The Decemberists “The Rake’s Song”

Cheers to The Decemberists for taking on the challenge of making an album that is more like a novel. “The Hazards Of Love” is a collection of songs that form a narrative about lovers and their obstacles. A tad pretentious? Yes. But definitely an “A” for effort.

But what to think of the band insisting that “The Rake’s Song” be the first single?

Obviously, Colin Meloy, leader of the Decemberists, is a smart guy. You’d have to be, to put something like this together.

So why would they choose, as the first single, the song where “The Rake” violently and graphically murders his own children? A smart guy would have to know that no radio station is going to play that.

The song works quite well in the context of the album, in the context of the story. But standing on it's own, or placed between other people’s songs on the radio, it sounds gruesome and twisted.

It’s would be like if the trailer for the movie Bambi consisted only of the scene where Bambi’s mother gets shot.

Where the Decemberists trying to screw with us radio folk? Challenge us? Mock us? Our are they oblivious to commercial concerns? Or resentful of them?

Whatever their motive, I thought that on it’s own, the song is so upsetting, that we shouldn’t even play it on What’s New For Lunch, one time.

But here it is, for your listening . . . uh, pleasure.

Hear The Decemberists “The Rake’s Song”