You have expressed something that I often experience, not from loneliness or grief, the pleasurable experience of attraction to something that is distant. I used to live in the Blue Ridge mountains. My heart always jumped up at the sight of the Blue Ridge as I came over a hill. But when I got to my mountain home, surrounded by tall pines, I could not see the mountains. I could only be with the Blue Ridge mountains from afar.
A similar thing happened when I was a fan of a fiddler. I had great pleasure listening to his music, following him to more than 25 different venues, snatching a moment of contact at a meet and greet. Then, like every fan girl's dream, he invited me to his house for coffee and the distance between us collapsed. What I thought I wanted was not what I really wanted. Suddenly, the magic that distance allowed disappeared. I discovered that I preferred to be a fan rather than a friend. After that, the glowing aliveness that I felt in his presence had moved on. I realized that it was the feeling not the person or place that it attached to that mattered. The feeling of yearning and glowing aliveness was a directional indicator for my life. It was like a fairy light floating in the woods, leading me, never meant to be held in your hand.
It's absolutely a pleasurable experience to me now, the numbness I had during the time I wrote about in this post has thankfully lifted (more about that in Part 2). The Blue Ridge Mountains must have been spectacular scenery to grow up among, I can totally imagine distance being an integral part of your daily experience in such a place. There were no mountains near to where I grew up, only tall hills, so I don't think my view would have been quite as grand, but still enough to get me yearning into the distance.
The elusive fairy light as a directional indicator leading you on... that's a beautiful insight. I've had the experience of being disenchanted by the company of someone I admired too, but I've never really thought about it in those terms. Is the fairy light still leading you on to other places now? And would you say it's always the same light, or are there multiple?
The fairy light, or more accurately described as the guiding light (which is like an intensity of feeling, a quickening of the spirit, a coming to life), that caused me to follow the fiddler went out in September 2017 at the Michigan Irish Festival. It was just gone and I did not know how to find it again. And I was pretty sure that I could not rekindle the light that had gone out. I accidentally locked my keys in the car and was left late into the night in complete darkness as the only car left at the festival waiting for AAA to show up--just to bring home the point to me--this was the last time I would follow the fiddler. For me, there is only one light and it is the same. I decided to move to England in Jan. 2018 and found the light again at Eden Festival in Scotland in June 2018, which confirmed to me that I was back on track. So the light is not always there. Sometimes you thrash around in the dark a bit until you find it again. When you find it, you know that you have found it--there is no doubt.
Lost and found at two Celtic festivals. I'm glad to hear it returned to you, despite going out with a bit of a bang with the car keys incident. Though I've never visualised it in the same way I believe I know the feeling of being led along the "correct" path (and the feeling of straying from it). Thanks for sharing - I hope the light stays with you.
Very pleased to have stumbled upon this post. Loved the way you brought Bergson in, and even though I'm not the biggest Schopenhauer fan I do think what you quoted about music and will are spot on. As I've gotten into Buddhism I've noticed it's had a profound effect on how I relate to music (pop and rock is, embarrassingly enough, a little 'too much' for me now, but I can listen to anything without lyrics for hours) and your post made me wonder if it isn't something to do with how I relate to my own 'inner hand'.
Will definitely come back to read pt. 2 when I have the time!
Thanks William! I'm always referencing Bergson haha. And Schopenhauer was pretty much my introduction to philosophy (besides some surface level perusal in my teenage years), so although he has his flaws I do have a soft spot for him, and he probably looms larger in my mind than he does for most people.
That's an interesting change, I'd be keen to hear more about Buddhism's effect on your musical habits. Have you ever written about that by any chance?
Frankly I haven't come back to Schopenhauer directly in a few years, maybe it's time to do that...
I haven't written about Buddhism yet! Simply don't think I have the language to describe the experience, though now that you mention it perhaps it would be interesting to try. If I had to venture a theory, I think that the lyrics in much of the music I used to listen to now comes off as being in competition with the melody, instead of enhancing it. It layers meaning (language) over desire (melody) -- something which I've become suspicious of due to Buddhist (particularly Zen) influence.
I find Schopenhauer very comforting to read, odd as it might seem based on how most people think of him. Admittedly I wouldn't say I share his temperament, and I don't take some of the more extreme tenets of his pessimism all that seriously, but I do find his prose (or at least the English translation of his prose) extremely lucid in a way that has certainly influenced my own.
I can definitely see the sense it that theory. My experience with Buddhism is, for now, still quite surface level, so I don't think I've reached that point yet. But it is true that I often find lyrics, even relatively good lyrics, to be somewhat expendable.
Your point about layering meaning over desire reminds me of what I think whenever I hear someone bring up the question of the "meaning of life". That seems like entirely the wrong kind of question to me. I don't see why the abundance of life would be able to be constrained by something so human as meaning. I suppose it could be different for people who posit mind as the fundamental condition of existence, but that isn't a position I hold personally.
I'd have to agree about the "meaning of life." Something too big for one human being in one limited temporal moment to put into man-made language! Talking about it is hubristic imo.
But on that note, there's a book of philosophy I should recommend if you're interested in meaning and music. Music and the Ineffable by Vladimir Jankélévitch is probably my favorite work of aesthetic philosophy I've come across. Sadly it's a bit rare, so can be expensive to get your hands on it, but if you can find it at a library (or elsewhere...) it puts into words why music can't be put into words in a way that I really enjoyed.
Currently halfway through this one and loving it, but had to stop and comment because I just found Mount Eerie last month via a friend’s recommendation. (I’ve only listened to “A Crow Looks At Me” so far but want to do a deep dive into the rest of his music.) Funny timing!
Anyways. I have more thoughts on this piece but will withhold until I finish both parts. :)
Thank you! I absolutely love Phil Elverum's music (as you can probably tell). His music is a world unto itself. If you like A Crow Looked at Me, I'd really recommend his album Dawn, it's similarly stripped back, just wonderful songs very simply presented.
And even more coincidentally, he just released a new song today. We've summoned him!
I don't know if you had Dante in mind with the blue hills at the start of this essay, but it evokes the opening of Inferno, when he's wandering through the wood and sees Mt. Purgatory: "when I reached the foot of a high hill, / right where the valley opened to its end-- / the valley that had pierced my heart with fear-- / I raised my eyes and saw its shoulders robed / with the rays of that wandering light of Heaven / that leads all men aright on every road."
Some really lovely descriptive passages in this and the second part. You have a knack for summarizing complicated philosophy in a way that brings the ideas into the heart of the essay, rather than pulling your reader out of the flow of the narrative and into a heady lecture. It's been a bit since I've read it, but Kant's Critique of Pure Judgement would be an interest companion text to some of the things you're talking about here, like the conversation about what happens when we experience beauty (and the role of the will, or the way music images the will). Also your description of the blue hills reminds me of his concept of the Sublime.
"Phil Elverum’s music has over the years become like a home for me. The sounds that he adorns his songs with make them feel like places extant in space, even when those sounds are just his voice, a guitar, and the silence. I have walked around in the leafy, woody glade of My Roots are Strong and Deep, I have paced the foggy temple grounds of Summons, I have curled up by the fire in the cabin of Climb Over." This, and the rest of the paragraph, is one of the best descriptions of music and why we connect to it that I think I've read. I love the idea of songs as "places extant in space." I had a prof in college who described music as a journey from and back to home, through harmony and discord to resolution; both your reference to Schopenhauer and your travel descriptions in the second part reminded me of that.
Overall, this is a beautiful essay and your prose is wonderful. And now I want to listen to more of Phil Elverum's music--he comes highly recommended to me from a number of people. I couldn't find Dawn on his Bandcamp; is it available to buy anywhere? What did you think of the new songs?
Thank you for this very substantial comment, and for restacking this :)
I must admit I haven't (yet) read Dante, but as things to accidentally evoke go, The Inferno is one I'm quite pleased with. That is a beautiful passage.
I'm glad to hear that the philosophy feels integrated. I've read The Critique of Pure Reason and Prologomena to Any Future Metaphysics, but I haven't read The Critique of Pure Judgement. I am somewhat familiar with his concept of the Sublime though, and I can see the similarity in the sense of my experience of grasping at distant things being like a thwarting of the understanding.
Thank you very much. I really felt my love for and familiarity with those songs guiding my hand during that paragraph. And I adore thinking about music in the way that Schopenhauer and your professor describe. But I hadn't really thought about how my travelling experience mirrored that musical modality so closely, that's quite satisfying to realise!
I own the vinyl myself, which is not only a beautiful white vinyl, but also comes with a foldout of his journals during the time he spent alone in a Norwegian cabin writing the album. It's absolutely one of my favourites in my collection.
I enjoyed the new songs. They feel a little different from what he's done before. Broom of Wind in particular felt like Mount Eerie by way of The Mountain Goats. On first impression I can't say they blew me away but it's always nice to hear Phil's voice since it's so homely to me.
Thank you very much. My thoughts do seem to spill out in these posts with a very 'classic' literary tone to them. Mostly I'm just trying to get each point across both as clearly and as beautifully as I can manage, playing to both the head and the heart so to speak. I'm glad you enjoyed it!
You have expressed something that I often experience, not from loneliness or grief, the pleasurable experience of attraction to something that is distant. I used to live in the Blue Ridge mountains. My heart always jumped up at the sight of the Blue Ridge as I came over a hill. But when I got to my mountain home, surrounded by tall pines, I could not see the mountains. I could only be with the Blue Ridge mountains from afar.
A similar thing happened when I was a fan of a fiddler. I had great pleasure listening to his music, following him to more than 25 different venues, snatching a moment of contact at a meet and greet. Then, like every fan girl's dream, he invited me to his house for coffee and the distance between us collapsed. What I thought I wanted was not what I really wanted. Suddenly, the magic that distance allowed disappeared. I discovered that I preferred to be a fan rather than a friend. After that, the glowing aliveness that I felt in his presence had moved on. I realized that it was the feeling not the person or place that it attached to that mattered. The feeling of yearning and glowing aliveness was a directional indicator for my life. It was like a fairy light floating in the woods, leading me, never meant to be held in your hand.
It's absolutely a pleasurable experience to me now, the numbness I had during the time I wrote about in this post has thankfully lifted (more about that in Part 2). The Blue Ridge Mountains must have been spectacular scenery to grow up among, I can totally imagine distance being an integral part of your daily experience in such a place. There were no mountains near to where I grew up, only tall hills, so I don't think my view would have been quite as grand, but still enough to get me yearning into the distance.
The elusive fairy light as a directional indicator leading you on... that's a beautiful insight. I've had the experience of being disenchanted by the company of someone I admired too, but I've never really thought about it in those terms. Is the fairy light still leading you on to other places now? And would you say it's always the same light, or are there multiple?
The fairy light, or more accurately described as the guiding light (which is like an intensity of feeling, a quickening of the spirit, a coming to life), that caused me to follow the fiddler went out in September 2017 at the Michigan Irish Festival. It was just gone and I did not know how to find it again. And I was pretty sure that I could not rekindle the light that had gone out. I accidentally locked my keys in the car and was left late into the night in complete darkness as the only car left at the festival waiting for AAA to show up--just to bring home the point to me--this was the last time I would follow the fiddler. For me, there is only one light and it is the same. I decided to move to England in Jan. 2018 and found the light again at Eden Festival in Scotland in June 2018, which confirmed to me that I was back on track. So the light is not always there. Sometimes you thrash around in the dark a bit until you find it again. When you find it, you know that you have found it--there is no doubt.
Lost and found at two Celtic festivals. I'm glad to hear it returned to you, despite going out with a bit of a bang with the car keys incident. Though I've never visualised it in the same way I believe I know the feeling of being led along the "correct" path (and the feeling of straying from it). Thanks for sharing - I hope the light stays with you.
Very pleased to have stumbled upon this post. Loved the way you brought Bergson in, and even though I'm not the biggest Schopenhauer fan I do think what you quoted about music and will are spot on. As I've gotten into Buddhism I've noticed it's had a profound effect on how I relate to music (pop and rock is, embarrassingly enough, a little 'too much' for me now, but I can listen to anything without lyrics for hours) and your post made me wonder if it isn't something to do with how I relate to my own 'inner hand'.
Will definitely come back to read pt. 2 when I have the time!
Thanks William! I'm always referencing Bergson haha. And Schopenhauer was pretty much my introduction to philosophy (besides some surface level perusal in my teenage years), so although he has his flaws I do have a soft spot for him, and he probably looms larger in my mind than he does for most people.
That's an interesting change, I'd be keen to hear more about Buddhism's effect on your musical habits. Have you ever written about that by any chance?
Frankly I haven't come back to Schopenhauer directly in a few years, maybe it's time to do that...
I haven't written about Buddhism yet! Simply don't think I have the language to describe the experience, though now that you mention it perhaps it would be interesting to try. If I had to venture a theory, I think that the lyrics in much of the music I used to listen to now comes off as being in competition with the melody, instead of enhancing it. It layers meaning (language) over desire (melody) -- something which I've become suspicious of due to Buddhist (particularly Zen) influence.
I find Schopenhauer very comforting to read, odd as it might seem based on how most people think of him. Admittedly I wouldn't say I share his temperament, and I don't take some of the more extreme tenets of his pessimism all that seriously, but I do find his prose (or at least the English translation of his prose) extremely lucid in a way that has certainly influenced my own.
I can definitely see the sense it that theory. My experience with Buddhism is, for now, still quite surface level, so I don't think I've reached that point yet. But it is true that I often find lyrics, even relatively good lyrics, to be somewhat expendable.
Your point about layering meaning over desire reminds me of what I think whenever I hear someone bring up the question of the "meaning of life". That seems like entirely the wrong kind of question to me. I don't see why the abundance of life would be able to be constrained by something so human as meaning. I suppose it could be different for people who posit mind as the fundamental condition of existence, but that isn't a position I hold personally.
I'd have to agree about the "meaning of life." Something too big for one human being in one limited temporal moment to put into man-made language! Talking about it is hubristic imo.
But on that note, there's a book of philosophy I should recommend if you're interested in meaning and music. Music and the Ineffable by Vladimir Jankélévitch is probably my favorite work of aesthetic philosophy I've come across. Sadly it's a bit rare, so can be expensive to get your hands on it, but if you can find it at a library (or elsewhere...) it puts into words why music can't be put into words in a way that I really enjoyed.
Very much agreed.
And that absolutely sounds like something I want to read. Thank you! I'll see if I can get my hands on a copy.
Currently halfway through this one and loving it, but had to stop and comment because I just found Mount Eerie last month via a friend’s recommendation. (I’ve only listened to “A Crow Looks At Me” so far but want to do a deep dive into the rest of his music.) Funny timing!
Anyways. I have more thoughts on this piece but will withhold until I finish both parts. :)
Thank you! I absolutely love Phil Elverum's music (as you can probably tell). His music is a world unto itself. If you like A Crow Looked at Me, I'd really recommend his album Dawn, it's similarly stripped back, just wonderful songs very simply presented.
And even more coincidentally, he just released a new song today. We've summoned him!
I don't know if you had Dante in mind with the blue hills at the start of this essay, but it evokes the opening of Inferno, when he's wandering through the wood and sees Mt. Purgatory: "when I reached the foot of a high hill, / right where the valley opened to its end-- / the valley that had pierced my heart with fear-- / I raised my eyes and saw its shoulders robed / with the rays of that wandering light of Heaven / that leads all men aright on every road."
Some really lovely descriptive passages in this and the second part. You have a knack for summarizing complicated philosophy in a way that brings the ideas into the heart of the essay, rather than pulling your reader out of the flow of the narrative and into a heady lecture. It's been a bit since I've read it, but Kant's Critique of Pure Judgement would be an interest companion text to some of the things you're talking about here, like the conversation about what happens when we experience beauty (and the role of the will, or the way music images the will). Also your description of the blue hills reminds me of his concept of the Sublime.
"Phil Elverum’s music has over the years become like a home for me. The sounds that he adorns his songs with make them feel like places extant in space, even when those sounds are just his voice, a guitar, and the silence. I have walked around in the leafy, woody glade of My Roots are Strong and Deep, I have paced the foggy temple grounds of Summons, I have curled up by the fire in the cabin of Climb Over." This, and the rest of the paragraph, is one of the best descriptions of music and why we connect to it that I think I've read. I love the idea of songs as "places extant in space." I had a prof in college who described music as a journey from and back to home, through harmony and discord to resolution; both your reference to Schopenhauer and your travel descriptions in the second part reminded me of that.
Overall, this is a beautiful essay and your prose is wonderful. And now I want to listen to more of Phil Elverum's music--he comes highly recommended to me from a number of people. I couldn't find Dawn on his Bandcamp; is it available to buy anywhere? What did you think of the new songs?
Thank you for this very substantial comment, and for restacking this :)
I must admit I haven't (yet) read Dante, but as things to accidentally evoke go, The Inferno is one I'm quite pleased with. That is a beautiful passage.
I'm glad to hear that the philosophy feels integrated. I've read The Critique of Pure Reason and Prologomena to Any Future Metaphysics, but I haven't read The Critique of Pure Judgement. I am somewhat familiar with his concept of the Sublime though, and I can see the similarity in the sense of my experience of grasping at distant things being like a thwarting of the understanding.
Thank you very much. I really felt my love for and familiarity with those songs guiding my hand during that paragraph. And I adore thinking about music in the way that Schopenhauer and your professor describe. But I hadn't really thought about how my travelling experience mirrored that musical modality so closely, that's quite satisfying to realise!
You can find Dawn here https://pwelverumandsun.bandcamp.com/album/dawn
I own the vinyl myself, which is not only a beautiful white vinyl, but also comes with a foldout of his journals during the time he spent alone in a Norwegian cabin writing the album. It's absolutely one of my favourites in my collection.
I enjoyed the new songs. They feel a little different from what he's done before. Broom of Wind in particular felt like Mount Eerie by way of The Mountain Goats. On first impression I can't say they blew me away but it's always nice to hear Phil's voice since it's so homely to me.
If someone set themselves the task of creating a character with classic writerly sensibilities, they might not do as good and thorough a job as this.
Thank you very much. My thoughts do seem to spill out in these posts with a very 'classic' literary tone to them. Mostly I'm just trying to get each point across both as clearly and as beautifully as I can manage, playing to both the head and the heart so to speak. I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Man, I am becoming quite obsessed with your writing.
I'm very flattered, and grateful for you directing some other people my way as well🙏.