New Music / Freshly Written & Recently Released (March 2018)
A MOTHER'S QUESTION
Madam West first came onto my radar screen back on February 23 when my friend, David Burgos, did a post onto my Facebook page inviting his band friends to post their music, and Sophie Chernin, vocalist for Madam West, posted a track there. So I'll start by doing a shoutout and thank you to both David and Sophie! ... This is my first official followup.
My work schedule limits my concert going to some Thursdays and a few Fridays. So it wasn't until May that I saw Madam West was doing a show on one of my free nights. (Found out about it through Songkick). Cool basement show here in Philly at Slime Time Live.
Before I went to the show I listened to a couple songs and was generally aware that a lot of the lyrics are about relationships. And that was reinforced when I heard the music at the show.
It wasn't until afterwards when I started to focus more deeply on some of the lyrics that I became aware of the intensity of the scrutiny that some of these interpersonal relationships were receiving, as to what relationships have turned out to be, how they've changed, how they could have been different, if only, and trying to accept that they have changed, or not.
One of the strongest human relationships is between mother and child. In "Strongest Son", the lead song of the band's recently released album, "Warm Bodies", they talk about the relationship between a mother and son, or mother and any children who might have been usurped by today's war machine and the possibility, or inevitability as the band sees it, of nuclear war. It's a song that shows the mother's strength in her watching out for her children's safety, but also a feeling of helplessness.
The song opens with a mother's lament of how to put into words something that will help us get through these times. Yet while she reflects on the uniqueness of these times, she sees the threat of impending war as something that is timeless and that has always been present since ancient times. She talks about the "strongest sun", nuclear war, and her "strongest son".
The second verse talks about the attributes of the nuclear weapon, its being "colorful". I think this section could be a metaphor of the way some people in our political life are quite enamored with the thought of war and the prospect of maybe using one of these horrific devices, that they're so eager it's a "foregone conclusion". No way out here, we're doomed to "foreclose."
And in the final verse the awareness of the absurdity of war as she describes that war is the worlds' children being made to fight against each other. And here is the rhetorical question about what to do now.
This song is filled with word play and metaphors. Is the "mother of all" the collective spirit of all mothers and/or is it the biggest and most horrific bomb of all? I'm ending my comments here because I've rewritten this post about a dozen times. Each time I go back to read and listen I come away with possible new meanings and wordplays. This band knows how to challenge the listener! :)
So here is "Strongest Son", the lead single on Madam Wests's new album, "Warm Bodies", just released in March. :::
If you'd like to read the lyrics while you listen, here is the click to the song's Bandcamp page ::: Listen and read lyrics STRONGEST SON
Right now Madam West has another show coming up on August 25th at National Sawdust in Brooklyn. To visit Madam West in the meantime, here is the click to their Facebook page ::: Madam West on Facebook (CLICK HERE).
And the mother's big question at the end is And O, what to do now?
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