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THE SONGWRITER AS POET:
IAN MCCULLOCH AND THE PRE-RAPHAELITE TRADITION
Kristin F. Smith
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Chapter 12: The Artist and the World
Zephyr, a big and boisterous song from McCulloch's Electrafixion days, addresses the Creative Muse on issues of the artist and the world. How do you reconcile creativity and public success - get them into double harness, as it were? The answer, in fine Pre-Raphaelite tradition, is 'stay true'. The Muse tells the Poet (or perhaps it is the other way around):
"Don't look to the crowd
Aim above and out beyond
Leave the common ground
You never wanted to belong" [IM; Zephyr; BURNED; 1995]
We have here a fine call to individuality and higher purpose in one's art. But how do you carry it off? How do you keep your creative torch alight amid forces that want to douse it? McCulloch's give-no-quarter advice:
"Shoot them down
They wanna drag you down
Got to see
They're your enemies...." [IM; Zephyr; BURNED; 1995]
This is wise counsel for a rough and tumble world, and might be equally well applied to inner demons, unworthy rivals or philistine critics. Dante Gabriel Rossetti would have benefited greatly from such a program [Note 9].
Rossetti struggled all his working life with the problems faced by the creative artist in the larger world. He never found his solution. His most thorough explication of the subject comes early on, in the remarkable short story Hand and Soul [1850]. It is the work of a very young, very idealistic man. Having met with several apparent dead ends on his artist's journey, the semi-autobiographical Chiaro dell' Erma laments:
"Fame failed me: faith failed me: and now this also, -- the hope that I nourished in this my generation of men, -- shall pass from me, and leave my feet and my hands groping. Yet because of this are my feet become slow and my hands thin. I am as one who, through the whole night, holding his way diligently, hath smitten the steel unto the flint, to lead some whom he knew darkling; who hath kept his eyes always on the sparks that himself made, lest they should fail; and who, towards dawn, turning to bid them that he had guided God speed, sees the wet grass untrodden except of his own feet." [DGR; Hand and Soul; 1850]
He has seen that any mediocre talent, highly touted, may gain fame. He painted, for a time, only his ideas of religious faith, but the paintings were without beauty and no one wanted them. He had believed in the ability of the artist to change the world, but in the courtyard where he painted murals of peace, warring factions have just slain one another. Chiaro, heartsick and exhausted, falls into a waking dream. His own soul, in the guise of a beautiful woman, comes to offer counsel:
"... seek thine own conscience (not thy mind's conscience, but thine heart's)....In all that thou doest, work from thine own heart, simply; for his [mankind's] heart is as thine, when thine is wise and humble; and he shall have understanding of thee." [DGR; Hand and Soul; 1850]
In other words, 'stay true'. Draw your inspiration from within, from the heart, not the intellect. Follow your own vision. Be honest in your work. When you portray the truest embodiment of your own heart, then man will come to you, for you will be portraying his heart.
McCulloch also deals with the role of the artist in the world, and the demands of the larger world upon the artist. Two songs from the late 1990s, Hurricane and See the Horizon, employ a common line in examining these themes. "Everybody wants you now" holds a somewhat different meaning in each song, as the same idea is looked at from different angles.
Hurricane, one of McCulloch's more interesting and complex lyrics, incorporates several related themes. It journeys from the sins and hypocrisies of the larger world through the love world to the inner world of the creative artist. The song opens upon the larger world going about its business:
"Heading for the midnight sun
We'll meet on top of the world above
Looking down on everyone
Hate in our hearts and talking love" [IM; Hurricane; single; 1997]
This apparent reference to the Oslo Peace Accords (or perhaps the '94 Olympics with Tonya and Nancy) speaks for itself of paradox and duplicity in the world at large. McCulloch drops the subject, moving to the hope and tentative promise of private worlds:
"Driving through the moonlit rain
Two souls lost in a downpour, we are
Looking for a hurricane
Hoping for a shot at a shooting star" [IM; Hurricane; single; 1997]
The first two lines here conjure up the romanticism and insularity of the love world. 'Hurricanes' for McCulloch mean the storms of life, but this one sounds more exciting than dreadful, evoking the "Don't you just love it/All?" challenge of Pictures on My Wall [CROCODILES; 1980]. "Looking for" implies a sought-after adventure, and the "shooting star" image which follows calls to mind the 'aim for the stars' adjuration of Zephyr [1995]. It also carries Hurricane into the creative world.
"Everybody wants to..../Everybody wants you now", runs the refrain, bringing out the tension between the public and private worlds of the artist. It suggests "the crowd", warned against in Zephyr. It hints of faddish imitators, sycophants and hangers-on. We may even read it as 'everybody wants a piece of you'. Like the "tightrope show" of Horse's Head [IM; CANDLELAND; 1989], it puts forward a difficult and tricky passage to negotiate.
The next lines reinforce this interpretation, as the Poet asks:
"Are we gonna chase the storm
A silver blaze to Parthenon" [IM; Hurricane; single; 1997]
Assuming "Parthenon" refers to the temple of Athena, Greek goddess of wisdom, and not the town in Arizona, we have here the perilous trek of the soul through all the snares life and the world set for it. Or, the artist's journey through the obstacle course outlined in Zephyr. [To respect the privacy of a living writer, I have not utilized biographical information about McCulloch in this analysis. But it is interesting - and harmless - to note that as a child he lived on Parthenon Drive in Liverpool. This makes for a nice wordplay in the next line: "Spirit's looking for a home".] He must, the Poet tells us, "keep the lights shining on" -- the artist's struggle in a nutshell.
Hurricane moves from the outer to the inner worlds; See the Horizon [1999] reverses the perspective, taking us from the Poet's self-assessment and resolution to McCulloch's encompassing vision. The Poet opens with an announcement:
"One of these days I'm gonna make up my mind
To crawl or take flight" [IM; See the Horizon; single; 1999]
'Flying', as previously noted, holds connotations of creativity and success for McCulloch. Since "to crawl" is still an option, it appears what is going on here is self-appraisal, and the choices are 'fish, or cut bait'. Either the Poet is going to do something marvelous ("take flight") or he is not. Opportunities have already been missed. The song detours through the vale of wrong-turnings as the Poet chides himself:
"You said you could see the horizon
As you fell asleep at the wheel" [IM; See the Horizon; single; 1999]
We find ourselves on familiar ground. Like Rossetti's, McCulloch's characters tend toward self-abasement. But this is not just about the Poet. McCulloch pulls it away from the individual to humanity in general, observing: "We all come in dreaming and we all die young". We all have aspirations we will never fulfill, because time rushes by so swiftly. And while we are here, we go through life, each according to his own nature, but with a common human need:
"Some want it aching and some want it numb
All of us waiting for someone to come" [IM; See the Horizon; single; 1999]
"Someone" means a savior, though it is ambiguous enough that we need not capitalize the word. The refrain expounds on this theme, while retaining the ambiguity:
"Everybody wants you now
Now your wings are open
Everybody asks you how
You were never broken" [IM; See the Horizon; single; 1999]
In the immediate context of the creative/public world ("Everybody wants you now"), the next three lines suggest the artist at the height of his powers. On a private level, it suggests personal and spiritual growth. But there is more to it than that. McCulloch hints at higher meanings: "wings" calls to mind an angel, "never broken" the Crucifixion ("All of us waiting for someone to come").
Like every good work of art, See the Horizon transcends its proximate surroundings and touches the universal. The central image is among McCulloch's loveliest and most evocative. It moves beyond the particular, beyond the Poet, to stand for every human soul which has endured through adversity, succeeded against the odds, or held fast to principle through the storms of life.
Note 9: A strong case may be made that Rossetti was ultimately destroyed by a vicious and personal critical attack, The Fleshly School of Poetry [1871]. Evelyn Waugh gives a good account of these events and their consequences in ROSSETTI: HIS LIFE AND WORKS [1928]. Yes, this is Evelyn Waugh the famous novelist. Back to text
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An Annotated Discography: Works by Echo and the Bunnymen, Ian McCulloch, Will Sergeant, Electrafixion and Glide (off-site link)
Echo and the Bunnymen, Ian McCulloch and Electrafixion: Album Reviews (off-site link)
The Bunnymen Concert Log: A comprehensive, annotated listing of concert dates, venues and set lists for Echo and the Bunnymen, Ian McCulloch and Electrafixion (off-site link)
Bunnymen.info - The (Unofficial) News Source (off-site link, run by Charles Pham)
Aldems' Political Quotations: Apt and Otherwise
BlindFool and Scruffy Dog: Dilettantes-at-Large
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