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THE SONGWRITER AS POET:
IAN MCCULLOCH AND THE PRE-RAPHAELITE TRADITION
Kristin F. Smith
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Chapter 13: The Larger Canvas
Both Rossetti and McCulloch play out their various themes against the much larger canvas of their own basic ideals and principles. Like the backdrop to a stage set, these core beliefs give a fundamental unity to their works. For each man the backdrop is different. And, as in a play, it is rarely the focus of attention.
Rossetti's core thesis boils down to a testament to the power of Love and Beauty upon the human soul, and the duty of the artist to bear witness to that power. It is his own Dantean pilgrimage.
Three early sonnets, each titled The Choice, explore how this pilgrimage should be conducted. Rossetti offers his own 'choice' in the third: "Think thou and act; to-morrow thou shalt die." [DGR; The Choice (3); 1848]. Man's purpose, he says, is to add to the store of human understanding, to strive continually to touch 'truth', which for Rossetti meant artistic truth. This is a journey without end, for the goal is forever not only beyond reach, but beyond knowing:
"… From this wave-washed mound
Unto the furthest flood-brim look with me;
Then reach on with thy thought till it be drown'd.
Miles and miles distant though the grey line be.
And though thy soul sail leagues and leagues beyond,
Still, leagues beyond those leagues, there is more sea." [DGR; The Choice (3); 1848]
'Truth" for Rossetti was always bound up in his artistic goals, and his artistic goals always came back to Love and Beauty. He made a distinction between purely physical beauty ("Body's Beauty") and a more high-minded variety he termed "Soul's Beauty", in which he found great mystical power and the source of his inspiration:
"Under the arch of Life, where love and death,
Terror and mystery, guard her shrine, I saw
Beauty enthroned; and though her gaze struck awe,
I drew it in as simply as my breath." [DGR; Soul's Beauty; 1866]
In other words, he discovered his artistic calling. Note that in this visionary epiphany, Beauty's attendants include both "terror" and "mystery". Rossetti regarded women as much more than ornamental, and not altogether 'safe'.
Rossetti's Poet, soliloquizing, describes what it means to glimpse the ideal and seek it ever afterward:
"This is that Lady Beauty, in whose praise
Thy voice and hand shake still--long known to thee
By flying hair and fluttering hem…." [DGR; Soul's Beauty; 1866]
Here, Rossetti brings in both the poet Dante ("the artist/Who has the skill of art and hand that trembles" [Paradiso; xiii, 78]) and the painter Botticelli (the "hair" and "hem"), a double- barreled allusion reminding us that the artist is an imperfect being in pursuit of perfection ("Lady Beauty"), and that Rossetti himself is pursuing her with every fiber of his being in both poem and picture:
"How passionately and irretrievably,
In what fond flight, how many ways and days!" [DGR; Soul's Beauty; 1866]
McCulloch, like Rossetti, is not generally given to grandiose statements of belief. But his work does carry one overriding message against which all his themes play out: life is to be fought through to the end, and with principle. He rarely discusses this overall philosophy. Two songs, The Holy Grail and The Cutter, stand out as exceptions.
The Holy Grail [1995] makes McCulloch's strongest declaration of these tenets. Intensely Pre-Raphaelitic, down to its Tennysonian subject matter (the Grail Quest) and its painterly use of images, it is a remarkable piece of work. More a tableau than a narrative, the scene opens upon a breached castle:
"With blood on the battlements
You know how it's gonna end" [IM; The Holy Grail; single; 1995]
McCulloch piles on images: a stone angel, fallen from its high perch, never "able to soar with the gods again"; a coming plague; the sheer cliff at the base of the castle and, below that:
"...a bottomless pit
Where all of us have to fall....
All the kings and queens
And knights in shining armor
All the holy ghosts and all our holy fathers" [IM; The Holy Grail; single; 1995]
Note that this is the idealized Middle Ages, which is the version also favored by the Pre-Raphaelites. We find no mention of serfs, pigs or mud [Note 10]. It is just as well. Power, beauty, gallantry, holiness - all are ultimately doomed, McCulloch tells us. What does he counsel in the face of such bleak prospects? Chin up and forward:
"Take what's yours and take it boldly
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Ride the wave when it comes crashing
Be the knight in a shining costume…." [IM; The Holy Grail; single; 1995]
And slay those dragons - especially if they get uppity and ask you to sell out.
The song's power builds toward the last stanza, which holds out the promise of the Grail Cup, "putting a twist in the tale". Those who do not "hate", McCulloch tells us, can reach the Holy Grail (which we may interpret in a broader sense).
The Holy Grail stands as a unique direct statement of McCulloch's major tenet: 'fight to the end, and honorably, even in a fallen world where eternity is uncertain'. The Cutter deals with the idea obliquely, presenting life as a "free-for-all" to be fought out "with sellotape and knives" in a world rife with scheming and ruthless ambition:
"Who's on the seventh floor
Brewing alternatives?
What's in the bottom drawer
Waiting for things to give?" [IM; The Cutter; PORCUPINE; 1983]
While some plot their various "alternatives" to get what they want, and others wait and hope for those above them to fall, the denizens of this metaphysical version of planet Earth live always in fear of "the cutter", apparently a combination of Death's scythe and a winnower of failures:
"Spare us the cutter
Couldn't cut the mustard…." [IM; The Cutter; PORCUPINE; 1983]
Yet despite all this, McCulloch offers hope, and suggests the possibility of life as a purifying, redemptive experience:
"Am I the happy loss?
Will I still recoil
When the skin is lost?
Am I the worthy cross?
Will I still be soiled
When the dirt is off?" [IM; The Cutter; PORCUPINE; 1983]
If the soul does continue "[w]hen the skin is lost", this immortal part of man may realize its potential; become "the worthy cross", no longer "soiled" by the sins of life. McCulloch here tenders the advice of The Holy Grail. Pursue life, he tells us, with grace, courage, dignity and passion:
"Conquering myself until
I see another hurdle approaching
Say we can, say we will
Not just another drop in the ocean" [IM; The Cutter; PORCUPINE; 1983]
Slay the dragons within, run the course well, have faith in yourself and (here the metaphor moves from land to sea), make your separate wave stand out within the great ocean of humanity. Life can have purpose and meaning, if it is lived in a purposeful, meaningful way. It is the individual's choice to make, before the "cutter" puts an end to all grasping:
"Watch the fingers close
When the hands are cold" [IM; The Cutter; PORCUPINE; 1983]
How do we find the courage and grace to face life as McCulloch counsels in The Holy Grail and The Cutter? To pursue our ideals with the ardor and passion demanded by Rossetti? Here, as we have seen, the painter/poet and the singer/songwriter come into perfect confluence; we draw our strength from human love.
Note 10: For an excellent version of the Middle Ages which does contain serfs, pigs and mud, see Ken Follett's novel, THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH. Back to text
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An Annotated Discography: Works by Echo and the Bunnymen, Ian McCulloch, Will Sergeant, Electrafixion and Glide (off-site link)
Echo and the Bunnymen, Ian McCulloch and Electrafixion: Album Reviews (off-site link)
The Bunnymen Concert Log: A comprehensive, annotated listing of concert dates, venues and set lists for Echo and the Bunnymen, Ian McCulloch and Electrafixion (off-site link)
Bunnymen.info - The (Unofficial) News Source (off-site link, run by Charles Pham)
Aldems' Political Quotations: Apt and Otherwise
BlindFool and Scruffy Dog: Dilettantes-at-Large
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