2006 In Music - The Crane Wife

The Decemberists – The Crane Wife

There will be much debate about whether The Crane Wife or Picaresque is the better album. In my opinion, Picaresque had a greater number of catchy, memorable songs. But The Crane Wife has something else, that X-Factor that just tells me this is the better album.

Every song on this album is good, but what makes this album great is the story of the poor farmer and his Crane Wife. Like the vignettes on Picaresque, here we enter the world of a character and we feel his pain. But, unlike Picaresque, we visit this man’s world three times, the first as he experiences his lost, and the second and third times in the events that lead up to the first. It’s the way we have to piece together this man’s story, and why we is in such pain that makes the three Crane Wife songs special.

It must be said that The Island is an immense achievement. This has got to be the best track they’ve ever produced (I’m not as enamored with The Tain as some people are), but then again I’m a sucker for long tracks that borrow from ELP and Jethro Tull.

Even if some of the songs on The Crane Wife sound a little more traditional then Picaresque, the lyrics certainly aren’t any more traditional. Even When the War Came, which sounds the least Decemberists-like of any of the tracks on the album, contains lyrics such as:

“And the war came with a curse and a caterwaul

And the war came with all the poise of a cannonball

And they're picking out our eyes by coal and candlelight

When the war came, the war came hard”

That is classic Meloy.

The Crane Wife also has the better ending in Sons & Daughters. There’s no coda here like Of Angles and Angels is on Picaresque, letting you down after the high that is the Mariner’s Revenge Song. The Crane Wife ends on a high, taking the high after Crane Wife 1 & 2 and wrapping you in Sons & Daughters. Ending with the chorus “Here all the bombs fade away”, we are left with a reaffirming statement in this age of uncertainly. In typical Decemberists fashion though, you’re left wondering what the characters in the song were running away from. What horrible thing has left them in these bunkers and demands that they leave their “tracks untraceable” as they leave?

I love the sound of this album. Picaresque had a sort of “wall of sound” style to it that made it difficult to hear the individual instruments. Everything seemed to blend together. On The Crane Wife, the production seems much clearer; the instruments have more room to breathe and you can make out individual details easily. It’s intoxicating, really.