Charlie Darwin

Oh My God, Life is cold and formless. Oh My God, it's all around.

The Low Anthem was formed in 2006 by Ben Knox Miller and Jeffery Prystowsky met as DJ's at Brown University's WBRU radio station in 2006. After the recording, well kind of during the recording of their first album they added clarinetist Jocie Adams. The band put out their first two albums, What the Crow Brings, and Oh My God, Charlie Darwin on their own. Recently the band signed to Nonesuch records, who have rerelased OMGCD and are going to put out The Low Anthem's next album Smart Flesh in February of 2011. Today we're going to look at the lead off track from The Low Anthem's second album, "Charlie Darwin"

"Charlie Darwin" by The Low Anthem from Oh My God, Charlie Darwin



My good friends will tell you that when I see a movie I really like for the first time, that I make huge extreme statements like "That's the best movie I've ever seen." Keeping that in mind, I truly think that this is the best music video I have ever seen. Besides the fact that I am a sucker for claymation, I can't think of a video that more adequately says exactly what the song is about. Don't believe me? Watch it with the sound off.

"Set the sails, I feel the winds a'stirring. Toward the bright horizon set the way. Cast your wreckless dreams upon our Mayflower, haven from the world and her decay."
I am young and idealistic. The world is at my command, and though there is so much wrong, and so much falling apart, I can leave that. I have the power to set my sails, take my own Mayflower towards that brighter horizon. I choose to rise out of the rubble and set sail for friendlier waters.

The vocals are so beautiful in this song. They sit so soundly in their sonic space. I feel like I'm in a cathedral, but I'm listening to folk music, not church music. The blend between the organ and the background vocals is so smooth that I don't know where one starts and the other ends.

"And who could heed the words of Charlie Darwin, fighting for a system built to fail, spooning water from their broken vessels. As far as I can see there is no land." Only a fool would fight for something foolish. Why would a man stand for such crazy ideas.

"Oh my God, the water's all around us. Oh my God, it's all around." It's a realization. There has been a fundamental change in the protagonists world view. His world has flooded and the world he remembered has been buried by water. His landscape is completely different now, and he has to rationalize the person he is within this new world.

"And who could heed the words of Charlie Darwin. The lords of war just profit from decay, and trade their children's promise for the jingle the way we trade our hard earned time for pay." What a lyric. 'The lords of war just profit from decay' Men are driven to destroy for their own gain. 'And trade their children's promise,' their children's world. The place that we are supposed to leave better for others. That which we have promised our children. "The way we trade our hard earned time for pay.' Hard earned time, not hard earned pay. One works for time, for freedom, not monetary gain, but we all need monetary gain to support time. Life is hard, and as much as one would like to, we often cannot live within our ideals.

"Oh my God, the water's cold and shapeless. Oh my God, it's all around." The world has changed. I am not living in the same place. Am I even the same person? How can I claim to be? "Oh my God, Life is cold and formless. Oh my God, it's all around." What a dichotomy. Life is cold and formless, but we're surrounded by it. Something that had meaning, now has no meaning. Wait, that can't be right. It has meaning, but a different meaning. What is that meaning and is it important? Do I have meaning anymore? Am I important?

Like Sparklehorse's "It's A Wonderful Life," I knew from the second I heard this song that I wanted to do an analysis of it, but I couldn't pinpoint why it fit. One could listen to this song and only grab the idealogical battle between evolutionists and creationists, but the roots of this song go much deeper. It is about a man that has his world turned upside down. He no longer understands the world around him, or his place in it. A persons' self image is justified by the world around them, and thus, as the world around him changes, he himself changes. If a man's world changes so much that he no longer recognizes it, then he no longer recognizes himself either.

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