Videos by American Songwriter
Metaphors make the world go round, and Portland singer/songwriter Michael The Blindknows a things or two about them.
“I wrote ‘Metaphor Life’ during a period of time when I was doing a lot of experimenting with open tunings,” says the indie artist, “and learning to play some pretty deep, guitar stuff in the style of John Fahey — and all the folks he owed his living to of course; Skip James, John Hurt, etc.”
“When I stumbled onto the opening motif with the dragged half step figure I felt like I’d come up with something just as bluesy as what I’d been studying, but that also had a certain kind of elan about it. While trying out different lyrics, I decided I wanted to write a kind of ‘anti-blues,’ and I felt like that sentiment got summed up pretty well within that phrase we all know so well, ‘Life’s a beach.'”
“I didn’t intend for the song to be completely Pollyanna-ish though, and so tried to balance it with the next line. The rest of the lyrics follow the same basic principle of juxtaposing a positive and a negative, although not every line is in opposition to its counterpart.”
“‘Time is money, or it’s Mickey’ is a reference to the two sides of the materialism coin that we’re all constantly flipping in the hopes it’ll land in our favor just like in a fairy tale or Disney movie. The title and the main lyrical thrust of the song speak to the fact that life is made up of lots of dualities, but that none of them really define our experiences without our forcing them to. Sometimes falling down can afford one a great view of the sky, and sometimes it just hurts like hell.”
Pick up Michael The Blind’s fourth album, Are’s & Els, here.
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