The Shepherd’s Dog Analysis

I’m learning that there are two schools of thought when it comes to Florida-native Filmmaker turned Folk-maker Sam Beam, or as you may know him, Iron & Wine. No, make that three: The Garden State fans, those who hate him for not making yet another record of lo-fi finger-picked ballads, and those who consider The Shepherd’s Dog the best thing since George Harrison. Admittedly, I am in a bit of a grey area (Did I disprove my won theory this quickly?) I love the record a whole lot and find it’s world-influenced songs to be the most exciting thing Beam has done yet. I am also one of the rare people who think Woman King was better than anything he had done yet. It’s not that I don’t love Beam’s earlier sing-along soft numbers, it;s just that those records are a bit of a one-trick pony and the trick got old.

The songs are pretty undeniably interesting in content: filled with diverse and lush instrumentation such as horns, sitars, banjos, organic percussion, Ledbelly piano tracks, and native woodwinds. It’s hippie music for the hipsters, earth-tuned folklore for the non-jam band set.

Tracks like Pagan Angel and Borrowed Car prove that Beam’s songwriting is only improving with time, as well as creating an interesting dynamic when lyrics such as:

Love was a promise made of smoke
In a frozen copse of trees
A bone cold and older than our bodies
Slowly floating in the sea
Every morning there were planes
The shiny blades of pagan angels in our father’s skies
Every evening I would watch her hold the pillow
Tight against her hollows, her unholy child
I was still a beggar shaking out my stolen coat
Among the angry cemetery leaves

Are set against such cheerful backdrops of ethnic instrumentation. Then there are the tracks like The Devil Never Sleeps that are thinly-veiled references to the swamp blues and soul music that Beam has apparently become interested in with their stride-pianos and blues progressions. In yet another paradigm shift Sam get’s all Simon and Garfunkle on you with efforts like Carousel.

At the end of the day it’s still the same-old Iron & Wine. The timbre of Beam’s world-worn and whiskey-soaked voice will always be the watermark of an Iron & Wine record, this one just happens to be heavily dressed in lush instrumentation and the songs are much better off for it.

[mp3] Iron & Wine – The Devil Never Sleeps
[mp3] Iron & Wine – Pagan Angel & A Borrowed Car

Buy Shepherd’s Dog on CD or LP at Insound.
Iron & Wine Tour Dates