Iron & Wine's "Sing Into My Mouth" FP6

Get in your car, turn the key. Switch the radio on and hit scan. While mindlessly listening to each 30 second bit before the next station interrupts, take note of the common thread that most of these popular songs intertwine themselves with. Think of what similar aspect the lyrics of each differing generic song uses to weave itself into the broader scheme of relatability. 

            Now sit down and reflect. Consider your values; what do you want out of life? What do you need? What do we all need to survive the lonesome future? What do we crave, more than anything else in the world? Is it endless money, fame and fortune? Or is it something rather intimate, such as being loved and adored by that one significant other of your dreams...?

            Combine these two, and you get pop culture’s unrealistic expectations. We all want that love that everyone universally yearns for and every singer-songwriter belts hits about. Whether it is the loss of, or the one true; love is held on a pedestal unlike any other. Sure, we all want materialistic objects and praise galore, but those are attainable attributes. Work hard, and it’s yours. Love is different for everyone, and may come and go. We all feel the need to belong to someone, and meaningful belonging is essential, however limited. Dr. Ben-Zeév of Psychology Today notes that in our day in age, social expectations reinforce romantic limitations, such as belongingness, to most people (2). Within such social expectations, lies the surmise of "love" that popular music enhances throughout lyrical and sonic elements.

            Outside of the musical spectra, intrinsic elements that reinforce intensified desires surround us wherever we may go. Whether it is over-sexualization in a watch commercial or the specific colors in a McDonald’s logo that apparently make you hungry; the media always has to add that impulsivity of aspiration. You can’t turn anywhere without an inclination of sorts being shoved in your face. Love is one of these inescapable wraths of media that are taken up and blown massively out of proportion. Take hit television show, The Bachelor, for example. Finding love is insanely hard enough in our day and age, let alone on reality television. The Daily Telegraph wrote an article that went out and listed all of the contestants and their current relationship status and out of twenty-eight, twenty broke up (Can the Bachelor...? 2). As if that is not proof enough that clearly the highest pedestal of all relationships is on faulty ground, audiences ignore the facts and continuously gobble up the fantasy. Americans love to believe in love, and love to crave the unattainable even more. Love is the forbidden fruit for most and the obsession of eating it is reflected throughout common themes in television, advertisements, and even music. However, realistic love is vastly different than the fairy tales and dramas portrayed, and although true love is not the same for everybody, it definitely isn't the same "as seen on TV".
            But what is this real love I'm mentioning, do we not have our own personal definitions of love since it affects us all differently? Defining love is like trying to interpret the color blue to a person who was born blind- you have to feel it to pinpoint exactly what it is. Faced with this question now, I looked into tons of of articles and applied my own personal experiences to the mix. My favorite article was "What Real Love is Like", by Dawn Raffel, whom admits that love isn't an emotion at all. Love is a verb, it's a behavior upon which the welfare of another person is the primary goal and intention; love is unconditional (1). If love were as emotionally based as some believe, the feeling would be ephemeral and would change when the circumstances do. Another interesting point of view was in the article "What Is True Love?" by Harriet Sun. Sun talks about the difference between love, and those silly little butterflies that flourish in the pits of lovers' stomachs. The thread between these two sources is that Sun also agrees that love is not an emotion, even though it may accompany strong emotional feelings (3). Love is knowledgable and kind; love is a choice. Love takes time; love is patient. Love is different for everybody, although it has the commonality of being a verb and a state of being. The feelings that accompany love is what makes the experience between individuals differ so greatly. So I guess, love could in fact be a marvelous fairy-tale filled with sunshine and cotton candy. But, the realistic probability of one having such experience with love is lower than my current GPA. The reality that two lovers have to have life goals generally going in the same direction, or at least have to express a mutual understanding that career paths could separate their geographical designation, is a fact that couples all around the world face all the time. Sometimes, love is just not enough to bring two people together; it's the harsh reality that the road gets tough and often there's nothing we can do to avoid that. But regardless, at the end of the day, real true love is straight up complex. And here my friends, is where my album comes in.

           Now specifically, this week I am going to bring up Iron & Wine’s collaborative cover album with Band of Horses’ lead singer, Ben Bridwell. Sing into My Mouth includes previously popular songs such as Talking Head’s “This Must Be the Place”  and Ronnie Lane’s “Done This One Before”. By adding a folksy twist with their acoustic guitar and a gentle rhythmic hum, the transcending messages of love and the yearn for such transforms to our current generation. By redesigning the cliché love song, the real complexity of love and its many facets is drawn out and put on display. Upon reading review after review of this album to get a clear read on the album’s project, my favorite wording of what I am trying to say is vocalized by Pitchfork reviewer Stephen Deusner. He beautifully states, “without resorting to pop-song clichés: kiss, desire, love, marriage, life in their reading, the song becomes a testament to the impossibility… even if the vividness of emotion is endlessly renewable” (2). I picked this quote out because it speaks to my argument coherently, and becomes a testament to both points of view. While covering songs that were previously blowing up stereotypical messages of fairy-tale love that pop culture often portrays, the new covers by Iron & Wine become a more realistic account of the love that I am seeking to define.
          Nonetheless, the similar messages of emotional attachment transfer effortlessly throughout genre and generation. It's the tone that changes the message's intent; by innovatively transforming both the vocals and acoustics into Iron & Wine's classic hymnal-folk-rock vibe and taking it away from the popular hype scene, the concern of the album is not so focused on how sweet it is to be wrapped in love's embrace. Rather, it's focused on the reality of how bitter love and the loss of, can taste. The simple innocence of some of the lyrics allows them to become malleable in songs such as, "Magnolia", a song that explicitly is about a love of his own, "the best I've ever had" (Iron & Wine). However, it's the resonance in Bridwell's voice that enforces the sadness of being apart from his baby that he, "left down in New Orleans" (Iron & Wine), and puts the listener in his place, an empty shell of loneliness. 
        At the end of the day, Iron & Wine takes their talents to a new level of enjoyment for both the listener and the band. Audibly you hear the band both smile at the remembrance of love and wince at the absence of what was once. During this interaction however, the listeners seem to fade away as the album progresses. The covers are clearly covers, distancing themselves from recalled sentiment and the emotion of the original songwriters. The audience can connect regardless, but the distance remains as a barrier of complexity. I guess this all serves purpose though, as this same barrier of difference only brings the idea of the argument within the album to life. 

            The reason I spoke of popular music is because although all of the songs aren't constantly being played on the radio like Justin Bieber is, this is one of Iron & Wine's most popular albums and has been previously reviewed by popular music critics such as Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and Consequence of Sound. One of the songs specifically noted earlier, "This Must Be the Place", originally by the Talking Heads, hit the Billboard top 100 in the United Kingdom and the United States. The song's lyrics are what the album, Sing Into My Mouth, is named after, and they also highlight unrealistic expectations note that love is a, "feet in the cloud, head in the sky" emotionally-based noun, and that we're all "animal(s), looking for a home" (Iron & Wine). Like I alluded to earlier, the original messages remain in the covered songs but change in deliverance, giving them a more realistic grit. The provocative emotion drawn out in the originals seem to be dried out on the cover, which makes the album both sub-par and perfect for the argument at hand. 
          As we move on from reading this, keep in mind the differences between reality television and reality, and the barrier between love and its high pedestal. Realistic love is challenging and tolling, and although well worth it; it's much different than the fairy tale we as consumers see. Love is hard and tough and grinding, just like how Iron & Wine's folksy and achy voice brings it out to be; even if the lyrics describe such over-romanticized clichés. Do not think of this as a downer, but more of a breath of fresh air. Love exists, don't you fret, but popular music brings it to be the end all and be all of the universe. Be it a goal to find your own path without Taylor Swift's "Love Story" playing in the background, and find something real. 

Works Cited

Ben-Zeév, Aaron. "Why We All Need to Belong to Someone." Psychology Today. N.p., 11 Mar. 2014. Web. 29 Nov. 2015. 

"Can The Bachelor REALLY Find You True Love? US Version Shows the Break-ups and Marriages." The Daily Telegraph. N.p., 17 Sept. 2015. Web. 29 Nov. 2015. 

Deusner, Stephen. "Ben Bridwell / Iron & Wine: Sing Into My Mouth." Pitchfork. N.p., 15 July 2015. Web. 29 Nov. 2015. 

Iron & Wine, Ben Bridwell. This Must Be The Place. Black Cricket/Brown Records, 2015. MP3.
"Marriage & Divorce." American Psychological Association. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.
Raffel, Dawn. "What Real Love Is Like." Oprah. Couples Therapist Advice, n.d. Web. 8 Dec. 2015.
Sun, Harriet. "What Is True Love?" Power to Change What Is True Love Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2015.