Bonnie "Prince" Billy: "Lie down in the Light"

Will Oldham’s latest Is a winning Collection of Hymns to the Flesh.

Sep 22, 2008

From the first chorus of "Easy Does It," the opener on Lie Down in the Light, the listener is introduced to a world ruled by "good, earthly music."

While Will Oldham's take on Americana and folk music draws much of its inspiration from gospel and spiritual traditions, with its organ swells, traditional instrumentation, and call and response male/female vocals, his earthy gospel on this record possesses strains of perversion and menace.

"So Everyone": A New Church

"So Everyone" is a lumbering, swaying paean to oral sex that humorously and heretically conflates the sacred invocation of God's grace and the profane act of public fellatio or cunnilingus. Ashley Webber's voice rises with Oldham's as they pronounce in unison:

The sense of prayerful reverence in the act and sheer exuberance with which Oldham sings are what keep the track from veering into the realm of obscene excess; he is not wanting for sincerity.

"For Every Field There Is A Mole": Oldham's Lamentation

"For Every Field There Is a Mole" is Oldham's mournful take on Ecclesiastes 3:1-8,

echoing the Biblical author's warning's against "vanity of vanities" and great leveling of existence. Oldham sings:

He closes the song with a peculiar menace, suggesting a resistance to wailing and sorrow; yet copiously absent is any reference to God's provenance or good will. Oldham's fleshy prophet inhabits a world of lust, vanity, song and darkness; he comes not to save the world but to "watch it boil o' tearfully."

Greil Marcus, American music critic, writing of Will Oldham's religious bent on Lie Down in the Light argues that he "has written and sung from an Appalachian highlands that may as well be his own imagined country...sing[ing] as the sole member of his own religion--and you can't tell if the faith has all but died out or if the prophet has yet to find his first follower."

"I'll Be Glad": A Profession of Faith

"I'll Be Glad," the album's finest and final track, is its true holy moment, the closest thing to a prayer and supplication with its building, rising and swelling vocals that launch the song upwards into the darkening, silent skies. Oldham pleads to not be forsaken, knowing that he'll never be left to thirst or hunger; he closes the song with the lines, "Lord I'm too weak to travel / I'll be glad you're strong / and I'll lean on your arms," as the organ player turns up the vibrato and a chorus of voices lift him, and us, off our feet, pointing our heads upwards. Sean Michaels has described this moment best, its a moment that sounds like "what it's like to believe in God...sing[ing] a beautiful song... in your own crooked way...leav[ing] room for for other peoples' pauses and backing vocals and organ solos. And then if you're lucky, before the end, a beautiful and unexpected chorus appears."

Bonnie "Prince" Billy is an artist that appears and reappears in many multifaceted guises, often on a single record. Though he switches from doomsaying prophet to jubilant lover to ardent believer with relative ease on Lie Down in the Light, what remains constant is his broken, failing voice behind the words. It crackles less with age, yet never shies away from the listener, confident enough to never be full throated but always clear.

Marcus, Greil. "Real Life Rock Top Ten." The Believer. September 2008: 56. p.44

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