Dad's Chair
The (Temporary) Death of Cynicism
By Greg Benson
September/October 2009

"My true love went riding out in white and green and gray."

These are not the sort of lyrics that would normally interest a teenage boy who had only a few months ago attended a Slipknot concert.

Yet the album launched by those words, "The Hazards of Love" by a group called The Decemberists, has become my family's hands-down favorite CD of the year. It has not only captured the imagination of a decidedly cynical family, but has also united us through music in a way that threatens to suspend our cynicism until further notice.

Sam, the 15-year-old boy in our household, is not a typical anything. He's a budding lead guitarist who wants to play violin; he can do all kinds of acrobatics on a trampoline and knows how to prepare sushi. However, this whole Slipknot thing-along with his devotion to bands like Coheed and Cambria and Children of Bodom-has his parents scrambling almost daily for cover. He assures us each band has its roots in Celtic folk, but I don't recall an Irish balladeer sounding as though he's angrily coughing up a rabid cat.

I learned about The Decemberists whilst listening to NPR. When I heard the reviewer compare them to art rock bands of the '70s, he had my rapt attention; I'd been searching for over 20 years for a sequel to Genesis' "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway," a 90-minute saga about a boy named Rael who seems to be enduring a bad acid trip in a Manhattan sewer teeming with carpet crawlers, record execs and sundry other crazed Dickensian characters. When Peter Gabriel quit the band after that album, the art rock era came to an unofficial close-though word took about five years to reach Yes and Pink Floyd.

As with those '70s prog-rock albums, I worked hard and saved up enough money to actually purchase "The Hazards of Love."  It didn't occur to me to premier it for the rest of the family. Like many things these days, I thought this was another treat to be enjoyed in solitude. However, when Sam and Max overheard the album in my car one day in late spring, something in songwriter/vocalist Colin Meloy's voice seized their attention.

"Wasn't it a lovely breeze that swept the leaves of arbor eaves and bent to brush our blushing knees?"

I don't really know what that line means; my own knees, while often aching and making cracking sounds as I walk, have never blushed.  Indeed, much of the album's story of Margaret and William and his overbearing mother, a queen who is also-get this-a forest, remains a mystery to me. I'm pretty sure the queen is against their romance-a conclusion I reached during the song in which she hires an unrepentant child killer to kidnap Margaret and take her across the churning River Annan, which ultimately drowns our heroes. 

Sorry to give away the ending. A double suicide is not the sort of thing I wish to promote.  My point is that the musicians-through sweet, simple melody and theatrical delivery-make it sound like a noble, beautiful act. Besides, in this English fairyland the band has created with sound, death seems to be merely a temporary state, one that can be reversed with a kiss, a killer guitar riff or a catchy melody.

I don't know much about The Decemberists' history, but judging by photos of the band, I'd say they got all A's in high school and proceeded on to acclaimed music colleges. It is doubtful they ever broke into a neighbor's pool for a late-night beer party. Still, I'd be proud if my sons emulated these anachronistically rocking nerds and created their own magical realms where anything is possible.

Greg Benson is a husband and father of two who keeps on living in Athens.