
Hemingway’s famous iceberg theory says that great writers don’t need to spell out their stories. They don’t need to get a body, have it shot full of clothes and make it land in the middle of the room for readers to get the picture. They should be trustful that if they’ve done enough good work, the readers will be able to smell the gunpowder from the other room.
I mention this simply because songs written in the great North American tradition always seem to have a dead body hidden inside of a room that we don’t get to see. But we notice something’s off. The pictures on the wall are crooked. The door’s been bent out of shape. Someone’s been crying.


The Ram writes songs in which dead bodies have been hidden. But they’re not gruesome songs. If anything, these are traditional songs. And like most traditional songs, they have a purpose. They’re meant to offer support and hope to the community and to anyone else who might hear them.
“Warmth of Fire” is a slow, meditative folk-rock number. On first glance, this is a song about family, respect and honoring one’s mission in life. But it may well travel deeper than that, hiding scars that we shouldn’t see if the song was written just right.
The traditional folk-rock sound and the gritty vocals suit this well. This is a style of music designed for storytellers. As long as there are stories to be told, and in an honest way, their communities will need this kind of music and performers like The Ram.
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