Oh, you’re going to suffer. And, on your journey, however long or short that may be, you’re going to meet other people who are suffering worse than you. While this is an irrefutable truth, I think you’ll agree, it doesn’t make for great copy when you’re trying to sell a record or a movie. Actually, it’s the worst possible angle.
The moment a customer steps into a record store, or their digital successors, streaming platforms, if you’re the seller, what you want to do is make them forget about the suffering. The modern pop art business isn’t that much different from running a casino or a brothel. It’s filled with people who can’t see the world for what it is, and who’ll regret the choices they made while they were trying to escape reality.
But, yes, you’ll return to your old suffering eventually. And, if you cherish your life, and that of others, along with all the aches and pains, you may just find a way through it and light someone else’s way out. In many ways, the soulful but somber collection of songs by Steel & Velvet gathered on the “People just float” EP is all about. It’s about giving that suffering a chance for once.
Take a listen to the opening song, “Orphan’s Lament,” a cover of Robbie Basho, a song about abandonment and anxiety. It’s a world in which most of us pay for the sins of others even before we’ve had the chance to make our own mistakes.
However, as the short film accompanying this traditional folk performance shows, these hardships also present an opportunity to extend a hand and offer relief to those in even greater need than we are.
But just what happens musically across the EP? The record is made up of six folk songs, some of them famous and some less so, but all of them gloomy, blues-soaked, and apt for soundtracking a funeral scene.
Still, that’s where Steel & Velvet’s special touch comes in. Where Bob Dylan or Mark Lanegan, for example, sang “Man in the Long Black Coat,” like men determined to convince you that nothing good comes after this story, in the performance found on “People just float,” there are glimpses of hope. Maybe there’s something to look forward to even after that terrible march.
On “Ring of Fire,” the ringing bel canto singing makes June Carter’s classic C&W composition sound like some kind of heavenly promise, a type of remedy against suffering. The two sets of vocals blend beautifully on “Silver.” And, even the modern Meat Puppets classic, “Lake of Fire,” an acoustic alt-rock song about eternal damnation, contains a brief glimpse of humor about it that may just make you not fret meaninglessly about a world that’s stayed this way ever since the day that it was created.
Where does this leave us? Hopefully, less desperate to push reality away and more willing to help ourselves and others with the hope of something better. Even “People just float” ends on something of a cheerful note. On the beautifully delivered last song of the EP, the final line is “In heaven, everything is fine.” And, after all of this, you sure want to believe it.
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