I saw Will at the Troubadour last night, and it was a very pleasant show, laid back and filled with humor and energy, a very intimate one too, as I was standing as close as you can get, still mad at the strict policy of the Troubadour not allowing decent cameras inside (I never have this problem when I go to a show on the eastside) and imagining all the good shots I could have made of Will’s funny poses and comic moves.
‘The words to today’s song are taken from Psalm 137. It’s a song of sorrow and rage from the mouth of a refugee whose city has been destroyed. The sorrow portion of the psalm is extremely famous and often quoted – ”How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”
Butler wrote the song after reading about the repatriation of the body of anti Apartheid hero Moses Kotane from Russia to South Africa. Kotane was a great influence on Nelson Mendela and he was also a communist, which first confused Butler
‘I’m rooting for Greece. I mean, broadly, who the hell isn’t rooting for Greece? Even if you’re super right wing, or super German, or super capitalist you probably don’t want Greece tumbling out of the Euro and defaulting on its debts.
I just wonder what subjects he will pick, it’s difficult to be optimistic about another ISIS beheading. Take any headlines on the Guardian website today, ‘South Sudan gunmen kidnap at least 89 boys from village near Malakal’, ’14-year-old Palestinian jailed for stone-throwing maintains innocence’ ‘Jewish magazine in Germany to be delivered in plain envelopes’ … ouch!
Will Butler, Win’s little brother, is starting to have a sort of solo career, as he will release his own album in 2015, followed by a tour to support it, and he
Policy is American music—in the tradition of the Violent Femmes, the Breeders, the Modern Lovers, Bob Dylan, Smokey Robinson, the Magnetic Fields, Ghostface Killah. And John Lennon (which counts).’
