Tuesday Tune: "Walking Far From Home" by Iron and Wine

"Walking Far From Home" by folk troubadour Iron and Wine* (from the album Kiss Each Other Clean) is so lyrically potent, so sonically pure, so breath-stealing, so heart-stopping, so much like the most beautiful sound you ever heard which plays on an endless looping figure-eight caroming off the walls of a room you've just entered by mistake at your best friend's party thinking it was the bathroom but it turned out to be this blank white room like something out of the mind-tripping end of 2001: A Space Odyssey and even though it doesn't have a floating fetus the effect is still the same because there's that hypnotic ribbon of sound pulling you in and you step over the threshold without your space-helmet and the door closes and locks behind you but that's okay because you don't really want to leave the living breathing presence of this hymn that swirls and floats before you in all its glory forever and ever amen.  Yes, it's so very, very good, I won't offer any commentary this week, but let the lyrics and the music speak for themselves.

I saw sickness, blooming fruit trees
I saw blood and a bit of it was mine
I saw children in a river
But their lips were still dry, lips were still dry
I was walking far from home
And I found your face mingled in the crowd
Saw a boatful of believers sail off
Talking too loud, talking too loud
I saw sunlight on the water
Saw a bird fall like a hammer from the sky
An old woman on the speed train
She was closing her eyes, closing her eyes
I saw flowers on a hillside
And a millionaire pissing on the lawn
Saw a prisoner take a pistol
And say, "Join me in song, join me in song"
Saw a car crash in the country
Where the prayers run like weeds along the road

If you would like to purchase "Walking Far From Home" from Amazon, CLICK HERE


*aka Samuel Beam