{"id":79,"date":"2012-03-24T15:47:35","date_gmt":"2012-03-24T15:47:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=79"},"modified":"2012-05-22T15:12:55","modified_gmt":"2012-05-22T15:12:55","slug":"jeffrey-foucault-songwriter-on-a-train-to-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=79","title":{"rendered":"Jeffrey Foucault: Songwriter on a Train to You"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Let me refer back to my first posting and give you an example of the new generation of \"\"<\/a>singer-songwriter, and what makes him or her so special. I referred to Jeffrey Foucault’s 2006 album, Ghost Repeater,<\/em> which just returned to my CD spinner, like a ghost repeater killer on a mission.<\/p>\n

“Ghost Repeaters” are the deserted radio stations used to fill the nation’s airwaves with formula music programs, playing to everyone and speaking to no one. That title song exemplifies a message song embedded in poetry, a gospel-folk protest of sorts. It describes what’s left when you tune out the buzz of formulaic pop radio. You hear the voices that live with you and in you – your life and community.<\/p>\n

This album is full of art songs lying in the folk mode dust, like an old rattlesnake a lot of folks won’t notice. But you risk getting bit hard and never forgetting, as you might bleed from that small heart wound for the rest of your life. At one point, Foucault tosses out the line \u201cNothing is forever, nothing is in vain.\u201d If that’s not a vintage\u00a0dualism of the haunted American heart, I don’t know what is. Producer and lead guitarist Bo Ramsey\u00a0 makes the music dusty, simmering and slithery. Foucault’s voice seems to emanate from a boot heel mark that contains the imprint of truth, along a dirt highway. So the voice aches and moans as if it needs to hoist its heart from the ground to slake a desperate thirst. This funky but eloquent vocal instrument gives these lyrics rare grit, life and resonance.<\/p>\n

“One for Sorrow” is an unassumingly gorgeous creation that toasts sorrow by kissing it goodbye, knowing full well it will return, in time. It’s remarkable that this song emerges as an ode to joy by repeating a descending scale, with a slight upward inflection at the end. It’s partly the underlying chug-a-lug rhythm and also Kris Delmhorst\u2019s delicious, warm-wind harmonies. You see, there is perhaps a trace of autobiography in this song,* and she’s a marvelous singer-writer in her own right.One for Sorrow<\/a><\/p>\n

But here’s where we dig into a lyric and the next song, \u201cTrain to Jackson,\u201d shows that this album won’t let you go with the tender ecstasy of new marriage and having \u201ca hundred babies,\u201d as gratifying as the moment feels. Jeffrey Foucault<\/strong> Photo credit, right, Roman Cho\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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Foucault doesn\u2019t proceed to deny that blessing but, given a larger picture, he crafts a mythic American persona in the way that Bob Dylan has done time and again: \u201cBorn full grown and raised up wild\/ All mortal bones and passions piled\/ upon my head the blessed child\/ the father of\u00a0 the man.\u201d<\/p>\n

In \u201cTrain to Jackson,\u201d this pile of mortal bones is on the run, for an unknown crime or perhaps unjustly accused transgression. And yet we learn: \u201cA cold black rain was falling down\/ l lay my head on the red clay ground\/and slept for a thousand years\/I woke into a fever dream\/where silence talked and money screamed\/and nothing was but only seemed\/and no one seemed to care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then he shines the flashlight into his own guts: \u201cI cut my teeth on the bread of pure temptation\/I tried it all and learned to fall\/Like I would never hit the ground\/I met a ghost who looked like me\/I asked him, \u2018Is it plain to see, or is it hidden?\u2019 But he never made a sound.\u201d<\/p>\n

It’s best to simply follow along as Foucault rides this one home, or wherever he’s destined:<\/p>\n

I was a lion in the circus ring<\/em><\/p>\n

a scarecrow dressed up like a king<\/em><\/p>\n

innocent of anything<\/em><\/p>\n

like love going blind<\/em><\/p>\n

so I set all my clothes on fire<\/em><\/p>\n

sold my soul to any buyer<\/em><\/p>\n

and wrapped my heart and concertina wire<\/em><\/p>\n

and showed it for a song.<\/em><\/p>\n

I cut and run ran until I stumbled<\/em><\/p>\n

I struck out alone a rolling stone<\/em><\/p>\n

Forty days came up and down<\/em><\/p>\n

I chased the river to the source<\/em><\/p>\n

I met a girl on a pale horse<\/em><\/p>\n

She pressed her fingers up against my lips<\/em><\/p>\n

and I fell down dead and gone.<\/em><\/p>\n

So, does he die from a gunshot to the back? Or was he a ghost all along? Or is this a dream?<\/p>\n

If it is a dream, is it a slice of the proverbial American Dream, something we can hope to carve into reality like a lonely scout wandering the Wild West, \u201cchasing the river to its source,\u201d scratching out his own definition of self, survival and humanity and, just maybe, love?Train to Jackson You Tube<\/a><\/p>\n

That’s all for the listener to decide. What you might\u00a0admit is that here Foucault approaches\u00a0Dylan, at its best, in Faustian American myth-making. (Compare this to, say, “Ballad of Hollis Brown” or “All Along the Watchtower.”)\u00a0Or perhaps you might think of Cormac McCarthy or even, if a tsunami crashes over the dusty trail, a wisp of Melville, still perhaps the greatest American myth master, and an influence of Foucault\u2019s. Maybe Professor Fuddydud will object, this isn\u2019t poetry as he teaches in 101, but who the hell cares?<\/p>\n

Poetry, or prose — or lyric — worthy of savoring and pondering, can arise anywhere, when the talent, will and circumstances allow it.<\/p>\n

Remember, we’re talking here about a myth song, myth not as falsifying but as truth-evoking, as shaping and defining a sense of reality or identity that might resonate through cultural history and perhaps into the future \u2013even if the man falls down dead and gone, at the very moment she pressed her fingers up against his lips.<\/p>\n

In death, perhaps the myth truly rises to life.<\/p>\n

Foucault\u2019s most recent album Horse Latitudes<\/em> is also recommended. Though it has a slightly darker overall cast to it, <\/em>the man\u2019s poetic and storytelling powers continue to grow, as his soul ages well.<\/p>\n

*when I e-mailed Foucault about the biographical aspect of \u201cOne for Sorrow,\u201d he replied: \u201cI don’t tend to correlate the linear facts of life with songwriting. Songs have their own lives and\u00a0 narratives, more semantic than episodic. Fair enough to say the song is mainly about Kris and\u00a0 leave it there – married or not is of no moment. It could be about other people, and hopefully it is\u00a0every now and again.\u201d<\/p>\n

–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Kevin Lynch<\/p>\n

Ghost Repeater<\/em> CD cover image, above credit: Signature Sounds Records<\/p>\n

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  Let me refer back to my first posting and give you an example of the new generation of singer-songwriter, and what makes him or her so special. I referred to Jeffrey Foucault’s 2006 album, Ghost Repeater, which just returned … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","category-www-kevernacular-com","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hJWE-1h","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions\/94"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}