It's All Hunky Dory on the Farm

And the love's going great (mostly)

The subject of ‘Waterfall', the first song off The Amanda Emblem Experiment’s latest offering, Farmtime, is told to:

Take a look

What are they being told to look at, you ask – is it a waterfall? Either way, we are not told whether the subject is a male lover or what.

But we have only the narrator's side of the story. When the narrator has told the subject to take a look, the narrator then says:

We can analyze

I can feel

I can understand

As we can see, the singer moves from the plural to the singular.

The analysis is something they are both capable of, but when it comes to feeling and understanding, the narrator is able to do both, so we do not know whether the subject is on the same page with them. It's questionable whether the subject can also feel and understand.

Then the narrator talks about fate, which they say:

I realize that I created it with you

I take it the song is mostly about a place the narrator and subject have reached, a place that the narrator is happy with, a place that is wonderful and beautiful, a place they created together.

Is this place a waterfall?

The second song off the project's Side A is ‘Of Course I Do’.

It's an easy guitar and easily sung love song. If the first song off the project is a bit complex, this one is a walk in the park, if you will. But don't let the easiness fool you. This is a rich song: Amanda expresses herself strongly here to a point of vulnerability, if you will.

What is she saying of course I do to? That is probably the curious part of you that wants to know as you introduce yourself to the song.

To the lover, here are her words:

I love you

Cause I'm loving you

Here is her promise: she will wake up by the subject’s side everyday and dream up her nights by them. And also

…will travel beside you wherever you wanna go

I will walk beside you, standing in the sun

This is a beautiful promise. She

… will dance with you – when the night strikes

And:

… can grow together in this amazing place

Work through any problems that we might face

I will climb the mountains – watch the stars

I will close my eyes

And hold you in my arms

‘Middle of the Night' is the third song off the project. It's a lovely song with a lovely rock sound to it. It's one of those songs with a pissed-off attitude to it. With ‘Of Course I Do’, what grabs one’s interest are the words, or the story. With the ‘Middle of the Night’, the beat and Amanda’s voice take centre stage. It's a song where you find yourself nodding your head and shaking your foot.

Weird sun in the middle of the day

Hot sun in the middle of the sky

Weird moon in the afternoon

Wake me up in the middle of the night

‘I got the general consensus’ Amanda sings on ‘General Consensus’. What she means by that, I have no idea. My excuse will be that Australia is far away from South Africa!

It's all hunky-dory on the farm – that's the picture Amanda paints on ‘Aphrodisia’ which is the final song off Farmtime's first side.

A chicken makes a screaming sound. Ha, ha – what a song. You will resonate with it if you live far away from the city and are used to seeing chickens everyday. (As for me, the chickens I see are my neighbor's when they sneak into my yard all the time).

‘Out here on the sun’, Amanda sings, ‘you've gotta take it as it comes’.

This song evokes the easy farm life, except I don't think farming is actually easy. I guess there are those farm/fun times that Amanda sings about, them fun times never being wrong, she says.

The first song on Side B is titled ‘Power of One’. I take it that the power of one is someone’s ability to change things. But, as Amanda tells us, this power is wasted on lazy people. This talk of lazy people makes think the song as a bit cynical, for we also hear that superpowers won‘t help one.

A song that includes words like ‘revolution’ is bound to be interesting. But what this revolution Amanda really talks about eludes me.

I should say: the song reminds me of Tracy Chapman’s ‘Talkin’ Bout a Revolution’.

On ‘Power of One’, we are told of people stuck individually on their phones for false information. This is a strange world, methinks.

Many things are empty in the house Amanda sings about on ‘Empty House’.

First up, there’s no furniture. This make me shudder: a house without furniture is hard to fathom. This makes me want to know: what happened to the furniture? Another question, though: is this a heartbreak love song? One should contrast this song with ‘Of Course I Do’ on Side A. Everything seems to be okay there, but on ‘Empty House’, the narrator is forlorn, (‘It's a shame you had to go. I wish you could have stayed longer for me…’) but it’s not all doom and gloom for Amanda consoles herself this way:

I see and understand so much more than I thought I ever would

But Amanda soon wakes up and finds her eyes burning, heart and knees aching, and back breaking.

‘I’ll try a little harder’, she sings.

You have to feel sorry for her, but she tells herself that:

I’ll wait a little longer

And:

I’ll get there in the end

You really hope she gets there as she wishes; but this, dear reader of The Musician, is a music review, so let’s get on with it.

‘Hang Your Hat’ is the third song off Side B. It's a song that has a country feel to it, and there's some whistling going on on the song. You can't help but whistle along. The subject hangs their hat on Amanda’s old guitar, a thing that brings so much joy to Amanda. I don’t know if this is my favorite song off the project (a song I can sing along to), but on here the love is going great guns, if you will.

These are good times: when the subject is off to work in the morning, and Amanda is still yawning. Before this, Amanda says that the subject’s hands go together like rocks and stones.

‘Mitchell Creek Blues’ is a different song altogether: Amanda does not take a break altogether, but the song is started this time by a male singer. This is like the first time Amanda takes the back seat.

It feels good to hear a man sing:

It’s a beautiful day

And I feel good

It seems to me that the guy has escaped the city and will spend a few days in the bush. Anyway, this is a song where you pull out your air guitar so you can also rock and roll like the singers playing on your speaker. It’s a song that makes you feel sexy; a song where the male singer hears this lady sing.

‘Thunder Master’ closes Farmtime. And this time Amanda is back in the lead. My gripe with the song is that the sound or vibe is low. It seems to me the weakest link on what one can call an okay project. It's a sexy love song, if you will, the narrator and subject being together in the rain.