Caedmon's Dream

"Straight and True" album dissection, Part 1: CAEDMON'S DREAM
You can buy this song here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/straight-and-true/id370407821

Caedmon was an illiterate shepherd who lived in the 7th century AD. Right away, this sounds like perfect fodder for a pop/rock song, doesn't it? But there was more to Caedmon than his 9-5 job. Unlike the other shepherds, content with growing rambunctious off of honey wine and slurring songs around a campfire, Caedmon was perpetually restless. Cursed with a voice like a bullfrog and an inability to remember lyrics, he would go off and sleep with the animals as his co-workers threw their hymns to the sky. It was very vague, this restlessness, but it was persistent and made Caedmon constantly on the lookout for grand revelations and epiphanies. This went on for years. His hair thinned, he grew a paunch from eating inordinate amounts of goat-based dairy products, and he largely stopped caring about the source of this restless feeling. His flock meandered in the same pattern every day, and he would liken his thoughts to these animals: born, wandering, and dying with no particular goal having been reached.
One night, like many others, he went to sleep while the others sang hymns to God by the fire. Crickets were singing. The moon was humming in a register that only a half-asleep human ear can detect. And something began to happen. With this organic symphony ringing in his dozing ears, he opened his eyes and saw letters, then whole sentences, and finally a complete poem being inscribed in the sky. Caedmon cleared his throat. Assuming that whoever was behind this dream-revelation forgot that he was illiterate, he waited for a holy voiceover to fill him in on the poem's contents. Seconds later, roaring into song, a voice began to intone what he assumed was the poem that was emblazoned on the heavens. Over and over, until the sun began to peer up from the hills, this divine melody was sung for Caedmon as he lay sleeping in the grass.
Caedmon awoke with this song stuck in his head. Attempting to rid his mind of the by now obnoxious melody, he went through his daily routines. Morning ablutions. Stale crackers. A large mound of goat cheese. But when he got to his flock, he grew dizzy and short of breath. Unlike other mornings, when the animals were sporadically placed around the pasture, they seemed to be standing in two perpendicular lines. They were all staring at him. Goading them to move, hollering in tones that he figured sheep would understand, he became increasingly creeped out by their fixed gazes. This is when he decided to climb a tree to call for help, despite the fact that his co-workers were most likely nursing intense mead hangovers. This day had positive and negative aspects, for Caedmon. Unfortunately, what he saw when he climbed the tree gave him such a shock that he tumbled from the branches and fractured his arm. Fortunately, though, what he saw also convinced him to ignore his shattered limb and to run and tell the Monks of his dream the night before. For the sheep had formed themselves in the shape of the Cross.
The rest is, quite literally, history. The Monks assured Caedmon, somewhat jealously, that he had recieved numerous signs from God. He took his monastic vows, became the poet laureate of the monastery, and this illiterate shepherd with the bullfrog voice became more like a saint. Furthermore, he ended up creating a song that outlasted all of his co-worker's drunken campfire hymns. He left the world one of the earliest examples of English language poetry. This poem is the very same one he recieved in his dream that night.

In other words, I wrote this song in order to describe the genesis of my own fascination with songwriting. I think of it as something that can wrench me from the tedium of daily life, that can afford me communion with meaning and significance, and that has the potential to inspire other people. These are the underlying principles of my attempt to bring The Flood into the public eye, though eventual riches and superstardom will be welcomed as added bonuses. I figured this was a good song to open up the "Straight and True" album with: to lay my reasons for writing the damn thing on the table from the get-go, and then leave the listener to determine whether or not the album lives up to these aspirations.

Thanks for reading, and be on the lookout for the next installation of the "Straight and True" album dissection: the title track, STRAIGHT AND TRUE.