billytombs: so what's the what with romanticide?
Jack Bierce: Can't say as how I've much to say about Romanticide. It's kind of a drunken, hungover blur to me anymore. Mostly it was about getting sucked into and devoured by Poetry, Music, Art and Film... Yet also by Personality and Hero Worship.
I think that Poetry opens secret, sacred doors. And if it's originating from an altered whiskey-and-drug-fueled state, as opposed to some kind of blissful optimistic inspiration, those particular doors end up opening more into shadowy and subterranean realms. It's like a form of demonic possession that can, and has, killed many a man of Art, Music, and Poem.
The darker road is more preferable though because bubbly light-inspired poetry is grotesque and nauseating, in my opinion. It's the Reader's Digest of the Soul and it is only inspiring to the pretentious, unintelligent, and feeble-minded. It takes the deeper introverted minds absolutely nowhere.
Thought I'd pass this along to you, even though you may probably already be familiar. This song reminds me of the Camper-Atwater Days. I used to listen to that Johnny Cash cover album all the time. Johnny covered this 1999 tune by Will Oldham (aka Bonnie "Prince" Billy)... "I See A Darkness".
It's a rather dark song about depression and addiction to begin with and Johnny Cash only made it even more bleak-sounding. But Oldham re-recorded it in a semi-Country uptempo cover of his own song and the juxtaposition is pretty mesmerizing. It's a great song in all three of its versions. Video's a bit weird with the creepy eyeball stuff, but I very much dig it. Oldham's the real deal.