I first heard this song while taking a cross country road trip through South Africa and since then I have been able to think of nothing else while listening to this song.
It was one of those beautiful contemplative days, with the bright blue sky stretching endlessly across green pasture, marked by the occasional colorful mud round house, usually surrounded by vinyards, or pastures with goats and sheep. Very appropriate scenery for listening to Iron and Wine. I started thinking about the stories of the women living in the round houses and this is the story I came up with to accompany the song:
All of this is sung from the point of view of her husband, who only gets to see his family once a year because he has taken a job in the city.
She was born as a servant to a wealthy white land owner during apartheid. During the youth uprisings of the 1970s, she and some other radical youth from the African National Congress (including the husband) burned the landowners estate, but she felt great remorse for it afterward (and she chose a yard to burn, but the ground remembers her)
Despite the fevor of their youth, she has been forced to settle down to a traditional, quiet life. Like most of the other women, she only gets to see her husband once a year, but she chooses to stay in the country and dedicate her life to raising children.
She is devoutly christian, as many South Africans are, (and she's chosen to believe in the hymns her mother sings) and uses her faith to comfort her through her dissapointment in life.
She was hoping that at least one of her children would stay with her to comfort her in her old age, but all of them get scholarships to the university with the fall of apartheid and leave her alone. To comfort herself, she takes a lover. (lost her wedding ring)
The last two verses are her husband lamenting that she cannot be near him. He has no remorse over the fact that she has taken a lover, because he has taken lovers as well, but he still pines for the quiet, intimate country life that he cannot have, and curses the capitalist system that prevents poor Africans from building lifelong intimate relationships with their families.
When the line "there are names across the sea" came up, it gave me chills. I live in America, and South Africa is about as far as you can possibly get from the United States. But I am sure that this has been the life story for so many African women, and I was glad that this song could connect me to them, even if I will never know their names.
I first heard this song while taking a cross country road trip through South Africa and since then I have been able to think of nothing else while listening to this song.
It was one of those beautiful contemplative days, with the bright blue sky stretching endlessly across green pasture, marked by the occasional colorful mud round house, usually surrounded by vinyards, or pastures with goats and sheep. Very appropriate scenery for listening to Iron and Wine. I started thinking about the stories of the women living in the round houses and this is the story I came up with to accompany the song:
All of this is sung from the point of view of her husband, who only gets to see his family once a year because he has taken a job in the city.
She was born as a servant to a wealthy white land owner during apartheid. During the youth uprisings of the 1970s, she and some other radical youth from the African National Congress (including the husband) burned the landowners estate, but she felt great remorse for it afterward (and she chose a yard to burn, but the ground remembers her)
Despite the fevor of their youth, she has been forced to settle down to a traditional, quiet life. Like most of the other women, she only gets to see her husband once a year, but she chooses to stay in the country and dedicate her life to raising children.
She is devoutly christian, as many South Africans are, (and she's chosen to believe in the hymns her mother sings) and uses her faith to comfort her through her dissapointment in life.
She was hoping that at least one of her children would stay with her to comfort her in her old age, but all of them get scholarships to the university with the fall of apartheid and leave her alone. To comfort herself, she takes a lover. (lost her wedding ring)
The last two verses are her husband lamenting that she cannot be near him. He has no remorse over the fact that she has taken a lover, because he has taken lovers as well, but he still pines for the quiet, intimate country life that he cannot have, and curses the capitalist system that prevents poor Africans from building lifelong intimate relationships with their families.
When the line "there are names across the sea" came up, it gave me chills. I live in America, and South Africa is about as far as you can possibly get from the United States. But I am sure that this has been the life story for so many African women, and I was glad that this song could connect me to them, even if I will never know their names.