Review: Weight of Living, Pt. I

Song: Weight of Living, Pt. I

Artist: Bastille

Album: Bad Blood (Bonus Track), or All This Bad Blood

Year Released: 2013

Background and Interesting Facts: So, here is a little background on this song. One of the lyrics, "there's an albatross around your neck," refers to a metaphor created from a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798). In nautical mythology (if that is even a thing), an albatross was considered a sign of good luck.  However, in his poem, the mariner shoots the albatross, which thus releases suffering upon the ship and the crew. The mariner feels as though the albatross is hung around his neck. "Instead of the cross, the Albatross about my neck was hung."

The albatross metaphor is also referred to in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein:  "…but I shall kill no albatross…"

And, the last reference, Charles Baudelaire has a poem entitled Albatross.

L'Albatros:

Souvent, pour s'amuser, es homes d'équipage

Prennent des albatros, vastes oiseaux des mers,

Qui suivent, indolents compagnons de voyage,

Le navire glissant sur les gouffres amers.

A peine les ont-ils déposés sur les planches,

Que ces rois de l’azur, maladroits et honteux,

Laissent piteusement leurs grandes ailes blanches

Comme des avirons trainer à côté d’eux,

Ce voyageur ailé, comme il est gauche et veule !

Lui, naguère si beau, qu’il est comique et laid !

L’un agace son bec avec un brûle-gueule,

L’autre mime, en boitant, l’infirme qui volait !

Le Poète est semblable au prince des nuées

Qui hante la tempête et se rit de l’archer ;

Exilé sur le sol au milieu des huées,

Ses ailes de géant l’empêchent de marcher.

The Albatross:

Sometimes, to entertain themselves, the men of the crew

Lure upon deck an unlucky albatross, one of those vast

Birds of the sea that follow unwearied the voyage through,

Flying in slow and elegant circles above the mast.

No sooner have the disentangled him from their nets

Than this aerial colossus, shorn of his pride,

Goes hobbling pitiably across the planks and lets

His great wings hang like heavy, useless oars at his side.

How droll is the poor floundering creature, how limp and weak –

He, but a moment past so lordly, flying in state!

They tease him: One of them tries to stick a pipe in his beak;

Another mimics with laughter his odd lurching gait.

The Poet is like that wild inheritor of the cloud,

A rider of storms, above the range of arrows and slings;

Exiled on earth, at bay amid the jeering crowd,

He cannot walk for his unmanageable wings.

 

 

I think all the literary references this song carries within itself is enough to make it awesome, or at least intriguing. I guess I am a sucker for bands who use literary references (*cough* Mumford & Sons). The beautiful reality this song offers are things we have all faced in life: our regrets, our mistakes, our depression, our bad days, years, seasons, etc. At the same time, the song offers hope. It doesn't ignore the reality that our stuff is still there, or that our stuff will happen, but it doesn't have to dictate how we choose to live our lives each day. That is why one of my favorite lines in this song is, "oh there's a light." There is always hope. My second favorite line is, "It's the sun in your eyes," which, to me, refers to the ability we have in life to choose within ourselves the light, the ability to choose hope. Or, as I like to imagine the lyrics to be, "It's the Son in your eyes."

Lyrics:

There's an albatross around your neck
All the things you've said
and the things you've done
Can you carry it with no regrets
Can you stand the person you've become
Oh there's a light

Oh there's a light

 

Your Albatross, let it go, let it go
Your Albatross shoot it down, shoot it down
When you just can't shake
The heavy weight of living

 

Stepping forward out into the day
Shrugging off the dust and memory
Though it's soaring still above your head
It is out of sight and none shall see
Oh there's a light

Oh there's a light

Your Albatross, let it go, let it go
Your Albatross shoot it down, shoot it down
When you just can't shake
The heavy weight of living
When you just can't seem to shake
The weight of Living

It's the sun in your eyes, in your eyes

It's the sun in your eyes, in your eyes

It's the sun in your eyes, in your eyes

It's the sun in your eyes, in your eyes

 

Your Albatross, let it go, let it go
Your Albatross shoot it down, shoot it down
When you just can't shake
The heavy weight of living
When you just can't seem to shake
The weight of Living

 

The weight of Living

The weight of Living
The weight of Living
The weight of Living