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Sicuramente uno dei dischi più interessanti del 2004 è Our Endless Numbered Days di Sam Beam, al secolo Iron & Wine.
Sam Beam, pur essendo giovane, è un song-writer vecchio stile, riservato e introverso, senza troppi fronzoli, gli arrangiamenti quando ci sono, sono per lo più discreti e semplici... diciamo che lascia parlare il suo cuore. Le sue canzoni sono semplici e intime ballate ed inoltre rispetto al primo disco The Creek Drank the Cradle, che se non sbaglio fu registrato dentro la sua umile dimora, la sua voce giunge più chiara e pulita, quasi un sussurrio nelle orecchie.
Il disco presenta delle melodie e delle armonie che già ad un primo ascolto risultano amabilissime e accattivanti. Tutto Our Endless Numbered Days è attraversato dai fantasmi di Elliot Smith (di cui proprio quest'anno è uscito il disco postumo), Leonard Cohen, ma soprattutto Nick Drake, specie in "Naked As We Come" e "Each Coming Night" e di cui si risente fortissima l'influenza.
Le sue canzoni sorprendono per intensità e malinconia, hanno un gusto autunnale e agrodolce come le struggenti "Cinder and Smoke" o "Sunset and Soon Forgotten" (con un intro che sembra rubato ai Radiohead acustici vecchio stile). Non mancano gli accenni alla tradizione del sud degli Stati Uniti con "Teeth in the Grass", un incalzante blues dove recupera anche la slide-guitar.
Sul finale il disco ci regala una introspettiva ballata di rara dolcezza come "Sodom, South Georgie" degna dei grandi sopra menzionati.
Elenco tracce e testi
02 Swans and the Swimming (03:24)
"Take me again," she said, thinking of him
"To the pond with the swans and the swimming"
Far from his room the familiar perfume
How it felt to her when she was naked
Lessons she learned when her memory slurs
As they marvel with love at the sunset
And walking away as her dark end of day
She will measure and break like a habit
Oh how the rain sounds as loud as a lover's word
And now and again she's afraid when the sun returns
"Take me again," she said, thinking of him
"I don't care for this careful behavior"
A brush through her hair, children kissing upstairs
Keeps her up with her want for her savior
The sun on the sand, on her knees and her hands
As she begs for her fish from the water
But turn them away, she's a whip and a slave
Given time she may find something better
Oh how the rain sounds as loud as a lover's words
And now and again she's afraid when the sun returns
04 Hickory (04:35)
He kissed her once as she leaned on the windowsill
She'll never love him but knows that her father will
Her fallen fruit is all rotten in the middle but her
Breast never dries when he's hungry
The money came and she died in her rocking chair
The window wide and the rain in her braided hair
A letter locked in the pattern of her knuckle
Like a hymn to the house she was making
Blind and whistling just around the corner and there's a
Wind that is whispering something
Strong as hell but not hickory rooted
She kissed him once cause he gave her a cigarette
And turned around but he waits like a turned down bed
And summer left like her walking with another and a
Sound of a church bell ringing
The money came and he died like a butterfly
A buried star and the haze of the city lights
A gun went off and her mother dropped her baby on the
Blue feathered wing - we were lucky
Blind and whistling just around the corner and there's a
Wind that is whispering something
Strong as hell but not hickory rooted
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