GutterPutter

In 2000, the Mercury Music Prize for the best alternative British album went to The Hour of Bewilderbeast by the Bolton-based singer-songwriter Damon Gough, also known as Badly Drawn Boy. With glowing reviews from critics at the time of its release, the record could have gone down as being among the most notable in the early 2000s. Instead, it was overshadowed by Radiohead’s Kid A as time went on and The Hour of Bewilderbeast instead languished now as being among the landfill of emotive indie folk tunes. Granted, it’s good, but it fails to enjoy the staying power that a handful of contemporaries would have enjoyed. To quote Spin’s review, “Stand The Hour of Bewilderbeast next to Elliott Smith’s Figure 8 for a few bars, and Gough starts to look like an impostor.”

It is despite the unfortunate development of the album’s legacy that it began with a bang – which is none but ‘The Shining’. With its delicate interplay between the horn and the violin, the song itself has a certain gentleness that carries far more than the strums of the guitar. In a way, the latter serves as being similar to a bass as while you can hear it more clearly, it isn’t the main selling point so much as it is a tool to add texture to the music which is compounded by its more muted mixing. Through the three key instruments, they form a sentimental impression that is funereal, but is at the same time vague as to where the feeling itself is coming from.

Then, over one-fifth of the way through, the singing begins. Take note of the lyrical content that comes through that’s assisted by the lower end of the bass singing. The rhyming that comes in couplets, the dripping down of the meter in each line per verse, the remarkable simplicity of the phrasing. “Faith pours from your walls / Drowning your calls / I’ve tried to hear / You’re not near.” This has a certain rhythmic feel, but it doesn’t come off as being forced. What it does offer instead is a natural feeling and that feeling is love. The theme itself largely revolves around the sonnet-like affirmation that comes from the relationship even if it comes from the aftermaths of the relationship itself. “And suddenly you’re in love with everything.”

As a bit of a late Valentine’s Day recommendation, ‘The Shining’ by Badly Drawn Boy has an allure that allows its romantic impact to be felt all the more strongly. Be it from the chamber instrumentation or the gentle singing, the song has a draw that makes you remember the experience of falling in love for the first time. However, in delving deep into the lyricism, it is more akin to the opening of a new chapter after a life-changing relationship has reached its end. It has the capacity to swoon many idealists over with the boundless opportunities that come with the end of each bond and it’s this notion that makes ‘The Shining’ all the more enchanting in what it offers.