Iris DeMent has some existentialist questions, and in her song ‘Let the mystery be’ from her ‘Infamous Angel’ debut album, she sings about the big one, ‘Everybody’s wonderin’ what and where they all came from./Everybody’s worryin’ ’bout where they’re gonna go when the whole thing’s done.’
With a pure folk country tune, acoustic guitars, piano, pedal steel and no drums, she is telling you with a perky voice using an upbeat folk tune, she is not going to adopt any point of view when it comes to say what happens after death. The tone is light and amused, as she even makes fun of the purgatory or reincarnation ‘Some say that they’re comin’ back in a garden, bunch of carrots and little sweet peas.’
I like her voice, a high pitched funny one, not too polish unlike today’s country singers who just have blank personalities, but a real and non-artificial voice, a little bit like the one country singers used to have, think the likes of June Carter and Loretta Lynn.
She takes a little break in the middle of the song for a nice instrumental break, just to let us digest the importance of what she said. All I can say is that it’s extremely exhilarating to listen to her after all these country singers singing about God, as Christian believes and country music have gone together like egg and bacon since the beginning. But Iris, who was even born in a devoutly Pentecostal family, dares in a very ‘uncountry’ way, to question the existence of the Supreme Being with ‘But no one knows for certain and so it’s all the same to me/I think I’ll just let the mystery be’.
It will depend on your beliefs, but if Christians will find the song blasphemous since she dares to affirm her agnostic side, I have found it cute and refreshingly honest, but still a bit too politically correct when she says ‘Some say they’re goin’ to a place called Glory and I ain’t saying it ain’t a fact.’ A fact?
But I forgive her, it’s a great song, so great that Natalie Merchant performed it with David Byrne for a MTV Unplugged episode.