Film – Five Short Words

I was listening to a recent album – Doctor Moan – by one of my musical heroes, Peter Case. It’s great, as always, but unusual in that a lot of the songs are piano based, rather than guitar.

It led me to sit down at the piano, and just mess around with some chord changes, and pretty soon I had a song.

I wrote the song back in January and started this blog post then, but didn’t get it finished. So I’m using some time I have now to finish off some of the things I was working on.

The first line – ‘There are so many stories that should never be told’ – came from something I heard, or read somewhere. I must get into the habit of making a note of where these initial ideas come from …

But that first line got me thinking about the horror of the situation in Gaza, and most of the rest of the words just came in a stream as I was out walking one day in January.

I also had remembered (and noted!) some words from the film ‘The Magnificent Seven.’ The quote that I took from the film comes right at the end of the film, after the seven have helped to rid the village of Calvera and his men.

‘Only the farmers have won. They remain forever. They are like the land itself. You helped rid them of Calvera the way a strong wind helps rid them of locusts. You are like the wind, blowing across the land and… passing on. Vaya con Dios.”

The Reaper (Working title)

There are so many stories that should never be told
Of lives that were broken, that never got old.
Their choices were cut down
They’re buried or they’re burned

Swarming all over the land
Stripping the fields of grain
And everything you see that grows,
All that grows

For now the Reaper has won
The earth receives her own
Watered by the tears that flow,
The tears that flow

And only the strongest wind
Helps them be rid of the curse
They are like the wind that blows,
The wind that blows

And the graveyards are filled with the people so bold
The women and men and the children now cold (repeat x4)

And I do believe in the milk of human kindness,
But sometimes it seems to run dry
I do believe that there must be hope somewhere
And I will keep looking for the signs

Is it true that one small light
Is all the light we need
To banish all the dark away, the dark away ?

Spoiler Alert

We’ve just watched the film ‘The Mule,’ starring Clint Eastwood. The premise of the film is that Earl, the character played by Clint Eastwood has put his work as a horticulturist before his family. We see important family occasions – christenings, confirmations, graduations etc where he is absent – on one occasion at a flower show getting an award for his prize winning day lilies.

The film moves forward 12 years – his horticultural business has failed because of competition from firms using the internet more and more, and he is about to lose his whole livelihood.

It’s at this point that an unusual opportunity comes along – to simply drive hundreds of miles across the country and deliver some packages – we soon learn that he is working for a drug cartel transporting large quantities of cocaine.

He agrees to do one trip and buys a new truck with the money he gets. Although he only intended one trip, he does more trips, using the proceeds to save his home, pay for the refurbishment of a veteran’s club and finance his granddaughter’s college education.

The framework of the story is his activity as a drug mule and the attempts of law enforcement who are investigating the drug cartel.

You might ask questions about all the people whose lives are being ruined by taking cocaine, and the violent lives of the cartel members, but that’s not what the story is about. The background of cartel and drug running enables the full power of the family story to come through.

The heart of the story is about Earl’s relationship, or rather lack of relationship with his ex wife and daughter. This is the story of the film, but it is told using the drug running as a way of telling that story.

The film raises questions about story-telling and how legitimate it is to use such an immoral, criminal framework without any comment on the immorality of that surrounding story.

It made me think about some biblical stories, especially in the Old Testament, where we might miss the whole point of the story by focussing on our unease with the way the story is being told.

Category: Film

Peter Case And A Piano

The Power Of A Story