Thank You For Clapping


16 Horsepower - Folklore review

by Daniel Decker
from German magazine Intro, 17 June 2002

Folklore, a drama in 10 acts. Playing time 37 minutes 19 seconds.

I. I dreamt, I stood on a field. I dreamt, I heard an acoustic guitar in the distance: Then a second one. Bows dash across violin strings. Fast, hard like a cut in the flesh. "It is no mystery. I know my way from here."

II. The pain makes me wake up early. I look into the grey sky, "even the birds would be afraid to fly". I mount my horse, as grey as the sky, and went my way.

III. I forget all that galls me and "nothing comes to mind". Like many keystrokes on a piano, it hammers in my head: "you burn my bridges for me [...] Nothing comes to mind."

IV. I'm afraid of dying alone. Hank Williams died alone on the backseat of his Cadillac. Only after several hours his death was noticed. After his death he had one more hit: "Alone and Forsaken" And outside the nightingale softly cries.

V. I ride past a village. People dance & sing. I meet with a "single girl", a "married girl". You're not the one.

VI. I am penetrated by a dull rumble. Like a beating in the pit of my stomach, like the low frequencies of a bass. "I was happy/I knew it."

VII. My horse becomes slow and dies. It just manages to say: "hang my skull on the old larch tree, carve from its wood a two string fiddle", that is what I do.

VIII. The road I took, I have to follow. I drag myself across dusty streets. On my shoulder the saddle of my dead horse, in my hand the fiddle. At the roadside the people whisper: "o sinnerman where will you run to"

IX. I know, what I'm missing. I know, that I'm missing you. "I hear the sound/the sound she's left me " A sound, like that of a cello, its strings vibrating sorrowfully.

X. I have reached my destination, you. I see your dress, a "dress in the parasol style". I play my fiddle and sing for you: "go to sleep/go to sleep in your baby's arms."

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