This song is like a really busy day, where you wake up and the television is still on, but it's showing three shows at once, and you're late for your tap dance recital, and after there's a picnic, and then back home to do some dishes and waltz with the broom, then catch a plane (grab a nap) to someplace close enough to drive to, where you friend is getting a huge award the size of a bear, and then skating to celebrate, where you literally turn into a jewel and become part of the sky. [Buy for 5$!!! Yes!]
Carey Mercer & Carolyn Mark - "Claxxon's Lament"
This is the original, somehow unknown to me until recently, of the Wolf Parade cover posted about by Jordan way back in June.
I like the cover better, but the lyrical discrepancies between the two versions illustrate the sheer savagery of this song. In the cover, it's a last hug, it's a warm dying. But here, it's a cold grope, a gaunt-cheeked stagger. Consider the following:
Wolf Parade version: "nobody will die / while I've got money in my hands"
Mercer version: "nobody can die / till I've got money in my hands"
From the first, I get a tragic rich man, a delusional sick tycoon. From the second, I get a ruthless monster, harvesting the weak to stay alive. It's like those matchstick puzzles, where you have six matches in a square pattern, and just by moving two matches you can make, like, the devil's face.
[Buy Blackout Beach]
Wow yeah, this song has been incredibly done better. I was listening to David Thomas Broughton and thought of this song whilst enjoying it. "Unmarked grave" was the criminal I beleive. Claxxons Lament was told to me by my employer as, "this is the most depressing song Ive ever heard". Response-"this is one of the most hopeful and beautiful songs Ive ever heard". Well must be the latent choir embodying "Grapes of Wrath" "-ish" theme, humming the last few second of synthed horns...atleast in my head. cheers.
Posted by cory at February 28, 2006 3:45 AMwoo! i threw "claxxon" up on oink a few days ago since i (for some reason) didn't want to host it on my frog eyes site. it's awesome that it made it out there so fast. thansk for posting! ps: carey mercer on "phoning it in" (wmbr.org) on march 9th!
Posted by dan at February 28, 2006 8:50 AMthis claxxon song is brilliant!
I'm not a huge Wolf Parade fan by any strange, but I'd like to hear what they did with it. Repost for the newbies?
Gracias.
Posted by adam at February 28, 2006 2:31 PMok...don't know why it says "strange" it means "stretch"
Posted by adam at February 28, 2006 2:36 PMOoh! I second the request for the Wolf Parade version. The old link seems to be dead.
Posted by Feaverish at February 28, 2006 5:23 PMThe first time I heard the Wolf Parade cover I'd just read Peter Singer's "Famine, Affluence and Morality", so the line "And nobody will die while I've got money in my hand" struck me as a sincere (guilty) charitable impulse. Your interpretation is interesting--I'll have to give the rest of the lyrics a closer listen.
Posted by Grace at March 5, 2006 12:44 AMHey Dan, I've been looking for this version of Claxxon's Lament ever since my hard drive crashed a few months ago. Think you'd reupload it a year later?
Posted by Ronnie at September 13, 2007 2:27 AM
and it will begin playing. All songs are also available to download: just right-click the link and choose 'Save as...'
