with Bonnie "Prince" Billy.


"Hard Life" by Bonnie "Prince" Billy from Master and Everyone


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG2PL2zO034


"...and it's a hard life for a man with no wife. Babe it's a hard life God makes you live." How true. How matter of fact. How reserved to being exactly that. Life is hard. Notice how the lyric opens as though it is continuing from the previous thought. It also feels like the end of the argument. Where does one go from there, how does one rationalize anything past that point? Having Trouble? Feeling Bad? Not Sure You Can Make It? Sorry bub, life is hard. "But without it Baby don't doubt it, you don't even have your tears to give." How true. The dead know one thing, that it is better to be alive.

"I wake up and I'm fine, with my dreaming still on my mind, but it don't take long you see, for the demons to come and visit me." Yeah. "And I've got my problems, sometimes love don't solve them," Does it ever? "And I end each day in a song." It's an interesting look at his day. It shows what the important parts, or maybe the lingering parts. The waking moment when everything is ok, the demons, the problems, and the end of the day with music as therapy to guide him safely through the night.

"I know I'm a hard man to live with sometimes. Maybe it ain't in me to make you a happy wife of mine." Six months or so ago I picked up a copy of Schulz and Peanuts, a Charles Schulz biography by David Michaelis. I am not a big peanuts fan, and I don't read a lot of biographies. I bought it because of an interview I heard with the author on NPR promoting the book. At one point he talked about a scene in the book wherein Schulz and his wife were newly married and they were driving to their honeymoon. (Unfortunately I haven't made it this far in the book yet so I am paraphrasing what I remember from the interview.) Schulz apparently turned to his wife sometime on this trip and said "I don't know if I'll ever be happy." This has to be an odd and hard thing to hear your husband say on the way to your honeymoon. What Schulz meant was not that he was regretting his new marriage. He was being honest and open. He was giving warning that he was a depressed individual. This statement in the song is the same thing. "And maybe you'll kill me, honey I don't blame you. If I was in your place maybe that's what I would do." This line gives me chills every time. The thought has crossed his mind that his wife might kill him and that's ok. He calls her 'honey' while abdicating her responsibility to him and his life. With his soothing tone and terms of endearment he's forgiving her before the fact.

Up to this point the music has been a standard Appalachia style duet. There's an acoustic guitar, bass, foot stomp percussion, and vocal. One could easily seeing a mournful country fiddle floating over the top of the texture. The song is in a major key, yet the vocals are sad, and during the chorus the vocals are harmonized by a female voice.

After the second verse the music changes. The music takes on a very minor feel. Not to get too music theory nerd on you, but it moves to Bb major, but it relies heavily on the C minor chord. Overall it is a very uneasy and transitory feel. The vocals reflect this. "I ain't breathing, let me breathe. Let me go. Let me leave." This continues and an electric guitar sneaks in, as well as a new harmonizing voice, the singer's own. The female voice has disappeared from the texture. The way that this section builds is amazing. It starts out meekly about someone saying they want to leave. As the character gets stronger so does the texture, the stronger electric guitar comes in and instead of being a tandem vocal it is all him. This is brilliant songwriting.

"Hard Life" now settles into the key of Bb Major, playing the same chord progression as the beginning of the song in the new key. The electric guitar plays a solo that evokes a western feel. If it were a western movie it would be the music where the main character first sets off on his adventure and everything is hopeful and new.

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