The Gospel According to Gene Clark: Finding Spirtuality in the Music of The Byrd Who Was Afraid to…
Introduction Religion and rock music seem to be at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. This is a myopic viewpoint, one that ignores…
Introduction
Religion and rock music seem to be at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. This is a myopic viewpoint, one that ignores the role of folk, blues, country, and gospel played in the development of rock music. These styles frequently have a religious underpinning. Through exploration of the music of Gene Clark, this paper will demonstrate the compatibility of spirituality and rock music. The paper will primarily focus on Gene Clark’s 1974 album; No Other, but will discuss other relevant parts
Background
Before we leap into discussion and analysis of White Light & No Other, it’s important to have some understanding of the man behind the album. Clark standing center stage, tambourine in hand and sporting a Prince Valiant haircut is the image most music fans associate with the Byrd who was afraid to fly. Clark wrote many of the early hits of The Byrds, such as “I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better,” or “Eight Miles High.” Clark’s upbringing and childhood provided ample influence and material for his solo music.
Gene Clark was born in Tipton, MO on November 17, 1944 to a large family of an Irish, German, and Native American background. The family was not well off and struggled to get by. Despite an impoverished upbringing, Clark recalled his childhood fondly, memorializing it on songs such as “Something’s Wrong” and “Kansas City Southern.” These songs focused on Clark’s memories of playing outdoors and the trains that used to pass near the family home.
Attending parochial school was a defining event in the childhood of Clark. Clark’s mother, Jeanne, was a devout Catholic and wanted her children to be educated by the church. John Einarson, author of the Gene Clark biography Mr. Tambourine Man, believes that the strict nature of Our Lady of Lourdes was a detriment to Clark’s education.
“Perhaps if Gene had attended public school from the outset, his educational experience might have turned out better. As it was he found it difficult to reconcile all the rules and often ran afoul of the nuns.”
Clark’s early clashes with the rigid hierarchy of Catholicism turned him off on organized religion, though he was a deeply spiritual man, an aspect that filtered into his music, particularly on Clark’s 1971 album White Light 1974 album, No Other. There were elements of religion and spirituality in Clark’s music preceding White Light & No Other, but it was on this LP that they came to the forefront. The origins of the album will discussed following an overview of religion and spirituality in Clark’s music.
Loomings
What follows is a brief rundown of the religious and/or spiritual elements of Clark’s music. These songs and occurrences are notable for our purposes because they show that these traits and themes didn’t spring out of nowhere. Some of these are tenuous in nature, but that is to be expected of music of this era. Talking about religion in a pop music context was considered taboo. There was mild controversy over the title of The Beach Boys song, “God Only Knows.” That being said, it wasn’t exactly unusual for a pop singer to sing about spiritual matters, Elvis Presley released gospel records and Sam Cooke got his start as a member of The Soul Stirrers, a gospel group. What was unusual was singing about that topic in a pop music setting.
Clark’s music with the Byrds maintains the most tenuous connection to religion, in the form of quotations of religious music and covers of songs with a spiritual or religious bent. The former occurs twice in the discography of the Byrds: on “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “She Don’t Care About Time.” In both cases, the songs quote Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring from J.S. Bach’s cantata, Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147.
The quotation on “She Don’t Care About Time” is more direct than the one on “Mr. Tambourine Man” is merely a guitar figure influenced by Bach. “She Don’t Care About Time” directly quotes the melody. In both cases, the guitar part was played by Roger McGuinn, so one can’t really argue that Clark was behind the decision, though notably “She Don’t Care About Time” was penned by Clark.
The Byrds recorded “She Don’t Care About Time” around the same time as their second album: Turn! Turn! Turn!. That LP was notable for covers of two religious songs: “Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is A Season)” and “Satisfied Mind.” The former was penned by Pete Seeger and contains lyrics taken directly from The Book of Ecclesiastes. The latter is a country standard and while not overtly religious like the Seeger song, certainly features a religious subtext, calling to mind the Matthew 19:23–24
“Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’”
Compare that with this line “But little they know/That’s it’s so hard to find/ One rich man in ten/ with a satisfied mind.”
It’s strongly implied that a satisfied mind is a form of inner peace and one can choose to interpret this as becoming a born-again Christian. It should be noted that The Byrds may not have intended a spiritual message with these two songs, “Turn! Turn! Turn!” is more of a call for peace than sermon and “Satisfied Mind” merely appears to be an early dabbling in country music, a genre departure that would see its full flowering on Sweetheart of the Rodeo, an album made after Clark had long departed The Byrds. The lack of sincerity is suggested by the tongue-in-cheek version of “The Christian Life” sung by McGuinn on Sweetheart. This is where we take leave of The Byrds as Clark would not record with The Byrds again until the self-titled reunion album in the 70s. Clark’s solo debut, Echoes was recorded with The Gosdin Brothers, who performed gospel and country. The awkward pairing was the brainchild of Jim Dickson who managed both The Byrds and The Gosdin Brothers. Echoes doesn’t contain any overtly spiritual material, but it’s notable for getting Clark interested in country and bluegrass, two genres he’d explore more fully in later work, the latter particularly on his two albums with Doug Dillard.
The Dillard & Clark partnership proved fruitful, producing two excellent LPs: The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark and Through The Morning, Through The Night. What’s notable about these two releases are the two gospel tracks: a cover of Lester Flatt’s “Git It On Brother” on Expedition and a cover of the traditional gospel song “I Bowed My Head and Cried Holy” on Through The Morning. It’s here where one starts to see Clark develop an affinity for recording gospel music, a thread that will lead all the way to No Other.
Transcendentalism
White Light is the album where religious imagery starts to slowly filter into the lyrics of Gene Clark, most notably on the title track. “White Light,” with its imagery of nature and quotidian doings of village residents recalls Whitman’s “Song Of Myself.” Notably both Whitman and Clark use the image of a blacksmith, suggesting both writers see parallels between the work of a smith and the work of a poet. Clark’s description of smiths at work : “Oh, the smithies anvil rings/And the symphony it sings/No voice nor poet’s pen can put to tune.”
Whitman’s description of a smith is more mundane:
“Blacksmiths with grimed and hairy chests environ the anvil,/Each has his main-sledge, they are all out, there is a great/heat in the fire,” but, along with other descriptions of work, suggests that there is something noble and even beautiful about making a living in such a manner.
Like Whitman, Clark makes an invocation to a higher power, though Clark doesn’t refer to it as God as Whitman does. Clark’s poetry is more oblique but with imagery suggestive of Christianity, particularly on the lines “And electric lines of force/Ring around the humble lives/Of the souls that hear the master saying soon.” The master could simply refer to a real world figure, but it does call to mind Jesus Christ, as master was a name his disciples called him.
The lines “With the strength of ages past they’re still at hand/Reckons not to look behind/But to look within and find/And to hear of those enlightened by the lamb” most certainly call to mind Christ, known as the lamb of God as well as the good shepherd. “White Light” truly feels like a piece of transcendentalist work, with its use of nature imagery and suggestion of something beyond the physical plane, particularly the line “And the strength of those who see beyond their sight.”
There is some evidence to suggest that Clark was aware of transcendentalism. According to John Einarson, Clark frequently had conversations about religion, philosophy, and belief with his friend Philip O’Leno, who Einarson describes as “[a]n avid reader and explorer of the spiritual world in all its incarnations and guises, ancient and modern, Philip became Gene’s guru and sounding board. Philip’s personal library is impressive, reflecting a man on a quest for the answers to the fundamental questions of life.”
It was the influence of O’Leno that brought about the change in Clark’s songwriting found on No Other. Einarson describes the change in Clark’s approach thus: ”with his next album he would explore his poetic gift far more than he ever had before, and take great personal pride in being able to vocalize these concepts, ideas, and spiritual extrapolations in song.”
According to Einarson, No Other is mistakenly believed to be the result of Clark’s recreational drug use, that instead the “album’s themes derive from the Bible, while others examine the eternal conflicts between the inner spirit and the outer realities of life.”
For example, the song “From A Silver Phial” is inspired partially by the book of Revelations. And the fix referenced in “Some Misunderstanding” is not drugs but about a desire for a spiritual grounding, a compass.
Byrd in Freefall
No Other was a flop and Clark never again reached the heights of the album, though the work he released between No Other and his death in 1991 of a bleeding ulcer, just months after The Byrds were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Clark suffered from ulcers for years due to his hard drinking and he had part of his stomach and intestines removed in 1988.
The inscription of Clark’s tombstone read “Harold Eugene Clark — No Other.”
Legacy
Along with the obvious influence on groups like Big Star and R.E.M. with his work with The Byrds, Clark’s music has been a popular choice for covers by indie musicians. This Mortal Coil covered “Strength of Strings” and “With Tomorrow.” Yo La Tengo covered “Tried So Hard” on 1990 Fakebook, Velvet Crush recorded a cover of Dillard & Clark’s “Why Not Your Baby” on 1994’s Teenage Symphonies to God. “Gene Clark” is the title of a track on Teenage Fanclub’s 1993 album, Thirteen. Raising Sand, a collaboration between Alison Krauss and Robert Plant features covers of “Polly” and “Through The Morning, Through The Night.” The Kanye West song “Gorgeous” samples “You Showed Me.”
Most notably, a group of indie musicians including members of Beach House, Grizzly Bear, Fleet Foxes, the Walkmen and others performed No Other in its entirety in a series of five shows earlier this year.
Beach House released a statement regarding the album and why they chose to perform it.
“Though we generally love all of his music, we are most infatuated with his 1974 record, No Other. It feels like a special moment in Gene Clark’s songwriting. At first, the overdone, studio nature of the album feels overbearing: the electric violin, the female chorus, the bass riffs, the layered guitar sequences. However, with more listens, Gene Clark’s very unique lyrics, voice and spirit become the central focus. It’s one of those records where each time you listen, you love a different song the most. Every song is nuanced and amazing in its own way.”
Though it may have been a commercial failure upon its release the album has earned a sterling reputation with critics and viewed by many to be the high watermark of Clark’s solo career. There is something about the album in particular that continues to resonate with audiences, whether its the ornate, layered production or the searching, poetic, and obtuse lyrics ripe for several different interpretations.
A group of musicians recreating the album is fitting; in many ways it echoes the rituals of religion. What is Holy Communion but an attempt to touch the past and to connect to feeling that is beyond this world? Clark’s music is warm and contains a deeply felt humanity as well as a desire for human connection and finding one’s place in the world. Characteristics found in nearly every world religion.