Adam Arcuragi
The Sake Of Lives At Stake
Sep 6, 2009
Words by Sean Moeller
Illustration by Johnnie Cluney
Sound engineering by Mike Gentry
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Welcome to Daytrotter
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We Steal People's Medicine …
original version appears on I Am Become Joy
We live in a finite system of matter and energy. Further, we live in a finite system of currency and commodity. When we wandered in small groups there was no way any group could have possibly covered the length and breadth of the Earth in their lifetime, so for all intents and purposes, the Earth was infinite for those folks. Once we stopped wandering, it struck limits around the amount for each person. As the limit got bigger we paid less attention to enjoying the world around us, letting the mind wander, being open to the ethereal because that was considered something that lazy/worthless individuals did. Savages (literally "of the forest) were never concerned with the big important ideas of industry, civilization (literally "of or proper to a person that lived in a town") and progress. It seems like there's now a limit on civilization and culture (over the last two centuries) in terms of things being homogeneous. When I go home to Georgia there are less accents. When traveling around the country there's less regional-specific food (not that it doesn't exist, it's just harder to find). When once our brains filled the empty spaces with intuition and magic; now, in its place we have put mechanisms that function for the express purpose of short-sighted personal gain. Here's to hoping we might swing the pendulum back the other way.
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Broken Throat
original version appears on untitled
A long time ago the idea was that if you invoked the name of a deity, you actually sort of called upon the specific power of that god or demi-god and almost controlled it for a short time. Like a secret code, if you knew the name or secret name of the god and then chanted it with your friends, you were knocking on heaven's door (so to speak) and calling that god out to play. Nowadays, you scream a non-descript "goddamnit" or "Oh god" as a reflex. So I just thought now the idea of calling out to god, since it has run the full gamut of meanings, could be used to do the thing at the end of a song where you turn the theme of the song on its ear. It's a country tradition to have a turn of phrase or theme through a song and then at the very end it turns around to be more than it's intended. Does that sound too much like I'm into my attempts at cleverness? Is this why people don't like to talk about their songs?
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She Comes To Me
original version appears on I Am Become Joy
I used to play music with two people that, at band practice one day, described having the same semi-regular experience wherein they woke up from a sound sleep and could not move. As they talked I became fascinated at the similarities in their experiences. At the library I found that there has been a considerable amount of study on the topic. It's called "sleep paralysis" and there are all these neuro-kinetic theories about its function; but I liked the fact that it is a somewhat common/mystical experience for people. I especially liked the common thread of a woman (usually in white) floating above the bed or in the room somewhere as well as there being some sort of animal presence (like a dog circling the bed). I was reading lots of Robert Graves at the time and so I wrote the song with the idea that this is her method for getting those that are having trouble listening (for whatever reason) to listen.
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The Dog is Dead Amen
original version appears on untitled
We love to put things in the ground.
Are we or are we not patently bored, or perhaps just restrained by the boredom that we create in our likenesses? We craft our mannerisms and mechanisms to function specifically and responsibly, being so designed that they do not fluctuate or flutter much in their execution. They perform like clockwork and the sort of steady and predictable results that come of them make a regimented version of human nature that's nearly bulletproof and completely sick, depressing really. It is the modern man, dying from the inside out and teaching his children that this is the right way to do it. There is a proper and preferred way to belong to this world, to interact with it and as Adam Arcuragi suggests with his not alarmingly magnificent new album, "I Am Become Joy," those who at one time may have once had brains filled with empty spaces, intuition and magic, now are forced to want short-sighted personal gain, looking for and desiring more money, illusory prosperity and the kind of progress that's only needed for the judgment of others. It fills them, hollowly, with a sort of air weight that makes them feel stuffed, a popcorn sensation. And they act stuffed, as if the taxidermist has gotten to them like a spider in their sleep, but instead of leaving mysterious and itchy red welts scattered on their body, they wake to find none of their insides, the embalming fluid smell pungent and their mouth locked into an expression that screams surprised action. Their hearts have been petrified into rocky wood and their eyes are glassed. They are no longer dreamers and, to be quite official, they've been in that state for a while now. Arcuragi has such a way of harvesting the chattering teeth, the colder than ice and fear sweats and the jittery nerves, all of which convey an uneasiness and a mild form of desperation - of time slipping like honey through their fingers, only some of the residue does manage to hang onto their hands, just enough to lick and taste slightly. For some, that's enough and it's all they feel they're entitled to. They've got the basic essentials covered and they've got that job security that's so coveted these days. But there's no fulfillment, no transcendence. Wanting more of the right things, Arcuragi would argue in his thoughtful and poetic lyrics, should not be discouraged. It's just that many wouldn't be able to explain what the right things are, given that opportunity or forced to opine. The best song of many best songs on the record, "We Steal People's Medicine (Don't We?)," is a ballad that Arcuragi notes deals with these conflicts and their nexuses. It's a calm and even-handed look at the waywardness that we're cooked to believe in as the smarter man's way of operation, but Arcuragi plays the devil's advocate to great persuasion and leaves us with a resounding and stinging Pinch that doesn't fade away so quickly. He sings, "The old man stays up playing and singing/To prepare us for darkness outside… If it's true and hell has better music, then can the devil really be all that bad?...Do you think that the Lord will be sore with our smilin' if he knows how and especially why?" It hurts us to hear, as a suggestion that we're striving for the wrong things, coming from someone who sounds as if he's lined his soul with all of the living parts that it needs, all of the small glories that will sustain it through all kinds of winds and downpours.
Adam Arcuragi Official Site
High Two Records
