(16) Matchstick Man

[allen]

I really hope MK can play this track live in one of the coming promo shows, or even bring it to the setlist of the upcoming tour 2019.

[Love Expresso]

Some hope indeed. I think it's very unusual from him to mention so early a couple of tracks by name which he considers to play live. Of course there is no warranty for that but he has never done that. So maybe Matchstick Man will turn up eventually!

LE

[quizzaciously]

I have a question to all the lyrics experts out there...

Why Mark wrote this song from the third person perspective? Isn't that quite strange? It's like I'd write this post like this:

He asks why Mark wrote this song from the third person perspective? He asks because you know that the song is about MK.

[Love Expresso]

Maybe because it gives more of the feeling to look at the Matchstick Man ... from above  ..

And to show that this was another man then?

LE

[Justme]

He should must do an acoustic album.

[Jules]

Every time I listened to "heart of Oak", specially remembering how nice the melody sounded being whistled by MK in the short documentary by Henrik Hansen, I thought: "what a waste of such a wonderful melody, using it for such a short and cricket song, it would had been worth to keep the melody saved until something else better comes..."

And just one record after, comes "matschick man", which sounds great and takes some parts of "heart of oak" but, think how far better would had sounded "matschick" if he had used the "oak" melody in full...

But as it was already used, he had to write another one, that is nice too, but not so nice as the "oak" melody.

Anytime I listened to "matschick", the waste (in my opinion) of the "oak" melody comes to my mind.

[Love Expresso]

Heart of Oak is far from "just" being a cricket song. Lyrically and musically, it's a masterpiece.

Matchstick Man suffers from a pretty shiftless melody (as the whole new album does). Plus there are a lot of mouth/tongue sounds on it which makes it almost unbearable for me to listen to it in the meantime.

LE

[superval99]

Although I like Matchstick Man for being a very personal song, I don't find either the melody or the guitar playing as beautiful as Heart of Oak, which, although short, was just about perfect. 

[Jules]

Heart of Oak is far from "just" being a cricket song. Lyrically and musically, it's a masterpiece.

Matchstick Man suffers from a pretty shiftless melody (as the whole new album does). Plus there are a lot of mouth/tongue sounds on it which makes it almost unbearable for me to listen to it in the meantime.

LE

You are right, it's not only a cricket song. It's a song about cricket with beautiful metaphors etc etc, but about cricket, LOL

[Jules]

Although I like Matchstick Man for being a very personal song, I don't find either the melody or the guitar playing as beautiful as Heart of Oak, which, although short, was just about perfect.

Yes, that's what I mean. Oak's melody is wonderful, very beautiful. Matschick's lyrics with that melody would had sounded far better, in my opinion

[Vincent Rapide]

I have a question to all the lyrics experts out there...

Why Mark wrote this song from the third person perspective? Isn't that quite strange? It's like I'd write this post like this:

He asks why Mark wrote this song from the third person perspective? He asks because you know that the song is about MK.

I think the beautiful trick with this song is Mark's written it using first second and third person:

'Just my luck ... '

'So there he was then ...'

'And you, you vagabond ...'

It's such a wonderful tune. It makes me wonder if he's been saving this one up as his swan song. I sincerely hope not.

[Jules]

I don't like the narrative used in this song... the third person usually works better than a first person, but if you mix it... it's kind of weird.

[quizzaciously]

I don't like the narrative used in this song... the third person usually works better than a first person, but if you mix it... it's kind of weird.

Me too... A crazy theory might be if somebody else sings that tune, he would sing it about "he", which is Mark, so it will make more sense.

[Love Expresso]

Speaking about yourself in third person in literature is a stylistic device known as "illeism" and can be used for different reasons, google it if interested. One reason mentioned is this:


Illeism is also a device used to show idiocy, as with the character Mongo in Blazing Saddles, e.g. "Mongo like candy" and "Mongo only pawn in game of life" (Note also the lack of articles and verb inflection in both sentences)[citation needed]; though it may also show innocent simplicity, as it does with Harry Potter's Dobby the Elf ("Dobby has come to protect, even if he does have to shut his ears in the oven door").

He described himself as a naive but idealistic fool who does not know how many miles it were back home and so on. The song is written from the perspective of looking back from a wiser age to those very young years. To me it absolutely felt natural that MK used the third person view, funnily. I am sure MK knows a bit about illeisms.

LE

[superval99]

Speaking about yourself in third person in literature is a stylistic device known as "illeism" and can be used for different reasons, google it if interested. One reason mentioned is this:


Illeism is also a device used to show idiocy, as with the character Mongo in Blazing Saddles, e.g. "Mongo like candy" and "Mongo only pawn in game of life" (Note also the lack of articles and verb inflection in both sentences)[citation needed]; though it may also show innocent simplicity, as it does with Harry Potter's Dobby the Elf ("Dobby has come to protect, even if he does have to shut his ears in the oven door").

He described himself as a naive but idealistic fool who does not know how many miles it were back home and so on. The song is written from the perspective of looking back from a wiser age to those very young years. To me it absolutely felt natural that MK used the third person view, funnily. I am sure MK knows a bit about illeisms.

LE

It could also apply to Romeo in R&J.   MK has said in some interviews that he regards Romeo as someone to pity or as a figure of fun.  I'm sure MK was Romeo.