{"id":27071,"date":"2017-04-30T16:28:08","date_gmt":"2017-04-30T15:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/essentiallypop.com\/epop\/?p=27071"},"modified":"2017-04-30T16:38:56","modified_gmt":"2017-04-30T15:38:56","slug":"born-in-the-ambiguous-way-callum-morgan-morganway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/essentiallypop.com\/epop\/2017\/04\/born-in-the-ambiguous-way-callum-morgan-morganway\/","title":{"rendered":"Born In The Ambiguous Way – Callum Morgan, Morganway"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Morganway – photo credit Olli Ali<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As a songwriter no matter what your intent may be, the listener ultimately makes the call. They write their own movie, their own play, their own experience. For me the greatest songs allow the greatest room for interpretation. Of course, if you\u2019re too vague it becomes impersonal, insincere, and that\u2019s a fine line. When the balance is right, the experience is more than rewarding; it\u2019s pure and healing.<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n

The older we get, the more we become slaves to the uncertainties of life. All that stuff we thought we knew, we barely understand. Dylan summed it up beautifully in \u2018My Back Pages\u2019: \u201cI was so much older then, I\u2019m younger than that now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The ambiguity in great lyrics gives us, as listeners, freedom to discover. Our mood that day will most likely determine what we feel in a song, but sometimes even if we\u2019ve heard it hundreds of times we\u2019ll find something we never knew was there. Is the Fleetwood Mac song \u2018Gypsy\u2019<\/span> empowering, or a sad reflection on disappointment and loss? Does it matter if \u2018There She Goes\u2019<\/span> is about heroin or a girl? Remember that scene in \u2018Meet The Parents\u2019 (2000) when Robert DeNiro and Ben Stiller discuss \u2018Puff The Magic Dragon\u2019? Stiller says it\u2019s about smoking weed, DeNiro responds, \u201cPuff\u2019s just the name of the boy\u2019s magical dragon.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I was driving back from a gig the other night and I had the urge to listen to Bruce Springsteen\u2019s \u2018Born In The USA\u2019. Many describe it as a misunderstood political protest song and when Republican President Ronald Reagan used it in his campaign for reelection, Springsteen, a lifelong Democrat, stopped playing it live. You only need to look at those unforgettable opening lines, ‘Born in a dead man\u2019s town \/ The first kick I took was when I hit the ground’, and you can hardly blame him. The undeniable discontent and disillusionment running through the song\u2019s veins is as pertinent now as ever. The world around us is full of despair, chaos, disparity, where every dream we once held as truth becomes, in the words of Paul Simon, \u201cdriven to its knees\u201d. And on days like these we\u2019re the young American in \u2018Born in the USA\u2019<\/span> who goes out to fight, \u201cthe yellow man\u201d, seduced by a dream that turned out to be a lie, returning home brother-less, unwanted, with \u201cnowhere to run and nowhere to go\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n

Yet one person\u2019s disillusionment is another\u2019s affirmation. While it\u2019s easy to mock the Reagan campaign\u2019s shortsightedness, we can\u2019t ignore the elephant in the room. You only need to listen to that chorus: \u201cBorn in the USA, I was born in the USA\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

If it\u2019s a protest song, it\u2019s a patriotic one; as proud as it is ashamed. It may be Anti-America, but it isn\u2019t anti-American. Forget irony a minute. If shouting \u201cborn in the USA\u201d at the top of your lungs is not in some ways an uplifting celebration of national identity, Trump isn\u2019t president. For many the song was simply about being an American, warts and all and glad as hell.<\/span><\/p>\n

However lost our subject is, I\u2019m always drawn to how the movie ends. Springsteen leaves us with the line, \u201cI\u2019m a cool rocking daddy in the USA\u201d.<\/span> It\u2019s something far more complex than irony, it\u2019s the purest of ambivalence. There\u2019s hope. Maybe not enough to mend our brokenness, but at the very least wrap it in ice and reduce the swelling. Our dreams may be crushed, our lives fractured beyond repair, but there\u2019s always something in our souls that keeps us rocking. What Morrissey refers to as the \u201clight that never goes out\u201d; and what the late Leonard Cohen called\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cthe crack in everything\u2026<\/span> where the light gets in.\u201d<\/span> That fragile balance between the \u201clong gone Daddy\u201d<\/span> and the \u201ccool rocking Daddy\u201d<\/span> is both Springsteen\u2019s America, and more than that, the ambivalence and ambiguity of what it means to be alive. <\/span><\/p>\n

Great songs give listeners the courage to write their own endings. They could be happily ever after, they could be Romeo & Juliet. They keep us guessing. Keep us searching. Keep us human.<\/span><\/p>\n

Find out more about Norwich band Morganway on their social media. Check out Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, Instagram<\/a>, SoundCloud<\/a>, and YouTube<\/a>, as well as their official website<\/a>. Their new EP, ‘Hurricane’, is available now from Bandcamp<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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