Choices of the Grasshopper October 2023

https://fortherabbits.net/2023/10/06/five-things-we-liked-this-week-06-10-23/

Five Things We Liked This Week - 06/10/2023

BIG TWO-HEARTED RIVER EP
1) Big Two-Hearted River: Part II
2) Indian Camp
3) Mr. and Mrs. Elliot

“Big Two-Hearted River” is the new EP by P.J.M. Bond. The EP contains the title track, based on the legendary short story by Ernest Hemingway, orchestrated with melancholy guitars and Hammond organs, blues harp and upbeat percussion, which echo the world created by Hemingway.

The second track, "Indian Camp," is one of the most famous stories by the American author. Twelve-year old Nick Adams, the protagonist for many of the stories from "In Our Time," learns about life and death when his father - a country doctor - is called upon to perform an emergency caesarian section on an Indian (or Native American) woman with nothing but a jack-knife. The track is centred around flute, acoustic guitars, bass and percussion.

The third song is Mr. and Mrs. Elliot, a song with nothing but piano, strings, and vocals, which calls to mind Randy Newman's ballad-style songs. The song takes its cue from the 1925 story, which deals with a couple trying to get a baby, but who fail to succeed despite their many efforts.

For this unprecedented and unique project, Bond put to music all 17 stories from Hemingway’s short-story collection “In Our Time” (1925). The marriage between literature and music is most potent in the new single, "Big Two-Hearted River: Part II," which seeks to translate the medium of literature to the art of music. Both story and song explore the meditational solitude the human soul finds in nature, and for the song Bond craftily applied the sounds of acoustic guitars and keys to echo the mood of Hemingway’s prose.

“Big Two-Hearted River” is often considered to be the quintessential Hemingway masterpiece, the American author at the height of his powers. In the two-part story, Nick Adams leaves the chaos of society behind him and travels into the woods for some much needed rest. Nature is the great equalizer in these stories, and Nick regains a bit of control over his life by imposing a structure on his activities in the Michigan forests: fishing, building a tent, baking flapjacks on a smoking skillet, making an onion sandwich. The story still endures a century later due to Hemingway’s acute observation of the human soul and his intense and honest descriptions of the landscape.

Lyrics
Time to get up, the sun is rising over the meadow and stream 
Crawling out of your tent in the morning, there is nothing there to beat that feel
Baking flapjacks on a smoking skillet, listening to the sound of the trees. 
Taking my rodcase out of the camp, I’m ready to put on that reel 
A bottle of grasshoppers swings against my chest, I’m ready for the big exhale, there’s freedom from the struggle out here by the river, there’s trout enough for a thrill
I’m under clear blue skies

Sitting here smoking, watching the swamp, cleaning my fish in the stream
I don’t miss the city, my wife or my kid, there’s time enough for them and me
Thinking of our room in the center of Chicago, staying in our beds for a week
If I’m out today I might be back tomorrow, don’t hold your breath for me
I’m under clear blue skies

Yeah, thinking of our room in the center of Chicago, staying in our beds for a week
If I’m out today I might be back tomorrow, don’t hold your breath for me
I’m under clear blue skies

A Running Start

Sufjan Stevens