I'm not sure if this really is #31, if it is then this idea has been neglected for far too long -- and it's about time I brought it back.The Waifs were originally formed in the early 90s by a couple of folk-loving sisters who made simple, straight forward music -- but it was several years later that they formed a band with a third member.
Obviously, it was The Girl who introduced me to the Waifs (both being from Albany), she was just playing music one night and I immediately took a liking to the band's sound and the stories involved in the songs.
I can't offer anything like a biography of the band without simply copying it from their official site or the wiki article, and I'm only familiar with two of their albums. I'm not even a huge fan, sometimes their music can feel a little too "country" for my liking, or just too much like Norah Jones' particular brand of inoffensive, coffee-table music. But I can write a little about my favourite songs, and my appreciation for their folk/blues roots, too.
Many of the songs have more than a twinge of sadness to them, probably their biggest song is London, Still -- which I expect is a kind of theme song to large communities of people in Earl's Court, Hammersmith and Shepherd's Bush. A kind of commentary of an Australian in London missing their family and their "sleepy Sunday town", when played live it's been known to bring a tear to the eye.
Perhaps the most obvious autobiographical of their songs is Fisherman's Daughter -- about being a "regular West Australian fisherman’s daughter...a middle class folk singing guitar playin’ girl" -- the song's feeling itself reflects the simplicity of the singers; in a slow, blues style.
A less direct autobiographical theme comes in the song Bridal Train, a song about war brides who in the second world war married sailors in the US Navy and whose passage from Australia to the USA was arranged by the USA so they could be with their husbands. It's more than just history, though, since it directly tells the story of the girls' grandmother who with many others took the "bridal train" from Perth to Sydney.
One of my favourite songs is Lighthouse, but I can only make guesses towards its subject. It's quite an upbeat and um-tempo I like to think that it's a song about depression, that the "cold headland" it refers to is an emotional rather than literal one. I'm not sure who or what the "lighthouse" is (I prefer not to consider the perhaps obvious religious interpretation), instead concentrating on the idea that we have to find our own ways back to shore.
Some of their more recent work on the album my blog now shares a name seems less directly biographical and sometimes more bluesy than folk -- Sun Dirt Water can be watched and appreciated for itself in the previous post without my comments, and maybe it's best if I let the rest of their music speak for itself after this.
Strings of Steel
Lighthouse
Pony
Lighthouse is one of my most favourite tracks. I really don't think there's religious overtones- I've never noticed anything religious in their music, so I think it's a bit unlikely. I think it's a bit literal-- but that in saying things like "He will light your way but that is all, steer your own ship back to shore", they're saying that people can offer you help, but in the end it's up to you to make the changes necessary to survive. I do think it's about depression- and if listened to when suitably depressed, it can have me in tears.
ReplyDeleteAs, of course, can London Still. I feel a bit cheated, really- so many people now have access to that song, and yet the vast majority of them know nothing else of the band... I feel like something that I identify with so well shouldn't have to be shared with the great unwashed masses... but that's just me being selfish, really.
Bridal Train is probably my other favourite track to date (although I *do* like Sun, Dirt, Water), and as you know, I was there for their first live performance of the song, prior to its' single release. I liked it then, but I think it's grown on me more as time's gone on.
Hooray for MM, and The Waifs!