Citizen Cope
Citizen Cope, the alias of Clarence Greenwood, released his third album in the year 2004. That was six years ago, but even today the Clarence Greenwood Recordings remains ahead of the curve. This is one of the albums that are woefully maligned by the label of “Alternative Rock,” a label which does nothing to describe the music. At the base of each song is a beat, a rhythm slightly reminiscent of Dr. Dre’s work. One could imagine the music has been created to accompany an MC’s spitting verses, but the vocals defy all expectations. If I had to choose the most similar vocalist to Greenwood, it would be Macy Gray. You know, the soul/R&B singer from the 90s with the raspy voice. It sounds unbelievable, but it’s true. The soul of Greenwood is encompassed within his passionate yet raspy and slightly poorly pronounced vocalizations. And to polish off the music, there is a very pronounced folk influence here, like an electrified Bob Dylan. All these contradicting elements are blended together perfectly; the production on this album is awe-some. Greenwood has found the perfect equation and his music will swell within your soul.
Beginning at the end, the final track “Deep” is the sole instrumental song on the album. This is the perfect way to end the swell that grows throughout the album, for this song is as smooth as butter, as if the album had crested and broke on shore to leave the ocean perfectly calm. It gives the listener a chance to think about the various themes presented throughout the album in a stable mindset, to find that sense of inner peace that Greenwood is searching for as well. This search is shared by all of humanity, and this album is strikingly humanistic, as told through the lyrics.
For this album at its essence is a vehicle for the lyrics. At times the lyrics are almost too absurdist to fully understand—as in the track “Pablo Picasso.” This song paints a story about a man in love. The first verse establishes the identity of the woman—she’s larger than life (forty feet tall to be exact) and the narrator feels like he is safe with her, he feels like he is famous with her. Even passing strangers can tell how great of a woman she is, as “cars drive by / just so they can see her.” But the narrator soon finds himself in the midst of a struggle to stay with her while the world is trying to tear them apart. He is willing to fight the police so that he can stay with her, to maintain his peace of mind. But all the helicopters and cameras which are filming his struggle are confused by this, as there is no woman at all. She is just a painting; she is a part of him.
The meaning of this song is up to interpretation, just as Greenwood intended. It was as if he was attempting to turn Pablo Picasso’s style of painting into a style of music. But the absurdism of this song is tempered out by its humanism, so each listener will be able to relate to it in unique ways.
But this is only one song on the album. Other songs have much clearer themes, such as the track “Son’s Gonna Rise.” This song showcases Greenwood’s grasp of poetic techniques. The setting of the song is established succinctly—the narrator is driving down the highway with his wife in the backseat in the beginning stages of labor. This very specific, concrete setting establishes the mood of a life altering event, and as the narrator sits at this pivotal moment in his life, he reflects on everything his wife has done for him. “Man, she saved me / To this day I don’t know why.” But he casts off these inner demons and takes comfort that “In a mile you’ll be feeling fine.” This track is the best feel good song you will ever hear.
Although there are several feel good moments on this album, Greenwood is not afraid of stepping into the darker areas of humanity. The track “Bullet and a Target,” in specific, is a beautiful critique of the weakness of humanity. To sum up the theme of this song in one word, it would be “Thanatos,” or, Freud’s Death Drive. The first verse contains a somewhat haphazard collection of concrete examples of the effects of the Death Drive—“Another sister shootin’ heroin tomorrow / Amputees in Free town / Sierre Leone … The state put the youth in a harness … People wanna bomb us / More people gotta scatter and run from us.” This cascade of images functions to establish a certain mood to illustrate the state of the world, and it works very effectively.
The second verse of this song shifts its focus from a global perspective to an individual perspective. If the idea of Thanatos was not clear enough in the first, it is fully illuminated in the second, as the character the lyrics analyze is clearly a victim to her own death drive. First, Greenwood describes her in a way that could be descriptive of any number of women in the world. Every listener will be able to personally relate to this character. So when she “got knocked up in the back of a pickup truck,” the listener will subconsciously imagine that his or her friend experienced the same thing. And just like it happens too much in reality, this character marries to guy who knocked her up, but he is abusive and lazy so she runs away from him and disappears. And the narrator is left wondering how she let herself be put in this situation. Well, it’s because of her death drive, and everyone falls victim to this from time to time. By writing a song with an obvious mastery of poetry, Greenwood has managed to create perhaps the most poignant song of our generation.
I have described only four of the tracks on the fantastic album, The Clarence Greenwood Recordings, but there are seven other tracks that have gone unmentioned. In no way does this imply that these other tracks are inferior to the ones I described. There is not a single song here that you will ever want to skip. Each song contains wonderfully literate lyrics backed by similarly luscious music. I have no doubt you will fall in love with Citizen Cope after hearing just one song, as I did when I heard the track “Penitentiary.”
Happy listening. This is Merry Prankster signing out.
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