“Cain and Abel,” by Titian

When I wrote last year about Jesus and the murder ballad, I thought I would finish that week by looking back to other Biblical stories that also provided symbols for music in this genre.  I now remember why I didn’t do it then.  There’s too much!  What I’ll discuss today will be selective, far from encyclopedic, and aimed mainly at two themes that tie these songs to the earlier pieces this week, Chris Smither’s “Every Mother’s Son” and Mac Davis’s “In the Ghetto.”  I won’t pretend to capture it all, but I’ve put together a Spotify playlist with a good many examples for your consideration.  Perhaps we’ll turn to some of them later.



Before proceeding, I should mention what has been implicit throughout the earlier posts: that there is a decided emphasis on male agency and female mourning in all of these songs.  As a society, we’ve done a much more thorough job at exploring male criminality and murderousness than female counterparts thereof.  I’m going to take a look at that issue in a couple weeks.

The Neville Brothers, from their 1990 album, Brother’s Keeper, give us a similar sentiment, but with more of a groove.  This song is clearly kin to “In the Ghetto.”




Two artists that hew more closely to the irony of Cain’s retort to God and to the ambivalence of the phrase “brother’s keeper” are the Utah-based alt.country/rock band Bronco and Americana artist Jefferson Fox.  (Full disclosure:  Bronco’s drummer is one of our valued Facebook followers, and the brother of one our bloggers.)  In Bronco’s song, our protagonist, seemingly listing his credentials as a survivalist, reassures us that he is not his brother’s keeper.  I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether or not he’s a sympathetic figure in clarifying that for us.  

 
Irony and ambiguity lead us back to the central conundrum of Cain–that he is both murderer and the sole surviving descendant of Adam and Eve, and therefore positioned by the Biblical narrative as everyone’s ancestor.  Jefferson Fox’s “My Brother’s Keeper” goes into this territory and does so well.  Before getting to this song, I was about to go back to the beginning of this post and insert a caveat that none of the songs in today’s post would be a murder ballad, at least with our broad definition.  No need now.  With an arrangement reminiscent of Tom Waits, Fox gives us a chilling tale, with a decidedly different spin on the word “keeper.”  Covetousness, envy, and murder all play a role, with excellent results.

Fox and director Tim Gill put together a compelling music video for the song.  I normally like to stick with the music itself or videos of live performances, but this video is quite stunning, and complements the song in illuminating ways.




Here is Fox’s song on Spotify:




And on his Myspace page:  My Brother’s Keeper  “My Brother’s Keeper,” by Jefferson Fox

You have your choices

“Cain” by Henri Vidal Tuileries

Cain is a symbol; a morally prototypical ancestor.  He is both sinner and saved; punished, yet protected; cursed, and a warning to others.  The particular symbol of the “Mark of Cain” has gone in some rather problematic directions, which are too involved to go into here.  Some artists (listen to the clip from the Chillihounds‘ album Shake Your Skull above), link the Mark of Cain to the force for evil within them.  It’s more complicated than that, but the idea that everyone has a force for evil within, fighting it out with whatever force for good there may be serves as an important Cain theme for a number of artists. Since this post has already gone a little long, I’m going to pick out just a few songs that elaborate this point more or less explicitly, and more or less explicitly in relation to Cain.

First, “Cain’s Blood,” written by Michael Johnson and Jack Sundrud, presents a slightly different take on this split human nature, with the protagonist alleging that he is half Cain, half Abel.  I’d say that this makes little advance on the Bible’s already sketchy take on human genetics and the biology of procreation, but the symbolism is what we’re going for.  But on that score it also diminishes the importance of Cain as a morally ambivalent figure all by himself, which is actually rather crucial. Here’s Johnson’s version of the song:

Lyrics

The song became something a hit for the country group 4 Runner.  I’m less of a fan of their arrangement, however much I might appreciate their choice of location for the video.  Give it a look, if only for the a’a moment.




(Incidentally, on the other side of Mauna Loa from where this video was shot, on the western coast of the Big Island of Hawai’i, is Pu’uhonua o Honaunau National Historic Park.  It’s the site of an ancient Pu’uhonua, a place of refuge, where people who had violated sacred laws could seek refuge and pardon from the penalty of death, but only if they could swim there across a large bay before getting caught.  It’s another vision of transgression and atonement, but it’s for another time.)

Cain’s position in the genealogy of human existence is obviously fertile symbolic territory for Bruce Springsteen in his “Adam Raised a Cain.”  This song could also be a companion piece to “Every Mother’s Son”

Here’s the song on Spotify from Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town:



Lyrics

Finally, among the more popular recent explorations of the Cain theme in contemporary music is Mumford & Sons‘ “Timshel.”  Timshel is a Hebrew word, the exegesis of which is a central element in John Steinbeck‘s magisterial novel East of Eden.  Springsteen’s song above and Steinbeck’s work both take on the inheritance of sin from earlier generations.  “Timshel” is more oblique and allusive.

The relevant passage for the Mumford & Sons song is in Chapter 24, and can be found here.  In the book, the Chinese servant, Lee, employs family scholars to explore what God’s statement to Cain in verse 7 of Genesis 4 implies for a person’s ability to rise above sin–whether timshel should be translated as “Do thou rule over sin” or “Thou shalt rule over sin.”  Lee and his counselors develop a third option, and his enthusiastic embrace of this third meaning provides Marcus Mumford with a few of the lyrics you might have puzzled over in hearing the song.

Here is their performance from their 2009 debut album, Sigh No More.

Lyrics

It’s long stretch from “Timshel” to Cain, perhaps, and perhaps even further to “In the Ghetto” and “Every Mother’s Son.” But the song, understood in light of Steinbeck’s work, goes in some evocative directions relative to questions of meaning and choice, the powers of good and evil, and human freedom and responsibility. And, yes, they go back to that element of human solidarity, compassion, and that “There but for the grace of God” moment we reach in coming to terms with a variety of human actions and conditions, particularly the extreme ones.  It’s definitely a descendant of Cain.

It’s been a long, meandering journey this week.  Thanks for your interest and your patience as I have been thinking out loud about these themes in three long posts in one compressed week.  As always, I hope you’ve found something both new to hear and new to consider.

Coda

We can’t leave unobserved that Steinbeck’s Lee is not the only Chinese explorer of the Cain theme from within American popular stories and literature.  There is another as well, whose influence fans out in interesting ways into pop culture understandings of violence, exile, and community.

Kwai Chang Caine and the televised, murder ballad-like serial Kung Fu telling his story influence subsequent generations, and more killers in search of redemption (NSFW):