I can’t remember a time when The Decemberists weren’t among my favorite bands, even though it was only a few months ago that I first came across their music. “Grace Cathedral Hill,” a ballad (ballad? that seems too cheesy, like I’m comparing it to an R. Kelly single circa 1997) from their album Castaways and Cutouts, was the first song of theirs I heard – the song that hooked me.
The song is wonderful and interesting not only in the world of music, but also in the world of The Decemberists’ music. It’s more conventional in melody than much of their material but just as lyrically creative and remarkably more tender. It’s foggy nostalgia, or maybe remembrance is a better word, because it’s not sappy, or sigh-y, or weepy, or celebratory. A friend of mine today described it as telling a story to someone who was in the story with you: We were both a little hungry, so we went to get a hot dog … Remember?
It’s beautiful in a very not tall-slender-blonde-and-leggy sort of way. This is the band who in another song describes L.A. as “an ocean’s garbled vomit on the shore,” before bursting out into a declaration of the title, “Los Angeles, I’m Yours.” They’ve got the craft down. They’re unavoidably listenable and incorrigibly clever. “Grace Cathedral Hill” is their slow dance masterpiece. It is a love song, but it’s as much about memory, vulnerability and emptiness.
Plus, uh, great tune! It belongs on this mix, I promise!
Grace Cathedral Hill
All wrapped in bones of setting sun
All dust and stone and moribund
I paid twenty-five cents to light a little white candle…
For a New Year’s Day
I sat and watched it burn away
Then turn and weaved through slow decay
We were both a little hungry so we went to get a hot dog
Down the Hyde Street Pier
The light was slight and disappeared
The air it stunk of fish and beer
We heard a superman trumpet play the national anthem
And the world may be long for you
But it’ll never belong to you
But on a motorbike
When all the city lights blind your eyes tonight
Are you feeling better now?
Some way to greet the year
Your eyes all bright and brim with tears
The pilgrims pills and tourists here
All sing “fifty-three bucks to buy a brand new halo”
Sweet on a green-eyed girl
All fiery Irish flip and curl
All brine and piss and vinegar
I paid twenty-five cents to light a little white candle
And the world may be long for you
But it’ll never belong to you
But on a motorbike
When all the city lights blind your eyes tonight
Are you feeling better now?
if that sounds half as beautiful as it reads..
yowza.
The Red House Painters did a track called Grace Cathedral Park. Typical mournful stuff in that wonderful style of Mark Kozalek. I wonder if it is the same Grace Cathedral?
Incidentally – Red House Painters. Painters of red houses or house painters that are red?
i’ve wondered about the red house painters song, too, and can only assume the two grace cathedrals are one in the same.
This is a lovely song, Kate. Thank you.