Dinah and the Beautiful Blue

I simply don’t know where to start with this. You see, before I started this blog I didn’t have a clue what this song was about at all. But it is beautiful, so beautiful. And that’s what made me think about writing about it.  It’s possible to be affected by music without any understanding – why can one be uplifted or saddened by something in a foreign language? For goodness sake, Sigur Rós have even created their own language and created songs of compelling beauty and majesty.

It’s a haunting beauty – this is melancholic, ethereal, almost gossamer in texture. Thomas Feiner’s voice is a shock – it’s a deep, brooding baritone, at odds with the strings behind it. It has the cares of the world on its shoulders. Think Tom Waites, but with the gruffness and shuffling awkwardness replaced by an elegant sombre smoothness.

The Opiates is an album where every song is rich and atmospheric. This is a genuine labour of love, taking two years of complete dedication by Feiner after its genesis as an Anywhen album. Feiner confesses to “some sort of burn-out” and there is a depressive, introverted nature to the songs. It feels very Scandinavian in its most stereotypical bleakness. The album was completed in a final frenzy when the orchestration was completed with the Warsaw Radio Symphony Orchestra and this provides a lush texture to many of the songs. It is an epic landscape reminiscent in texture and mood of Górecki. The Opiates is a high-minded, serious work.

The mournful stateliness of this song is not aided by the lyrics. Who is Dinah and what is the beautiful blue?

Interpretation is difficult, but I see this as a focus on the fleeting nature of innocence and nature. I’d see Dinah as a young child embodying both innocence and a closer connection with nature.  She escapes man-made and therefore artificial constraints – in this case “She will run and hide from the nannies/ Making fun of those big nannies with guns”. (A nanny is important because she won’t be Dinah’s mother. She is therefore an unnatural authority figure.)  The beautiful blue? Maybe the sky (and therefore heaven?), the sea or even something at a micro-level, say, cornflowers? (Why a flower? Simply because Feiner refers to “in the fields” – tenuous I know.) The video below though indicates that we’re talking about the sea.

Dinah relishes and is at one with nature – “They will sing for hours”, “letting through all the hidden powers”… “with the force of a million lifetimes”. The hidden power in this instance appears to be nature and the force of a million lifetimes is the cyclical nature of life itself. And this is where the sombre mood makes sense – in noting and embracing real and natural beauty Feiner also recognises its limited shelf life. “All things must pass” as George Harrison noted. There is an ennui which comes from seeing true beauty and Dinah’s innocence. Indeed there is something of Blake in this with the passing of innocence.

Dinah rejects the fading of the light and embraces the moment, “Making fun of these big nannies with guns/ In the late afternoon/ Let them search s daylight fades away, let them ring all the bells” The bells are man-made. Better to continue to embrace the moment before it dies. Enjoy and live it whilst it still exists;  as long as you have consciousness yourself.

Feiner is attuned to the beauty and to its finiteness and therefore feels la petite mort. The orchestration is elegant and beautiful. It is also sorrowful. This song is one of an astounding collection of many reflective moods. Light and shade are explored but, it must be said, it’s mainly shade. They are rich and cinematic in scale and, without exception, gorgeous.

Feiner said that “At the time of making the record I had a sense of us all gradually being dragged into the ‘doing job you hate to buy things you don’t need’ kind of lifestyle. Coming of age and getting respectable, in short. And once those glasses were on, I’d see this all around me. A kind of sleepiness, people being lulled into their respective roles, compromising dreams, ideals and inspirations in the process.”  As such, the album plays out large themes at a very personal level.  All That Numbs You is a case in point.

There is an aching beauty and sadness in the messages and the orchestration throughout. Dinah and the Beautiful Blue is not a high point because it’s difficult to identify any on The Opiates. However, it is a remarkable statement from Feiner which announces an astounding collection of work. This is not easy or superficial listening but more poetic and imbued with depth, meaning and beauty. This is art.

Just want audio? Listen here: http://grooveshark.com/s/Dinah+and+The+Beautiful+Blue/30Wr8w?src=5