| Category | Rating |
|---|---|
| Track Structure | 10 |
| Interest | 10 |
| Melody | 9 |
| Performance | 9 |
| Lyrics | 10 |
| Enjoyment | 10 |
| Recording Quality | 9 |
| Commercial Appeal | 7 |
| Overall | 9.3 |
Back in 1963 an unknown author called John Fowles published his first book called “The Collector”. It is about a man called Frederick Clegg (the butterfly collector of the title) who decides to “collect” the object of his fantasy, Miranda Grey. Miranda (an art student) is imprisoned in The novel charts the changes in the relationship between the two and (without wanting to give anything away), ends with both a tragedy and a disturbing insight into the collector while at the same time giving us all food for thought over humanity’s amazing capacity to justify even the most appalling behaviour without judging ourselves as being at fault. For a first novel it is extraordinary and, of course, Fowles went on to write other beautiful novels like “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” and “Daniel Martin”. And so to this song which, for me, is like a lyrical version of “The Collector”, a song which has three clear and separate components; the lyrics, the melody and the voice, all of which, in some way, equate to “The Collector” in their power and effectiveness. Let’s start with the lyrics: What monsters chase butterflies - What a start to a song, only eight words, but containing a subtext about which you could write paragraphs. They imprison in wood and glass And there in the first four lines we have as clear a picture as you could possibly wish for of the author’s view on “Collectors”. A four line biography of Frederick Clegg. And so they constrain each lifeless body, One of the other delightful things about these lyrics is the wonderfully apposite use of English. “Constrain” is used here so well that it is impossible to think of any other word that would have done. What’s more it underlines just how well Jon (aka The Foreboding) understands the need, not only to find the right word but ensure that the emphasis of word and note coincide. As in previous reviews I am not going to analyse the lyrics line by line as part of the point of this essay is to encourage you, my readers, to go and listen for yourselves. But, as I said earlier, there are three elements to this song. The second is the melody, the tune that underpins the words, and what a delightfully simple (yet complex) tune it is. What, for me, stands out is the way that Jon allows the song room to breathe, never rushing, never standing still. Just listen to the way he sings the line: Just to fathom the beauty of those many-coloured wings. It would have been so easy to try and cram more words into the spaces, and it can be so difficult, as a songwriter, to allow gaps between the words (“oh no – the listener might lose interest and switch off!!”). This is brave song-writing. And then there’s the voice. I’m not clever enough to work out exactly what voice range Jon sings in but I suspect it is basso profundo. What I do know is that it is instantly and unequivocally recognisable as his and, for me, one of those voices I could listen to all day. So there we have it. A song that is exceptionally well written, well played and well sung and which, for me, only really has one weakness, one that is not unique to this song. Consider these lines: She circles my head, Somehow I find it hard to believe that the person capable of writing those lines could perform the actions that the lines describe. But in a way that is just another example of the paradox that is the subject matter of the song. Why is it that, in our attempts to possess the beauty that we see in life, the essence of that beauty disappears? A thought, perhaps, that is enough to fill any one of us with foreboding.
Butterfly by The Foreboding
Evil dressed up in love.
What should dance in the sun.
Silently struggling and cruelly pinned:
And losing my balance my mind starts to spin,
Till the monster could kill to possess for its own
Those peerless wings
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