#simone felice

Once upon a time I took my significant other to see her favorite songwriter, Connor Oberst. More memorable, for me at least, was the greatest opening and I've ever seen, and a song that changed my life. The Felice Brothers had a wild and authentic energy. They were timeless and classless. Each song was like a tiny movie that you wish you could see more clearly. You got the idea that they genuinely wanted to adopt the whole crowd as honorary Felice siblings. Then, they announced the drummer was going to sing. The oldest brother, Simone, got up from behind the kit and picked up an acoustic guitar. Then I heard the voice and the words that have haunted me in the best way possible ever since.

I don't remember if he announced the name of the song before he started it, but even if I had to wait to the end of the first verse to find out I was hooked. React how you will, but I have always felt an affinity for the devil as a symbol, an allegory, a character. I'm a weirdo, a rebel, a reject, someone who feels even the villain deserves sympathy. I question things others seem to take as givens. I am the king of fire and desire and hell is my aesthetic. Anyway. When I heard that line sung in that voice it was like a personal invitation I couldn't turn down. So here we go.

Pharaoh, my pharaoh, my Bonnie is dead. Who is this Pharaoh and why does our singer answer to them? I didn't know Twin Peaks at the time I first heard the song, but it feels like foreshadowing with just the right combination of confusing spirits and the dear girl's corpse. This Bonnie lies not over the ocean, but in the back seat with sex and death, and which one would be more responsible for that tear in her dress? The Felice Brothers are a mutant strain of Americana, so naturally this fateful evening started at a drive in movie, where Bonnie asked our singer to show her the devil is real. Is he the devil? Is he possessed? Did he do the dirty deed and leave her in his Chevrolet? Is this all just a metaphor, is it fiction or hearsay? Too many questions and not a damn answer to be found, not even on Bonnie's naked body. She's got a birthmark on her arse shaped like a gallows and a cross. Sex and death and God are all here my pharaoh, but who is driving the damn Camaro? And where is it going?

Across the Queensboro bridge, of course, by way of F Scott Fitzgerald. This verse seems anomalous. Talking of the exhilarating journey the brothers have undertaken to peddle their songs across this holy holey land. Howling their way, however, is a more sinister word choice than others, but maybe the wolves are not what they seem.

a song 2 feeeeeeeeel. beautiful

We’d watch the shapes the rain would make Falling down the window of our bus I said they reminded me of paper ponies blowing free You said they reminded you of us Your belly in my arms Tomorrow we’ll be through these rains and gone

Woke up with the driver crying “Birmingham” Looked through the glass and found the morning sky I said that cloud’s shaped like a burning man You didn’t have the heart to tell me why

Your belly in my arms Tomorrow we’ll be through these clouds and gone

I put my hand inside your skirt And asked if you thought that our babies life would turn out this way You said you wasn’t really sure But really you was too good to say it

All The Bright Coins (2022) … a fascinating look …