The Curse

First, the woody waltz of the col legno battuto upon the cello and violin. One-two-three, one-two-three, you can imagine the congregation of clouds rolling over the landscape, the night-sky gray-red above the heads of humans who have no word or knowledge for snow as they do for the moon. Next, the same violin overdubs the layer of waltz, like the heavy gale that forces those souls to turn away, or even turn their back, to catch their breath, never having lost it in this way before. The only thing they know to do is retreat into the ground where limestone sweats, and wait.

Later, they eventually awaken to a landscape changed, unfamiliar, yet all the same. Are they in the sky? Gingerly, they step foot into the white curiosity, the cello is their question, the violin is drifts of snow in response. As one soul after the next steps foot into the white curiosity, the celesta waltzes into the frame, striking its cold, steel plates in a soft accumulation. And so the white curiosity continues, leaving only footprints and numbness. They can track the hunt, but their hands are too cold to yield the weapon. Thus, they deem the white curiosity a curse not yet knowing of symbiosis, of the grass that will in due time reach for the sky. And even when they close their eyes at its brightness, they still see its residual gray-red.

***

I have been listening to Agnes Obel's "The Curse" for over a year now. Just as her haunting music and parnassian lyrics inspired my above narrative, it was a book that inspired her to write the song. In the book, she read about how experience gains meaning from what is already known by the one experiencing it. Something foreign, then, is a curiosity yearning like a drawn-out cello string for a meaning. Such desperation.

Here is the song in my favorite version, performed live by just three talented musicians, using overdubbing to create an accumulation of sound, of song.

Enjoy on this snowy day.