Like a good pitcher who can do much more than just throw the fastball all the time, a great songwriter can attack with more than one weapon in their arsenal. They might make their mark with a certain style of writing. But they can then switch it up and show you other sides of their artistic personality.
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Colin Meloy of The Decemberists displayed that versatility with his beautiful 2015 composition “Lake Song”. On this song, the guy known for mining ancient folk tales and lost pockets of history for material delivered a personal remembrance both potent and moving.
Going Back to the “Lake”
It’s not easy to carve out a niche in the music industry, especially in the post-millennial era, where there are seemingly endless subsets of genres in existence. But The Decemberists did indeed manage to find their own special place in the music world, largely thanks to Colin Meloy’s unique songwriting approach.
Meloy strayed far from the usual topics when it came to his songwriting. He mined myth, folk tales from far-flung places, and historical events for his songs. Like the finest storytellers, he managed to draw themes from these arcane sources that were relevant to his audiences navigating the modern world.
When The Decemberists released their 2015 album What A Terrible World, What A Beautiful World, they were four years removed from The King Is Dead, their previous LP. That was the longest stretch between albums the band had ever experienced. And it gave Meloy time to take a breath and reflect a bit.
That meant looking back to his own past and the events that shaped him. He started to put those experiences into his songs, most notably on “The Lake Song”. Meloy captures the beautiful ache of teenage romance in the song, displaying that seemingly mundane everyday events can contain epic emotions.
Exploring the Lyrics of “Lake Song”
Meloy unleashes all his eloquence and poetic ease on this tale of unrequited young love. A day spent near a lake listening to the radio with someone special pops into his memory banks and unleashes a torrent of forgotten feelings. After setting the scene of shore pebbles and stolen cigarette drags, he candidly addresses his one-time paramour, one who would “prevaricate your whole life.”
He lays the contents of his heart on the line, albeit futilely. “This much I can say: I would have waited till the oceans/Fell away and all the sunken cities would reveal themselves to you,” he admits. His willingness to commit so passionately is rebuffed: “But you won’t will you? Because you never do.”
In the final verse, he remembers the setting of a special night they spent together. “Come to me now, and on this station wagon window,” Meloy sings. “See the ghost of your two footprints.” Alas, that moment was heartbreakingly fleeting. “And when the light broke dawn, you were forever gone,” he laments.
The refrain lets him unburden himself of his sorrow, although it’s impossible to know if she knows or hears him. “I wrote it down and threw it all away,” he explains. “And never gave a thought to what I’d paid.”
“You tattered me, you tethered me to you,” Meloy wails. “The things you would, the things you wouldn’t do/To tell the truth I never had a clue.” Based on “Lake Song”, it’s fair to guess that all the years passed haven’t in any way solved the mystery of the narrator’s sweet and painful teenage mysteries.
Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images
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