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THE SONGWRITER AS POET:
IAN MCCULLOCH AND THE PRE-RAPHAELITE TRADITION
Kristin F. Smith
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Chapter 15: McCulloch's Imagery
As previously discussed, McCulloch makes heavy use of western religious iconography, generally in context and without irony. Like Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites, he seems to find personal meaning in this imagery. Angels, in particular, make frequent appearances in his work, but as abstract concepts, not the carefully rendered figures of Pre-Raphaelitism.
Holman Hunt painted religious subjects as a statement of his own strong beliefs. Rossetti was trying to recreate the ambiance of the 14th Century. Burne-Jones painted angels because they were beautiful. For McCulloch, religious symbols form a part of his inner lexicon. He also has a rich array of other images which make up the symbolic language of his songs.
FALLING/FLYING
Flying, climbing, being in a dangerously high place or falling "from some great height" [IM; I'll Fly Tonight; EVERGREEN; 1997] are among McCulloch's earliest and most persistent images. Falls - or potential falls - appear throughout his work.
'Falling' is progressive, and not all falls are equal. In McCulloch's early work, a 'fall' involves embarrassment, a blow to self esteem, loss of status or personal failure. McCulloch's Poet views these falls as a necessary hazard, to be taken on with gusto and a keen sense of competitive spirit:
"I think I'm headed for a fall
They hope I'm headed for a fall" [IM; Pride; CROCODILES; 1980]
"Over the wall
Hand in hand
Over the wall
Watch us fall" [IM; Over the Wall; HEAVEN UP HERE; 1981]
Going "over the wall" equates with 'crossing the Rubicon' - publicly committing to a course of action which holds great risk. In Pride [1980], the threat to the ego stems from others: "D'ya mind if I laugh at you?/D'ya mind if I sing with you?". Over the Wall [1981] introduces a new locus of danger: "the monkey on my back/Won't stop laughing". Not only outside forces, but inner weakness may lead to a fall. Two years later, McCulloch ties 'falling' specifically to creativity and competitive success:
"When you climbed on top
Did you fall on shadows?
When clambering off
Did you fall on rainbows?...." [IM; Ripeness; PORCUPINE; 1983]
"Did you fall" suggests not a permanent tumble (the "top" is apparently reached), but the vicissitudes of the journey. "Shadows" for McCulloch generally denote some inner fear, though in this context, other meanings seem likely. They may represent those persons who have failed in their quest and fallen by the way. They may be predecessors who have gone on to greatness. Or, McCulloch may be suggesting an idea similar to Rossetti's description of Chiaro dell' Erma and his contemporaries:
"… it is not a little thing … if they are even remembered as the shadows of the coming of such an one [the famous painter Cimabue], and the voices which prepared his way in the wilderness." [DGR; Hand and Soul; 1850]
In other words, try to be the Beatles, not the band that was playing down the street a couple of years earlier. And, McCulloch reminds us, tread the path back down with grace. If 'fall' you must, aim for a nice hopeful rainbow.
CANDLELAND [1989], a major station in McCulloch's lyrical passage, converts the image of 'falling' from public loss of face or position to an inner loss of moral or spiritual bearings. Proud to Fall, his key pronouncement on the subject, examines the consequences of a journey perhaps not made with grace. 'Falling', we learn, can lead to more than a sprained ego, and being proud enough to go "over the wall" has its down side. Élan may evolve into haughtiness, a willingness to take risks into hubris, and self confidence into that deadliest of sins, pride. McCulloch's Poet, in a rather acrimonious self-directed monolog, complains to his 'other half'':
"Here you come again
Acting like a saviour
There you go again
Talking like a stranger" [IM; Proud to Fall; CANDLELAND; 1989]
The confident reassurances of this part of his nature are not to be trusted, as the Poet has already discovered. The would-be "saviour" preaches doctrines which go against the Poet's own inner beliefs - the words of a "stranger". The Poet chides:
"You said we all must learn to face
What we're becoming
And then I saw you in the distance
Off and running…." [IM; Proud to Fall; CANDLELAND; 1989]
In other words, the Poet feels he has failed others ("we all") and himself. At some crucial juncture he broke and ran - "I saw you in the distance/Off and running". This self-betrayal has led to a difficult pilgrimage through a kind of inner Purgatory:
"Long days journey into
Long nights journey out
Knee deep so deep within you…." [IM; Proud to Fall; CANDLELAND; 1989]
It is a journey of self-discovery. The Poet admits, "[I] Don't remember whether/I ever really told you who I was…." Perhaps he has not previously sorted through his convictions on certain issues. And, as he acknowledges in the concluding lines, he must accept responsibility: "… I saw you in the mirror/Off and running". And yet, he remains ambivalent about his role in what occurred, telling us - repeatedly - that:
"…from start to finish
I was proud to fall" [IM; Proud to Fall; CANDLELAND; 1989]
"Proud" and "fall" probably both hold double meanings. The immediate reference is to the Biblical injunction: "Pride goeth before a fall, and a haughty air before destruction." But the Poet may mean exactly what he says. He was "proud" to take this fall -- proud of what he did, proud of what he went through, proud that he got through it - proud "from start to finish". "Fall" may also imply falling away from 'truth' in the Pre-Raphaelite sense -- a recurring issue in CANDLELAND.
Being "proud to fall" is not the province of man alone. Angels fly - they buzz about frequently in McCulloch's work - and they have been known to take a tumble. McCulloch makes this point explicit in King of Kings [2001], a parody on the 'rock star as savior' motif [Note 11] which finds the Poet:
"Wearing broken wings
I've lost my crown
The world so far below
--------------------------------
It's such a long way to fall" [IM; King of Kings; FLOWERS; 2001]
We have here a combination of angel (the "wings") and an ersatz Jesus - both rather the worse for wear. The "fall" involves both loss of place (the "crown") and moral turpitude, outlined under the general heading "Sought salvation in the city lights". If we wish to look for deeper meanings, we may hypothesize that in jeopardy is what McCulloch elsewhere [Angels and Devils; single; 1983] refers to as "the Jesus in me....the Jesus in you" - the Divine part of the human spirit. A brief appearance in King of Kings by Jesus Himself emphasizes the point:
"Saw fear eternal in His eyes
He's seen what happens when the soul dies" [IM; King of Kings; FLOWERS; 2001]
King of Kings, by the way, is not Pre-Raphaelitic but wonderfully Victorian, an Awful Warning about the perils of debauchery.
Too Far Gone [1995], gives a less formalized, deadly serious and far more bone-chilling account of a fall from Grace. Depending on how we read the closing lines, it may venture into the territory of the truly lost. The song opens with a plaintive cry:
"Help me, come on
Don't try to catch me when I fall
I don't belong…." [IM; Too Far Gone; BURNED; 1995]
A writer as sensitive to word meanings as McCulloch must note the syntactical difference between 'Come on, help me' and 'Help me, come on'. We are hearing not a plea for help, but a denial that help is possible. The Poet claims to be past even the anticipation of aid or salvation. He is undergoing no minor slip-up, but a full-fledged plunge into the Abyss:
"Just my spirit falling, falling….
-----------------------------------
You don't wanna hear the things I know
Too far gone
Gone so far there's nowhere left to go" [IM; Too Far Gone; BURNED; 1995]
This song presents itself initially as that rare McCulloch work which offers no hint of a hopeful outcome. The bleakness and despair of the lyrics are palpable. But, tucked away at the bottom of the lyrics transcript, almost as an afterthought, and so deeply buried in the polyphony of the closing refrains as to be inaudible (if it is there at all) lies this admission:
"Been down so goddamn long
That it looks like it's up to me
It looks like it's up to me, now…." [IM; Too Far Gone; BURNED; 1995]
This may be merely a restatement of the old expression, 'been Down so long it looks like Up to me', or a reference either to the Doors song Been Down So Long or to Richard Farina's novel of the '60s [see Note 4]. But McCulloch has inserted the word "it's", providing an alternate reading: 'it is up to me to change my situation'. McCulloch has written much of right and wrong, sin and salvation. Perhaps, with this image of an ultimate fall, he is telling us he thinks they matter.
'Flying' symbolizes freedom, growth, power, and becomes prominent in McCulloch's work beginning with the 1997 Echo and the Bunnymen renaissance album, EVERGREEN. Only in the early and enigmatic Zimbo does the image hint of melancholy: "Flying down…." [IM; All My Colours (Zimbo); HEAVEN UP HERE; 1981]. For McCulloch, 'flying' signifies an exhilarating, even exuberant experience:
"I want to be like you
I want to fly, fly, fly
Want you to take me to
All of your sky
-----------------------------
Through the rain and the thunder
I'm heading into the sun" [IM; I Want to be There (When You Come); EVERGREEN; 1997]
'Flight' is a talismanic image which encompasses not only present reality but future possibility. Even if conditions necessary to 'flight' do not yet obtain, the Poet speaks confidently:
"One of these days I'm gonna
Do as I say and do it my way
I'm gonna grow those wings
And learn to fly and hit the skyway" [IM; Life Goes On; FLOWERS; 2001]
This image of change and growth metamorphoses into an image of rebirth in Scratch the Past [2001], as McCulloch makes explicit an association between flight and renewal by conjuring the Phoenix, that legendary bird reborn from its own ashes:
"Rising from the ashes with my head in flames
It's good to feel the fire again" [IM; Scratch the Past; single; 2001]
For McCulloch, the reverse image of flight is not a crash or a fall, but subsidence, diminution. Hide And Seek [2001], a song apparently about songwriting ("Come with me and I will show…."), places this in the creative context:
"I know you know we know I'm going down
Help me get my feet back off the ground
I know you know we know I'm going down
Help me get my head back in the clouds" [IM; Hide And Seek; FLOWERS; 2001]
Perhaps, he suggests, we should fear not flame-out, but ennui. To the creative impulse, the whimper not the bang poses the greater threat and may prove ultimately just as deadly.
Razor's Edge [1995], otherwise a song of great swagger ("Passed on the blindfold; I had to be there"), gains a nice touch of vulnerability from a variation on the image:
"Will you be around
To pump me up again
Just when I'm going down for the last time?" [IM; Razor's Edge; single; 1995]
We should note that while several meanings may be read into this, the song clearly places it in the context of the creative/success drives. The image, rather reminiscent of a leaky weather balloon, may lack the drama and verve of the Phoenix rising, but the meaning is similar. Like Rossetti's "regenerate rapture", the gift of flight may always be regained.
STARS
Stars are among McCulloch's earliest and most consistently used images, going back to his first album, CROCODILES [1980]. They hold a dual meaning for him. Among the attributes of the Beloved, in this context they always appear as lovely and benign, often expressing the symbiotic relationship between the Poet and the Beloved:
"They're falling again
My shining stars
From out of your heaven
And into my heart" [IM; Fools Like Us; WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WIIH YOUR LIFE?; 1999]
"Just let me into your dreams
Where all the brightest jewels glow
You'll be the sky I've never seen
I'll be your ground below" [IM; The Ground Below; single; 1992]
"You'll be the star
I'll be your satellite
Of love…." [IM; Get In the Car; WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE?; 1999]
But stars can also be cold, distant, indifferent, or even downright dangerous:
"Stars are stars
And they shine so hard" [IM; Stars Are Stars; CROCODILES; 1980]
"I caught that falling star
It cut my hands to pieces" [IM; Stars Are Stars; CROCODILES; 1980]
Beautiful and enticing, they hold out promises that will be unfulfilled, or snatched away:
"The sky seems full
When you're in the cradle
The rain will fall
And wash your dreams
-----------------------------
Now you spit out the sky
Because it's empty and hollow...." [IM; Stars Are Stars; CROCODILES; 1980]
"You pointed to my star
And then it blew away
And you said to me
That's what stars are for" [IM; Magical World; MYSTERIO; 1992]
Finally, stars provide McCulloch with one of his finest, most Pre-Raphaelitic images:
"I can feel the stars shooting through my heart like rain...." [IM; Rust; WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE?; 1999]
Rossetti would have painted an exquisite little picture around that line.
FIRE/LIGHT
McCulloch employs 'fire' and 'burning' images in several contexts. Most are positive. His characters may 'burn' with sexual desire, with an inner drive toward success or creativity, or with the life force itself. These forces intermingle and draw from each other. At times, connotative overlap occurs, and the source of combustion becomes unclear.
Most poets at one time or another write of 'burning' in love. McCulloch is no exception:
"When I'm on fire, my body will be
Forever yours
Nocturnal me" [IM; Nocturnal Me; OCEAN RAIN; 1984]
This seems fairly straightforward. But when McCulloch revisits the image years later in Burn For Me [2001], he adds complexity and layers of meaning:
"I'm water… swim to me
Be my fire… burn with me
-----------------------------------
I'm water… swim to me
Be my fire… burn for me....
I'm going out…." [IM; Burn For Me; FLOWERS; 2001]
Prepositions matter here, and by switching them, McCulloch opens the lines to multiple interpretations. We may read "burn with me" [italics mine] as either 'let the two of us burn in love together' or 'burn with your love for me'. The second version of the phrase, "burn for me", may connote 'burn in love for me'. But, considering the song's somber closing line, it evokes McCulloch's concept of spiritual and creative renewal through romantic, physical love. We should probably read it as, 'give me the fire I no longer have'.
The "fire" imagery in Burn For Me blends sexual, creative and spiritual meanings. It may even stand for the life force, which opens the song to being 'about' not a human love relationship, but the union of the soul with what the Transcendentalists called the Oversoul. The imagery in this song is among McCulloch's most thought-provoking.
Zephyr, a song which explores the integration of success and creativity, offers a 'light this candle' image which may refer to either public success or satisfying the creative muse -- or both:
"The sky is open wide
Light the fuse and take a ride" [IM; Zephyr; BURNED; 1995]
'Go for it', in other words. This evokes the power and exuberance of McCulloch's flight imagery. But those images are organic and indicative of inner change. They involve wings, not rocketry. In this burning fuse we have not evolution but a cheerful call to carpe diem. It suggests opportunity and freedom. It is a happy image. But efforts to 'burn' may also fizzle and go out:
"Trynna burn
But you're melting down
You wanna be up there
But you're underground...." [IM; Lowdown; BURNED; 1995]
"Trynna" is a McCulloch word. Unrealized aspirations smolder "underground" - which for McCulloch apparently signifies failed potential - rather than lighting up the sky like that rocket in Zephyr.
Though McCulloch almost always portrays 'burning' as a 'good' thing, his two most memorable uses of the image describe fire in its destructive capacity. Proud to Fall [1989] sets the match to dynamite:
"I prayed you'd light the fuses
And we'd burn and torch it all" [IM; Proud to Fall; CANDLELAND; 1989]
This has a nicely reckless quality to it, indicative of the frustration and ambivalence expressed by the character in the song. It manages to be both combative and tentative (he does not "light the fuses" himself). Perhaps even better is the dramatic tableau provided by the refrain of An Eternity Turns [2001]. In a scene reminiscent of Scarlet O'Hara's flight from Atlanta, we find the Poet:
Kneeling at the crossroads
All my bridges burning
Down the river my life flows
Took another wrong turning" [IM; An Eternity Turns; FLOWERS; 2001]
This is a wonderful image, encapsulating as it does many of McCulloch's favorite themes. Hapless man, lost in a hostile world, disaster all around, is brought to his knees before the powers of the universe. All that is missing is a nice woman in a life raft.
McCulloch sometimes uses 'light' in its standard literary sense as the antithesis of darkness, the symbol of truth, beauty, knowledge and things holy. As such, it denotes sought-after qualities within the Poet; qualities perhaps buried, but not forever lost:
"If I could see what you can see
The sun's still shining out of me
I'd be the boy I used to be...." [IM; What Are You Going to Do With Your Life; WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE?; 1999]
These images have a nostalgic quality, as if 'light' and all that it represents were the province of youth, to be wrestled back only with difficulty from the snares and tares brought by time. We must, the Poet tells us, find our way back to the days:
"When everything was coming right
In all our dreams of love and life
And we would run...into the sun…." [IM; Get in the Car; WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE?; 1999]
The way back is not always easy. Forgiven [1997], a powerful song with an ambiguous ending, acknowledges the dichotomy of light and darkness which exists within the human - specifically the Poet's - soul:
"What d'you want to see?
The truth or mystery?
A blinding light, a blackest night
They're both inside of me" [IM; Forgiven; EVERGREEN; 1997]
Although he makes a point of noting the universality of his situation ("I am just one of many"), the Poet indicates that within him, the light will eventually triumph:
"One day I'll be ready
To take what could be mine
And everything I've buried
I'll lay out on the line" [IM; Forgiven; EVERGREEN; 1997]
In CANDLELAND, 'light' becomes more than a dichotomous counterpart to darkness. Like the "light on the waves" in A Promise [IM; HEAVEN UP HERE; 1981], it is gentle, ethereal, and endowed with magical properties:
"The shining sea the silver sky
A perfect world before my eyes" [IM; Faith and Healing; CANDLELAND; 1989]
In The Flickering Wall, light represents a higher realm, which the Poet is fortunate enough to glimpse, if only momentarily:
"When I saw the gods up in the sky
I saw the lights on the flickering wall
I saw the world through hazel eyes
And choked on the wonder of it all" [IM; The Flickering Wall; CANDLELAND; 1989]
The light in Candleland itself is never directly mentioned, only implied, as McCulloch describes another magical realm, one for the weary pilgrim through a fallen world:
"Get your handful of remembrance
For you to sprinkle through your life
In between the penance
That you carry by your side
With the make belief and the miracles
That only come alive
In Candleland...." [IM; Candleland; CANDLELAND; 1989]
Surely, "the make belief and the miracles" are the most important provisions for this journey. Life is a hard trek, with much need of atonement, and only a "handful" of precious memories to carry with us for comfort. But Candleland, like the love world, possesses curative properties for mind and soul ("You'll know that something's left you...."), and we must find it - or create it - for ourselves:
"They say you just know
And the knowing is the proof
Of Candleland...." [IM; Candleland; CANDLELAND; 1989]
Candleland, it seems, is like Brigadoon, Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, or Mark Helprin's Lake of the Coheeries; you have to believe in it in order to go there. And in this magical place McCulloch gives us his version of Burne-Jones' paean to beauty, which "...softens, and comforts, and inspires, and rouses and lifts up, and never fails." [EBJ; letter to William Morris; 1894]
Beauty takes many forms. McCulloch mixes images of light and darkness to paint - almost literally - a brooding, bleak and disquieting lyrical landscape in Land of the Dying Sun [1995]. This harrowing journey into the Inferno of the human soul begins with a disorienting image from the physical world:
"Shadows falling on our world
Can't tell the dusk from dawn
Headlights shine on the dark road...." [IM; Land of the Dying Sun; single; 1995]
This land lies on the borders of light and darkness, at the edge of concrete perception. Even in the 'real' world we are unsure of what we are seeing. And then we are pulled into the inner world of mind and soul as all the horrors that lurk in darkness gather:
"No more light and innocence
When all our beauty's gone....
---------------------------------------
Sleep on through all of your nightmares
Too scared, no chance to dream
Alone, it's you and your lost soul...." [IM; Land of the Dying Sun; single; 1995]
Here, the soul's light is overcome by darkness - "all our beauty's gone". Here, we find no dreams - for they are the province of Light - only nightmares of the Dark. Here, the soul lies ensnared, held by something that is perhaps partly of its own making, for, McCulloch tells us, this "trick of night…knows your heart too well". Even a return to the outside world brings no relief, for it mirrors the dark world within:
"As we fall, the day keeps on rising
Don't think the light is ever gonna come...." [IM; Land of the Dying Sun; single; 1995]
A powerful and painterly composition of mood and atmosphere, Land of the Dying Sun is arguably McCulloch's darkest work. Conversely, a victory of light provides one of his most joyful, quietly triumphal images:
"Let's walk into the light
The past out of mind and out of sight
Let's make our every wrong
Turn out all right" [IM; Sense of Life; single; 1999]
OCEAN/WATER
As befits a son of Liverpool, McCulloch's work is rich in images of seas, oceans, tides, ships and boats. His songs glisten with ocean rain, regular rain, "dark and hollow" rain, moonlit rain, stars like rain, haze, fog and "water games". Hurricanes, "heavy storms", downpours and tidal waves abound. (But "pool" sometimes refers to Liverpool, not more water.) There is even one cold and lonely blizzard.
When he writes of the ocean, he means life. These waters are difficult to traverse and fraught with peril. In The Holy Grail [1995] he warns of the wave which, inevitably, "comes crashing". Ocean Rain [1984] depicts the human soul "screaming from beneath the waves" - perhaps McCulloch's most memorable image. And, he tells us in Heaven's Gate, [MYSTERIO; 1992], "You lose your love breaking underneath the waves". Danger lurks upon even the most tranquil waters, as the startling panorama of Blue Blue Ocean [1987] makes plain:
"I'm swimming out on a blue blue ocean
You're sailing out on a blue blue sea
Silhouettes and a vulture hoping
He's gonna pick the bones of you and me" [IM; Blue Blue Ocean; ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN; 1987]
An orthinological counterpart to the dark Fate of The Killing Moon, the vulture hovers and waits - always.
Seven Seas [1984], set in the love world, speaks not of the destructive power of life, but of the joy that can be found in living it:
"Seven seas, swimming them so well
Glad to see my face among them
Kissing the tortoise shell" [IM; Seven Seas; OCEAN RAIN; 1984]
Love frees the spirit -- "Burning my bridges and smashing my mirrors", as the Poet puts it [IM; Seven Seas; OCEAN RAIN; 1984], allowing life to be lived with delight and purpose. With love, specifically in the person of the Beloved, life's oceans can be an exhilarating challenge:
"When our ship hits stormy weather
We'll ride the tidal waves
You and me sailing seas together
In the same boat... always" [IM; Make Me Shine; FLOWERS; 2001]
In imagery evoking the Beloved, McCulloch generally tries to create a symbiotic relationship between her and the Poet. When the image involves stars, as we have seen, she is the sky, he "the ground below"; she the star, he the "satellite". On the water front, each image -- fire, air, prayer, water -- in the strongly erotic Burn For Me [2001], blends the 'I' and the 'you' in the symbiotic union described in the refrain:
"One night, you'll see
The moon and stars in motion
One night, your sea
Will melt into my ocean" [IM; Burn For Me; FLOWERS; 2001]
The best thing about this image is its ambiguity. In the context of the song, we can read the 'I' and the 'you' as representing two lovers, or the soul and its Maker -- or both.
'Weather' in McCulloch's work signifies emotional states, and he has a wide array of climatic conditions to report, mostly in the area of precipitation. "Will you walk through my storm?" the Poet asks in Supermellow Man [IM; FLOWERS; 2001], and indeed McCulloch takes his listeners through many storms. But, as he also reminds us in Supermellow Man, "There's angels in the thunder clouds….".
Not all rain is bad. "Moonlit rain" [IM; Hurricane; single; 1997], occurs in the presence of the Beloved, and actually sounds nice. As 'moon' for McCulloch symbolizes something outside the ordinary realm (e.g. the mystical world of The Killing Moon, the "magic moons" of Bombers Bay and the "Delvaux moon" referenced in Buried Alive) "moonlit rain" may even have magical connotations. It certainly evokes the love world, a powerful spell in itself.
But outside the love world, inclement weather means trouble in mind and spirit, and is generally a lonely ordeal. The young McCulloch paints a rather Byronic image of his Poet in the 1981 song, Over the Wall:
"I'm walking in the rain
To end this misery
I'm walking in the rain
To celebrate this misery" [IM; Over the Wall; HEAVEN UP HERE; 1981]
Here, internal conditions are being consciously brought to the outside as the Poet seeks an image from the larger world to mirror his own thoughts. Thus equipped, he can explore, even "celebrate" his emotional state -- a concept both Romantic and Pre-Raphaelitic.
When McCulloch revisits the image years later, it has taken on much bleaker overtones:
"And I'm out of the black empty night
Into the dark and hollow rain...." [IM; Bed of Nails; BURNED; 1995]
The adjectives applied to the "night" have essentially the same meanings as those applied to the "rain". Moreover, one does not normally go "out" of night "into" rain; in the physical world, these would be in the same location. Two interpretations suggest themselves. The Poet may be (as in Over the Wall) moving from his inner thoughts to their representation in the outside world. Or - a more frightening prospect - he may be, figuratively, dissolving into the rain itself. Note that the "dark and hollow rain" is a smaller version of the "black empty night". And both sets of adjectives define that state we call 'nothingness'.
McCulloch also knows how to utilize simplicity. A less elaborate, and less graphic, image from the same album, BURNED, paints one of his most poignant portraits of despair:
"I'm not gonna feel the same again
It's memories in the pouring rain" [IM; Never; BURNED; 1995]
But McCulloch is an inherently optimistic writer with a clever sense of humor. Beyond the Green [1999], offers up a virtual kitchen sink conglomeration of favorite 'impending doom' images in what amounts to a parody of his Poet's darker musings and a statement of eventual triumph:
"Dark clouds hanging overhead
You keep drowning in your bed
We're still waiting for the sun to shine
Burning underneath the waves
You'll be coming from the haze
Someday somehow sometime" [IM; Beyond the Green; single; 1999]
GOLD/GOLDMINES
Images of gold and goldmines in McCulloch's work have either a materialistic or a spiritual meaning, depending on their context. In its simplest sense, 'gold' stands for wealth, and worldly gain:
"One by one goes everyone
In search of little pots of gold" [IM; Pots of Gold; single; 1989]
"Gold" is the currency of the human marketplace, which deals in more than dry goods: "I'll be bought and you'll be sold" [IM; Pots of Gold; single; 1989]. We not only buy and sell our lives for material gain and worldly success; we scramble after, and fight to possess them:
"In the goldmine lie the buried treasures
Get a piece of what's going down
I'll get mine and you'll wait forever
If you don't take it when it comes around" [IM; Timebomb; BURNED; 1995]
"Carpe diem atque carpe aurum', in other words.
McCulloch uses 'gold' in conjunction with 'glitter' to symbolize fame or public success:
"The glitter and the gold never come your way
Your star-bound ride is still delayed" [IM; Heaven's Gate; MYSTERIO; 1992]
'Gold' is also an attribute of the Beloved, and in association with her takes on spiritual meaning. The image is progressive, as though McCulloch has worked it out over time. In Blue Blue Ocean [1987], 'gold' signifies beauty, inner as well as physical:
"Girl
I want the gold dust
In your fingers
And your Klondike touch
Girl
I want the goldmine
As it shimmers
In your solemn eyes" [IM; Blue Blue Ocean; ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN; 1987]
The words are carefully chosen. "Gold dust" suggests a delicate feminine beauty; the shimmering goldmine, the soul's inner light. McCulloch, a collector of clichés, surely knows the one about the eyes being the windows to the soul. The Beloved possesses that higher order of beauty which Rossetti termed "Soul's Beauty"; 'gold' and 'goldmine' images in connection with her assume spiritual qualities.
Ten years later, McCulloch revisits the image in Too Young to Kneel [1997]. Now the "gold dust" in the Beloved's fingers takes on magical properties, becoming a Midas touch for the soul:
"Can your touch turn me gold
Make my glitter shine?" [IM; Too Young to Kneel; EVERGREEN; 1997]
These lines also revisit the "glitter and the gold" image from Heaven's Gate, transforming its meaning. The Beloved's touch bestows not material gain but purity of vision, what the Pre-Raphaelites called 'Truth'.
In its latest incarnation, the gold/goldmine image achieves symbiosis between the Poet and the Beloved:
"Love it when you say
I'm the gold inside your goldmine
And I love the way
You just make me shine" [IM; Make Me Shine; FLOWERS; 2001]
The previous metamorphoses of the image lie within the sweet (not sugary) simplicity of these lines, creating a song that works on more than one level of meaning.
Note 11: McCulloch has toyed with this conceit a number of times over the years, most famously in Thorn of Crowns [OCEAN RAIN; 1984]. This work is referenced in at least two later songs:
"And the world fell down
When the moon was blue
And you wore a crown
And the word was true" [IM; Pomegranate; MYSTERIO; 1992]
"Charlie clown wore a crown
In my town" [IM; Antelope; single; 1997]
McCulloch has also been known to strike crucifixion poses on stage. Electrafixion, the name under which McCulloch and guitarist Will Sergeant initially worked after reuniting in 1994, combines the words 'electrocution' and 'crucifixion'. They said it came from a dream Sergeant had in which McCulloch was being crucified on an electric, barbed-wire fence. Apparently, McCulloch is not the only member of the duo with imaginative capability. 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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