Hussalonia Song #8: Kindle For the Red Coats

"Kindle For the Red Coats" is a song with a truly impressive premise: a young nerd invents a time-machine and drastically alters history by traveling through the centuries to the Revolutionary War, where he provides the British troops with a modern electronic reading device. It puts both Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder" and every single novel written by Harry S. Turtledove to shame.
That, folks, is my belated April Fool's joke! Happy spring time!
Yes, a whole month gone, and still no word. Well, here is the word. Word up.
While I realized in beginning this blog that I would likely not be very productive in writing it, I had hoped to release at least one entry a month. Lo and behold, that ship has sailed. Somehow I find myself already in the midst of April. Nonetheless, we must press forward, we must keep buttering the bread, we must keep trimming the sails, and we must keep chug-chug-chugging along.
It may be worthwhile to mention that I'm currently suffering from some sort of cold. I won't let that stop me from writing now that the busy days of March have finally yielded to a decent-enough amount of time and frame of mind to do so. However, if this one does turn out to be a bit more incoherent than usual, consider that you have been warned.
As usual, before I begin, I'd like to cover relevant Hussalonia news.
I missed it due to my lack of productivity last month, but March saw the release of an excellent new Hussalonia album, titled simply "Alonia." One might argue that this is first "traditional" album (though perhaps that term is relative) that Hussalonia has released since 2008's "Satan Amongst The Sofa Cushions." Specifically, I believe that since that album and until the release of "Alonia," all full Hussalonia albums either involved robot voices, animals reading letters, instrumental covers of eastern European national anthems, and some strange, sometimes hilarious sound collages. While I love those albums, it does delight me to hear [The Hussalonia Founder] once again providing vocals to Hussalonia music.
This month, continuing the endeavor to release one thing per month, Hussalonia released yet another new album. I've only just discovered it and so have not heard it as of the time of this writing. It is titled "Attention Deficit Recorder" and features the unique property of being designed to be played in any order while maintaining a flow between the songs. I very much look forward to hearing it! With it, this blog's scope seems to get bigger and bigger. Will I ever get anywhere near catching up to Hussalonia's productive output? The answer is a resounding probably not, accompanied by an undaunted sense of perseverance in the face of failure.
Lastly, Hussalonia is now offering a most unique opportunity: a personalized song that will be owned solely by the buyer. The cost is 100 dollars, and there are some strict rules to abide by if placing an order. Nonetheless, the thinking behind it is absolutely brilliant. Anyone reading this blog is strongly encouraged to read the page of the Hussalonia website detailing this offer. If I may be permitted a further divergence from actually writing about "Kindle For the Red Coats," I would like to say a bit more about this.
It has often occurred to me how simultaneously wonderful and terrible shared culture can be. There is a pleasant sense of community one can find in forming a new acquaintanceship or friendship over shared interests and the topic of favorite music is always a popular focus in such bonding rituals as these. One's mind could get absolutely boggled when considering the countless times that proclamations for the greatness of a popular song have served as icebreakers between strangers. I have had this experience a good many times in my own life. I can't say that I find any particular experience such as this regrettable.
Still, the existentialist, the individualist in me must, as in so many other cases, rebel against accepting this too idly. Though I may never have really regretted striking up a conversation with someone based on the shared love of a song, a movie, a television show or a videogame, I can also remember many times in recent years how, to some extent, it disturbs me, and gives me a sense of being too tangled up in the crowd.
I feel that this new offer from Hussalonia and the free-for-everyone release "The Public Domain EP" are, in a way, two sides of the same coin. "The Public Domain EP" provides, totally free of charge, four excellent songs that a person can have total freedom with, freedom to change, to alter, to build upon, to profit from, to enjoy, to do just about anything. This personalized song offer has a definite set of terms and conditions, many of which are the polar opposite of the freedoms allowed by the open terms of "The Public Domain EP." Yet it offers a different kind of freedom through these strict rules: it offers one the ability to truly "possess" a song in a way that is entirely individualized, that sets one apart as an individual from the entangling web of culture. The song one obtains through this offer is one's own; you can't start a conversation with a stranger based on a mutual love of it. You'll never hear it in a movie or on the radio. You can't go out to the store and buy a new copy. You will be left alone with it, yet in a way more truly so, perhaps, than any other song you will ever hear. I bow once again to Hussalonia for such a unique offer, for providing art for the individual even as art for the masses has been provided for. In a world mired in industry, in culture shared but not freely, Hussalonia has covered all of the bases. I cannot help but feel inspired, and my intent of spreading Hussalonia awareness through this blog feels ever-increasingly worthwhile.
Now, finally, I shall write about "Kindle For the Red Coats." I fear that my comments on this song will be quite skimpy, especially compared to the rambling I've just done.
I have long found this song's meaning difficult to grasp. I am able to pick up on the imagery of the stage, but somehow I feel drawn into the music itself and not far into it my ability to concentrate on the lyrics is absorbed into a trancelike state. The music is certainly excellent. However, this is one of the songs on "Ernest Evans Hussalonia" that I play very infrequently. The "list" that appears not long after or around the one minute mark features some of [The Hussalonia Founder]'s most unsettling vocals that I can currently remember. Not there is anything wrong with being unsettled by art; it can very well be a sign of great success. Still, even as a success, when this effect is achieved (whether or not intentionally) one can expect that a listener/reader/whatever will probably feel reluctant to return to that work of art very frequently.
Some years ago, about a year after the album "American IV: The Man Comes Around" by Johnny Cash was released, I was speaking with a friend about how much I enjoyed it. She told me that she didn't really like to listen to it much at all. This offended me to some degree. Upon my questioning her, she explained that the most of the songs on it were just too dark and too intense, and while they weren't, in her estimation, bad songs, they weren't the kind of the songs one listens to often or outside of a certain mood that is particularly receptive to such music.
This always bothered me, despite and perhaps increasingly because of her explanation. Nonetheless, I must concede that I do see her point. "Kindle For the Red Coats" is not a bad song, and it is arguably very evocative and effective; still it is, for me, rather difficult to listen to, perhaps due to the very fact that it has such a strong effect upon me. As the words "pathetic mother…movie theater…" are sung in that (to me, anyway) eerie, strained way, I feel like something in my mind could break, like the Gates of Hell are about to open. I am not really sure what about it is about this section of the song that affects me this way, and so strongly, but every time I listen to it I continually get that same sense of being overwhelmed. Perhaps the fact that I've never really comprehended the meaning of the lyrics adds to that feeling of being overwhelmed, of being lost in a confusion, running against a constant deadline to make sense but seemingly without hope of doing so as one's emotions come crashing down upon oneself. It is very powerful, very strange, and a bit too much to bear. Likely I've missed the real intent behind it, and I don't think that in writing this I'll be able to work out what that intent might be. I'm left only with that overwhelming intensity that it seems to convey to me.