Wednesday, April 02, 2014

Accordions! With Clapping!

I just noticed that the wiki dedicated to Welcome to Night Vale claims that the music on the show is not the weather, but rather Cecil's own personal music collection that he plays during the Weather.  But this doesn't make sense, as the radio station doesn't broadcast anything else along with the music.  Plus, it appeals to my sense of the absurd that the weather is indicated by the music played, just like the news in Jonathan Lethem's Gun, with Occasional Music. The Weather in episode 9, "PYRAMID", is stormy but with an accordion-shaped rainbow at the end.  Jason Webley is a gravel-voiced sailor, preaching the end of the world with a hopeful rebirth.  The accordion plods through regle du octave progressions over bass drum and hand claps, giving this sailor a sea shanty as his "Last Song."  He gasps along through the chorus: "And we say that the world isn't dying / And we pray that the world isn't dying / and just maybe the world isn't dying / Maybe she's heavy with child." as if he can barely get through the prayer.  He's joined in the outro by his drunken buddies on those lovely nonsense Irish syllables, but they also die out, leaving the accordion to wheeze through to a final cadence.





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