“Fable” by Benjamin Dunn and the Animal Orchestra
Dear Narnia Fans:
I am writing with happy news! There is now an album of wonderful Narnia music for our listening enjoyment. Benjamin Dunn & The Animal Orchestra has accomplished a beautiful thing: putting our favorite characters and scenes from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader into indie-style songs with profound lyrics in the album “Fable”. Here is an sample:
“My Name is Eustace”
You dig your claws into my chest
I know only you can undress
All these scales and all of my shame
You dip me into the waters of your grace
You clean me and kiss me on my face
Only you can dress me in love again
My name is Eustace
And I’m not used to this
Grace that makes death die
My name is Eustace
I’m not used to this
Love that makes men alive
You came in an unexpected face
Grace came in an unexpected place
You came and dressed me in love again
When you smile the winter meets it’s death
When you turn we have spring again
Only you can dress me in love again
Remember that scene when Eustace receives the help of Aslan?
Indievisionmusic.com recently reviewed and praised the album:
“The album works allegorically in the same fashion as C.S. Lewis: the purpose is to glean spiritual insight from stories rather than straight forward theology. As far as the Lewis references go, there are some fairly obvious ones, such as “My Name is Eustace” and “Caspian.” But the rest are fairly subtle, such as the brilliant homage in “Sail To the End” to the mouse Reepicheep from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Of course, Dunn doesn’t limit himself to works based on Narnia, but includes other works, such as the brilliant Space Trilogy. Now, I’m not going to give any more references away, partially because I haven’t read some of Lewis’ novels for a couple years and accordingly I’m not sure about some of them, but also because I found that half the fun of the album was delving into each song and trying to figure out from whose perspective it was from. If you’re a Lewis fan, you’ll love it, and if you’re not, then the depth in the lyrics is still apparent and accessable (sic) to anyone.”
“The Chronicles of Narnia” live on, as evidenced by the profound heart and skillful music of Benjamin Dunn in “Fable”. Please comment to let me know what you think.
Your fellow Narnia Fan,
Pineneedlesandpapertrails
Link: http://www.joyrevolution.com/
Another article on this album: http://matreames.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/benjamin-dunn-the-animal-orchestra-fable-review/
P.S. I took advantage of your “Share this” button for WordPress and put a link to your blog on mine, along with the official video of the song. Thanks for turning me on to them!
To my surprise, I REALLY like their sound! Those are great lyrics, although I don’t get the animal-head character in their video of it. A furry animal doesn’t fit with talking about scales, but maybe that’s just old fuddy-duddy logic! I’ll have to look for their CD.
Well, they are musicians after all – creative license????
Haven’t looked or listened to the album, but LOVED the lyrics of the song you posted! Eustace was turned into a dragon (scales?)
Finally watched the video. Too funny. Yes, what is with the old stuffed animal heads? Could over analyze that all day, but it probably was just something funny to do… or maybe someone was having a bad hair day and they all threw on animal heads 🙂 (wish I could do that somedays!)
Reblogged this on ∞Anonymous Fangirlツ.
awesome.
This reminds me of the album “Roar of Love” by 2nd Chapter of Acts. I LOVED this album as a child. But when I rebought it on CD after the release of the first Narnia movie, my kids didn’t appreciate the 1970s style as much as I did! I still love listening to it– reminds me of my childhood.
I used to listen to 2nd Chapter of Acts but I don’t remember “Roar of Love”.