Every Song: Pilgrimage (Lo, I Am With You Always)

[NathanJN]

"Pilgrimage (Lo, I Am With You Always)" is the sixth song on the We Are the Music Makers album.

Here's some possible topics for discussion:
1. Favorite Line
2. Least Favorite Line
3. Musical Quality
4. Images the Song Brings to Mind
5. Overall Rating (Using the entire body of JE music as a means of comparison . . . not just the album the song appears on.)

The lyrics for this, and other songs on the album can be found here:
http://www.joyelectric.com/lyrics/artic ... yrics.html

[NathanJN]

I always thought "We Are The Music Makers" was always harshly treated . . . even by Ronnie himself. The criticism that I've heard from as long back as I can remember is that this album is too similar to itself.

I never agreed with that criticism until now. I'm getting a little burned out listening to these songs The themes, melodies and the songs start to much together at this point in the album.

On its own, Pilgrimage is a fine song, but taken with the whole album it feels like more of the same.

[xoxos]

i don't remember if you make music or not nathan. as a computer assisted producer, i think one leaves the pedestrian perspective behind early on, and gradually the ear assimilates all techniques. perhaps only if one is lucky or has one's heart in the right place is one still able to hear *music* past this point instead of an assemblage of methods. otherwise, old producers fall into an undead continuity, assuring themselves that their choices make them cool and unable to grow or abandon the imposition of culture, being unable to see the real paucity of worth that music has instead of its inflated cultural "value".

imo WATMM embraces this perspective with its challenging "sameness". it seems to me intended for such a sensibility, to an ear that listens to the same rhythm for days on end as they engineer it.

over at kvr, someone posted recently that dubstep is all slapstick and doesn't take itself seriously anymore, "not like in the good old days when it had a real badass sound". well, for sure. perhaps this perspective is extreme, but bear with me:

our grandparents were the first generation to experience mass broadcast. from the mass disseminated meme we prodressed to prerecorded media - the fixed idea in a box or tin can.

basically, most people in the west accept these forms as instinsic to their culture. they live and breathe it.

but get some perspective, and you may consider that both of them are BLOODY UNHEALTHY - mass media takes one idea and funnels it to millions of people. prerecorded media also involves the listener with a one-way interchange. only the listener can change. if you want to use a reductio ad absurdum, this could be compared to necrophilia.

personally i believe the entertainment industry is not only asinine but psychologically crippling if not eventually lethal. shouldn't life be about growing together? not joe blow with the big bank account setting out cookie crumbs to guide our evolution (the "shepherds of the northern pasture").

this is why i like WATMM.

back on dubstep, media is toxic. it involves people with lifelessness, and surely new generations will either develop a resistance to it or the social organism will perish. this is why modern music has to cheapen the value of music. because music is invading us. it is skillfully used to sway us into insensate choices.. buy new imprived frillo.. ride a big bootay into serfdom and impoverished powerlessness.

"guns don't kill people - rappers do." - goldie lookin chain, "welsh hiphop"

i doubt ronnie will concur with this expression - as i said, i see these songs as very tongue in cheek.

many of you are christians - and there are things i can respect about many expressions of christianity. i am not a christian. the centralised authority and expression of heirarchy - christians can see this in the mormon or jehovah's witnesses, who are obliged to obey every order of the church no matter how obscene. this is madness. for me, sure, god yes, but church no. any organisation would be dead weight to me in this era of poisoned hearts.

christendom on white horses.. yes... cretins believe their horse is bloody pure and their people alone are the chosen ones. a horse is a symbol of being a tool /"ridden". "our king lives forevermore.." while your sons and daughters perish in the crusade.

i expect many listeners think this is ronnie being a reverent christian but to me, it's ronnie making a double-edges statement about christians. as said, i doubt he will ever express it, but a great deal of his work can be interpreted as incisive criticism of mainstream interpretations of christianity. i can only do so because i am sure to be balked by "the properly faithful". the white songbook is also prevalent in this regard. to me, you can replace "white" with "western industrial paradigm" and the songs are right on target.. we are rock. it's not white as in purity.

is there one more light in here?

[seedsower]

I remember an old radio interview where Ronnie stated the verse the song is based off of was one of his favorites. It had a sort of "poetic" sound to it he said, if I recall.

I feel the same about this song as I do Hansel: superb music, vocals not my favorite. This song also gets kind of boring to me. Except for the intro. The image that pops into my head is a very old cartoon where two very poor children go to sleep and dream of a candy land full of toys and carousels. While they sleep, a baker, a tailor, and a toy maker, moved by compassion, sneek into their home and fill it with toys, treats, and new clothes.
Growing up poor myself, I get misty-eyed just thinking about it.

[jjmini]

everytime i read xoxos posts i smile up inside : )


as for my take on the song? I love it. I have very special memories tied to this song and all the plays in the world would never diminish the impact this song has had for me. Some might claim it as nostalgia but even before I tied these memories to the song it was and always will be one of my favorites. The whole we are the music makers CD easily goes in my top 5 albums but that is a whole other entity.

[Jono]

The image that pops into my head is a very old cartoon where two very poor children go to sleep and dream of a candy land full of toys and carousels. While they sleep, a baker, a tailor, and a toy maker, moved by compassion, sneek into their home and fill it with toys, treats, and new clothes.
Growing up poor myself, I get misty-eyed just thinking about it.

I totally watched that last month. Fits well with the Joy Electric candy motif.

This and the preceding song are the only two songs that've ever felt that bland to me. I think the other eight songs on the album do stand out a lot more than people give them credit for. The melodies, chords, and hooks are pretty striking on a lot of them (even with the slightly samey drums and rhythmic background elements they all do admittedly have). Pilgrimage and Christendom, on the other hand, have fairly bland and forgettable melodies. For what it's worth, though, they do work a bit better though when listening on vinyl and having Christendom close out side 1 and Pilgrimage open side 2. The definite pause that the double-sided medium necessarily creates actually gives the album a much needed pause.

[NathanJN]

Perhaps I was a little too terse when I wrote "I never agreed with that criticism until now". In truth, I had never understood the criticism until spending the last few weeks spinning the WATMM album. But I love reading everyone's perspectives on the songs (this one in particular is rather lively!)

[Dr. M]

This album has always been one of my big favorites, and the samey-sameness of the songs has never really been an issue for me. A lot of it sort of blends together into one big song, but I like it because of the super rich-sounding textures and bizarre, unrestrained noises. It was like any sound he could make was fair game. It won't win any awards for excellent hooks or lyrics, but I think it strongly makes up for it in atmosphere and creativity.

And all that can also be said for this song. Obviously not a stand-out, but memorable enough that I can remember it just fine without having heard it in probably at least four years, and packed full of WATMM's other-worldy vibe.

[IantheBlueMan]

This is one of my favorite JE songs ever. Classic synth bleeps, bloops, whirls, and coos. The vocals are hard to make out in the verses, but the chorus makes it one of the best worship songs Ronnie's ever done. Sometimes that's all you want to hear--that God's with you, now and forever.