Tag Archives: 2011

I really like The Low Anthem.

I saw them in concert a few years back, they were terrific, ethereal, just marvelous. Later this year I’m going to see them again at Bergenfest.

Between the last time I saw them and today they’ve released the album, Smart Flesh that includes the song, Boeing 737.

This is one of the best songs released in the last couple of years. When we made our lists of the best songs in 2011 I just had not paid enough attention, this clearly belong in the top 5.

BBC said: “It sounds like Bob Dylan singing lead vocal for The Arcade Fire” (or something like that), and it really does! They also said: If the Low Anthem doesn’t release it as a single they’re mad.

I’ve included four visual representations of the song.

Here’s the first (“studio” version), The Low Anthem recorded the majority of “Smart Flesh,” their 2011 Nonesuch album, in a cavernous, vacant pasta sauce factory in Central Falls, Rhode Island:

I was in the air when the towers came down
In a bar on the 84th floor
I bought Philippe Petit a round
And asked what his high wire was for
He said, “I put one foot on the wire,
One foot straight into heaven”
As the prophets entered boldly into the bar
On the Boeing 737, Lord, on the Boeing 737
Hey little bird, would you be the one
To nest beneath my Gatling gun?
There’s nothing left I call my own
Come down and build me a home

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