If you have ever listened to any of her music, you should be familiar with the complexity and the cleverness of her lyrics.
On her most recent album (that one -->)
she has one song that instantly made me think of my profession: archaeology. As you may know, archaeologists find things and put dates on them, then they end up in museums where people can oogle them.
The song is called, "All the Rowboats." I believe that she is in a museum and she is describing her experience there, starting with one painting that has rowboats. She says at one time, "they keep hanging in their gold frames for forever and a day," meaning that even after humanity is gone the painting will probably still be around. Of course I think the ending of humanity probably would depend on a cataclysmic event.
When she says she "hears them whispering" French, German, Dutch Italian and Latin, I believe she is referring to the cross cultural phenomena of locking things that are old and of value away to keep them safe.
She then goes on to sing about how the violins are stuck in these glass cases (coffins) and it's so sad and pitiful that they've forgotten how to sing. The original intent and purpose of items in a museum, like a violin, is forgotten, and the music that instrument makes won't be heard again, so what is the point of keeping them locked up other than to look? Probably one of my favorite lines from the song is "masterpieces serving maximum sentences." It's just so clever and rings true.
This song is very well written and lyrically reminds me of Anais Mitchell's style. As far as the album goes, it is well done like all of her work, but you can see that she is really trying to expand herself as an artist. When I saw her in concert she said that she had been practicing her beatbox, and whenever you hear a beatbox on this album, it's her. I love her so much and hope you enjoy her too.
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