Salvation Song: Are The Avett Brothers Prophets?

The word "Prophet" is a weighty one, as it should be. It's a large and important concept. A prophet leads people to happiness, a better life, salvation. A prophet feels the touch of the divine and is able to show others how to feel it as well. A well-timed prophet can end a war, or start one. A successful prophet influences the lives of millions or billions of people for generations upon generations.

I say this not because I don't think you know what a prophet is, but instead to prove that I know what one is.

I do, and The Avett Brothers are prophets.

The first time I articulated this thought to myself was about 2 months ago, but I think the seeds were laid the first time I heard "Murder in the City" performed on their album Live, Volume 3. For those of you unfamiliar with the song, pause a minute and listen:

I've long despised the idea of revenge as a destructive act without any positive consequences, but in this song Scott Avett sings of a type of forgiveness and letting go and moving on that just makes sense. If I get murdered in the city, don't go revenging in my name. One person dead from such is plenty. He dismisses the idea of revenge that many people still find natural, and hints that he wishes his theoretical killer no harm. He feels compassion for the man who ended his life too quickly, who stole his future with his wife and daughter, presumably for nothing more than the cash in his wallet.

It's not a new idea - you've probably heard something similar. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, "Love your enemies; do good to them which hate you." The Qur'an commands, "If thou dost stretch thy hand against me, to slay me, it is not for me to stretch my hand against thee to slay thee." A famous parable of the Buddha includes a father advising his son that, "nonviolence ends violence." So, pretty definitively, prophets from many times and regions have shared this idea that love will conquer hate and that we should not strike out against those that strike out against us.

But being a harbinger of peace and love does not necessarily a prophet make.

Instead, I turn to the spiritual awakening I have felt as evidence of their prophet-hood. For a long time, I counted myself as an atheist. I'm still not comfortable with the idea of God in the way most people probably think of it - I just can't imagine that there's a 100 foot-tall man with a flowing white beard, sitting on a cloud deciding who gets AIDS or cancer and who wins the lottery or meets the boy of her dreams - but I do now feel a deep and spiritual connection to the people and world around me that I was not in touch with before. A life force, of sorts, that flows through and around us. While this awakening was not entirely the result of listening to Scott and Seth Avett's music, it does seem like with every personal revelation I have, the two have a song to correspond. The messages of forgiveness and thankfulness that they preach in songs like "Murder in the City" and "Nothing Short of Thankful", the spiritual renewal they sing about in "The Ballad of Love and Hate" and "Tear Down the House", the flat out joy they exude in "Kick Drum Heart" and "The Traveling Song" speak to the breadth and depth of their own living, which in turn inspires me to continue along my road of discovery.

And there's the crux of it. Embrace life. Treat people well. Do good. They share this advice with millions of people who buy their albums, watch their YouTube videos, and go to their concerts. They preach and live by example a lifestyle and attitude that leads to happiness, a better life, salvation.

Historical prophets - Jesus, Moses, Muhammed, Buddha - tend to seem more than human. With Scott and Seth Avett, it's different. They fully embrace their humanity; I think you might be hard-pressed to find two people who are more acutely aware of their shortcomings and willing to express the darkest parts of themselves to so wide an audience. Other prophets are treated like God chose them because they were special. Or maybe they were special because God chose them. The Avett Brothers are special because they are human. They shine a light on themselves, good qualities and bad, and allow themselves to be beacons for all of us who want to do better than we have in the past. And for that, I will follow them.

We came for salvation, we came for family, we came for all that's good, that's how we'll walk away.
We came to break the bad, we came to cheer the sad, we came to leave behind the world a better way.

What Comes Is Better Than What Came Before

The first time I heard Cat Power's cover of the Velvet Underground's "I Found a Reason", I listened to it 17 times in a row.

Even then, I only stopped because I was aware that this behavior was what some might call obsessive, and because I knew I could have listened to it on repeat all night and never fallen asleep.

Since then, the song has undoubtedly been my favorite. It's the only one on my iTunes that has registered more than 100 plays (110 at time of writing), and I've certainly heard it many more times than that. I played it often when I worked at TDU; I've probably seen every video on youtube that uses the song; sometimes I'm too impatient to listen to the 6 seconds of silence at the end of the track and rewind to listen to it again before my computer counts the play. Even after all of that, I still have the same strange, painful, beautiful reaction every time I hear Cat Power's voice open the song that I had my sophomore year of college, laying in bed with my laptop.

For those of you who don't know the song (and Hell, even for those of you who do), close your eyes and listen:

The moment I hear her start singing, I feel my internal organs tighten and my muscles melt. I get gooseflesh across my neck and down my arms. My body is at war with itself - it does not know what to do, how to react. It's been almost 5 years since that first "Ooooh" entered my ears for the first time, and my body still cannot figure out how to process the information. I feel sick and nervous and sad and relaxed and in love and joyous and fearful and vulnerable. In the first 7 seconds of the song, I feel most of the emotions that a human being is capable of feeling - and they all come at once.

That physiological and emotional confusion is almost certainly what keeps me coming back to it. I don't know if this sort of visceral reaction is something that many people experience with music; I've never heard anyone talk about experiencing something similar. There are definitely other songs that are capable of putting me back in a specific moment, vividly reigniting memories I didn't realize I had. No other song, however, has had the physical reaction that "I Found a Reason" has on me.

I've tried to figure out why I feel the way I do when I hear it. You can tell in her voice that she is deeply wounded, and holding on to hope is something that is both impossibly difficult and absolutely necessary for her - that is something that resonates with me very much. The simple nature of the piano accompaniment is tragic and beautiful - I love that it doesn't overpower the vocals but provides just enough support to enrich without distracting. I love the lyrics and identify with the sentiment behind them. I love the strange ending - it seems somehow open-ended, like you aren't sure for a second if the song is really done. It's the kind of song that if you saw it performed live, you might not be sure if it's time to clap yet. I know I said I skip the silence at the end from time to time, but those few seconds really allow it to set in.

In the end though, I realized that it's not any of the qualities of the song or its production that make me love it the way I do. In any truly great art, there is something intangible and unnameable. It's what makes me feel wrapped up and comforted by Cat Power's shattered voice on this track; it's what makes me feel calmed and inspired by Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night; it's what makes me feel like I can reach out and give a hug to Charlie in Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Art should move us - that is what it's created for - and Cat Power's extraordinary work on this track does that to me in a way that few things do.

Having a favorite song is important, I think. It fills you up and makes you feel connected in a way that nothing else can. I hope you all like mine, but more than that, I hope you all find a song that has the same effect on you that "I Found a Reason" has on me.





Jack White talks about his favorite song: