Since releasing their debut album Broke in 2004, the six New York City men of King Wilkie, then barely in their twenties, have transitioned from a classically-styled bluegrass group into something more fluid. In the years dividing then from now, time passed slowly, songs were written, and musical boundaries and definitions were set aside. The resulting album "has a we're not in Kansas anymore' theme," explains co - founder Reid Burgess. "The main thing was freeing ourselves up stylistically and showing different sides of the band."
In reality, this surprising stylistic shift was a natural outgrowth of the band's musical curiosity, as Burgess points out. "We'd been playing different kinds of music individually for many years, and on this record we decided to let everything else in. You can try really hard to choose your influences, but in the end it's going to come out sounding like something different...like yourself."
Produced by Jim Scott (Tom Petty, Dixie Chicks, Red Hot Chili Peppers), Low Country Suite finds the Charlottesville, Virginia-based band deftly tapping into rock's blue-highways heritage, drawing on the pioneering spirit of The Byrds circa Sweetheart of the Rodeo, Gram Parsons' solo LPs, and the Rolling Stones in their "Country Honk" mode. Yet Low Country Suite, while deviating from the band's initial blueprint, incorporates their deeply rooted study of the past into a new musical framework of their own invention. The album's gentler songs are equally informed by the sixties folk of Nico, Nick Drake, and Leonard Cohen, as by Bill Monroe, the Flying Burrito Brothers, or the Byrds. "King Wilkie create their own genre of music - a beautiful, true and honest sound," says Scott.
The band formed in Charlottesville in 2003 and started a journey that took them from a suburban upbringing with a pop MTV soundtrack to an all-consuming obsession with bluegrass, which, in turn, took them to the stage of the Grand Ole Opry and led to an acclaimed debut album on Rebel Records, the pioneering bluegrass imprint and longtime home of Ralph Stanley. The International Bluegrass Music Association named them emerging artists of the year in 2004. But even as they were being embraced by their peers in bluegrass, their music was shifting and extending outward in directions that could no longer be contained under the bluegrass banner.
According to singer John McDonald, "no matter how hard we worked and studied, we realized we'd never sing bluegrass like Del McCoury, so we sat down to work on songs that reflected our own strengths and lives and musical influence." Burgess elaborates, "Originally, I had wanted to do something in the genre, but it became clear that it wasn't really working - it wasn't personal enough."
After this revelation, the music began to evolve naturally, spurred by a desire to leave precedent behind and concentrate on their own idiosyncratic sound and songwriting. "I think when you start with doing something because you feel it deep down in your gut, you're going in the right direction," says Burgess. "That's how it was with some of these songs and ideas."
The band had toured nonstop for about two years, taking their elegantly endearing live show from coast to coast and abroad. But when it came time to record their follow-up record, King Wilkie literally went to school. Returning home to their Virginia countryside, they holed up in a secluded 18th-century schoolhouse, logging hundreds of rehearsal hours, then packed their bags for California.
Low Country Suite was recorded in Scott's Valencia studio, northeast of L.A., over 10 days in August of 2006. A number of tracks are fleshed out with organ, piano, percussion and lap steel. "We wanted to add some bite," Burgess explains. "We wanted to keep it raw but to open it up structurally and harmonically, with Louvin Brothers-style harmonies and lots of tension, using vintage instruments, equipment, and production." Low Country Suite is aided immeasurably by the crystalline sound quality achieved by Scott, letting each burnished strum, pluck, hum and thump emerge; capturing the impassioned weariness in the band's vocals, and allowing an identifiable aura to take shape.
The LP derives its title from the marshy Low Country region of the southeastern United States. "I've always romanticized that area and the South in general," says Burgess. Suite may refer to a collection of songs, or perhaps is a reference to lyrics about a hotel suite in Memphis, where a sultry affair with a divorcee in her 40s took place, as described in the Kinks/Muppets-influenced "Ms. Peabody." Says Burgess, "Most of the songs are about different relationships, or about anxious attachment in general, feeling too attached. I think the record's mainly about restlessness, coming of age, loss of innocence."
Burgess acknowledges that Low Country Suite is a dark album. "I want our record to be the yellow umbrella among black ones at a funeral," he muses. "That's us in a nutshell, I guess. At this point we're running with that."
Wrecking Ball
King Wilkie Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
With a lonesome chill I woke without you nearby
The red bird shook his wing spread wide
If I had wings I would fly so high so high
She’s a wrecking ball comin’ through my wall so tall
Like a house of straw these beautiful dreams we fall
If I could change your troublesome mind
She’s a wrecking ball comin’ down on me
A jumbo jet headed west in the sky last night
If I were aboard I would bid that girl goodbye
When darkness falls and cold wind swirls
Voice I hear in the middle of the night that girl
She’s a wrecking ball comin’ down on me
She’s a wrecking ball comin’ down on me
I dreamed of you in my arms so tight last night
With a lonesome chill I woke without you nearby
If I could change your troublesome mind
Make that pretty girl mine all mine all mine
She’s a wrecking ball comin’ down on me
She’s a wrecking ball comin’ down on me
The lyrics of King Wilkie's song 'Wrecking Ball' depict a dreamy, love-torn scenario where the singer longs for his beloved. The first verse sets the tone of the yearning, as the singer dreams of holding his lover in his arms. The chill he feels upon waking without her nearby highlights the intensity of his emotions. He compares his desire to spread wings and fly, which is a recurrent motif in romantic poetry.
The use of the imagery of the 'wrecking ball' in the chorus conveys the conflicting emotions the singer feels towards his lover. On the one hand, he perceives her as powerful and beautiful, like a wrecking ball smashing through his defenses. On the other hand, he recognizes that their relationship is fragile, like a house of straw, and can easily crumble. He wishes he could make her love him, but he also recognizes that her mind is 'troublesome' and that winning her over is no easy task.
The references to the red bird and the jumbo jet in the subsequent verses add to the dreamlike quality of the song, as the singer tries to make sense of his emotions. The final verse brings the song full circle, with the singer still longing for his lover even as he wakes up from his dream.
Overall, the song 'Wrecking Ball' is a poignant ode to unrequited love, with powerful imagery and emotive lyrics that convey the conflicting emotions of the singer.
Line by Line Meaning
I dreamed of you in my arms so tight last night
I had a dream where I held you close to me.
With a lonesome chill I woke without you nearby
I woke up feeling sad and alone because you weren't beside me.
The red bird shook his wing spread wide
I saw a bird with its wings spread wide, as if it was ready to take flight.
If I had wings I would fly so high so high
I wish I had wings so that I could soar up into the sky.
She’s a wrecking ball comin’ through my wall so tall
You are like a wrecking ball that is destroying the walls I have built up around myself.
Like a house of straw these beautiful dreams we fall
Our dreams together are fragile, like a house made of straw and they are falling apart.
If I could change your troublesome mind
If I could alter your difficult thoughts and feelings.
Make that pretty girl mine all mine all mine
I want you to be mine, completely and solely mine.
She’s a wrecking ball comin’ down on me
You are destroying me, just like a wrecking ball.
A jumbo jet headed west in the sky last night
I saw a large plane flying towards the west last night.
If I were aboard I would bid that girl goodbye
If I were on that plane, I would say goodbye to you.
When darkness falls and cold wind swirls
At night, when it gets dark and the cold wind blows.
Voice I hear in the middle of the night that girl
I hear your voice in my mind in the middle of the night.
Contributed by Kayla I. Suggest a correction in the comments below.