Snow Borne Sorrow – Gone from the Landscape

The final chapter of David Sylvian’s second volumesample of lyrics and poetry, Trophies II, contains a selection of compositions conceived as poems rather than words to be sung to music. The final piece is entitled ‘Gone from the Landscape’, and I remember how it pulled me up short when I read it for the first time. This was, after all, a volume published early in 1999 and containing the lyrics to Dead Bees on a Cake, undoubtedly some of the most joyful Sylvian has ever penned. Of course, the darkness is always lurking close to the surface, but here at the end of the book a shadow is cast heavy:

‘Snow has shown up here
On the interior
Blanketing everything
I trace my own prints
Over and over
Numb
Denial giving way to resignation
My heart must be wounded
It lends the snow the deepening blush of its blood’

In Hypergraphia only the lyrics to the pair of ‘World Citizen’ tracks separate this text from the raw break-up confusion of Blemish. The poem was written before the Sylvian family moved from West to East Coast, a relocation motivated partly out of a longing to once again experience the fullness of the seasons and the natural rhythm that they bring to life. ‘We lived on the West Coast for a few years and I knew that it was not my home,’ reflected Ingrid Chavez later. ‘I missed the seasons. I needed that rhythm in my creative life.’ (2010)

If snowfall was not something experienced in the warmth of Sonoma, California, the memories of recent years spent in Minneapolis were still fresh where, Sylvian observed, ‘the long Minnesotan winters allowed for a fair amount of isolation’ (1999). Their next move would expose David and Ingrid to the extended barrage of bitter cold and heavy snowfall of the season in New Hampshire, now to be encountered in the remoteness of a property surrounded by the forest and disconnected from others.

Asked about the title of the inaugural Nine Horses release, Sylvian said, ‘Well, I often use weather as a metaphor, a useful metaphor for a variety of different emotional states. I find winters to be a very productive time, and time for gestation and creation of new ideas and formation of new projects. But also, psychologically, winters can be very hard and very isolating. So it depends on how you enter into these long winters that we experience in New England in America. If you’re psychologically prepared for them, they are very productive and very fruitful times. If you’re in not such a healthy state of mind, they can be quite difficult to endure. So in some ways for me the title Snow Borne Sorrow suggested all of that.’

When appearing on BBC Radio 3’s Mixing It programme in the UK, the host Robert Sandall told Sylvian, ‘My favourite track on the album is the title track ‘Snow Borne Sorrow’. I love it for many reasons, not least it’s got the most wonderfully detailed and intricate – but not oppressively intricate – sort of construction. I mean it goes through all these different phases, it’s almost like a little suite.’

The description was apt particularly because of the recurrence of bursts of strings marking transitions within the piece. In the opening section the rasp of crackling electronics provides the principal rhythmic element, which then melts with strings into the sweetness of an acoustic guitar arpeggio and the lilt of a trumpet. The guitar and trumpet signal a change both in mood and in time signature, with these parts in fact sampled from a 1964 single released by Brigitte Bardot, ‘Un Jour Comme un Autre’. The track appeared on her album B.B. that same year, and in 1968 on the compilation Bonnie and Clyde released by Bardot with Serge Gainsbourg.

Extended individual notes from the strings accompany the ‘Oh save them’ section, as Arve Henriksen’s trumpet enters to develop upon the earlier sample. A simple beat emerges on the counts of 3 and 4 as Sylvian sings ‘Let the children come to me’, Ryuichi Sakamoto’s subtle piano adding the final element from the quartet of musicians who contribute to the track.

Robert Sandall asked Sylvian how the arrangement that he so admired was created. ‘That’s really down to Steve. He put that piece together while I was working on Blemish. He started working on material for his own up-coming solo work and when I heard that piece I thought, you know it’s crying out for a vocal, and I just knew what I wanted to do with it. But it was all there basically, so the credit goes to Steve. I thought it was a glorious piece of composition.’

Jansen later gave an example of how carefully the track was constructed: ‘When I wrote the music for the track ‘Snow Borne Sorrow’ (a piece I’d originally intended for my solo album), I used different bass drum sounds for the first and second parts of the track. Perhaps most people wouldn’t pay much attention to it but it’s these little details that I find interesting…’ (2014)

The Nine Horses project contains songs that reflect on social and political issues, for instance ‘Atom and Cell’ and ‘The Banality of Evil’, and those dealing with personal relationships, such as ‘The Day the Earth Stole Heaven’ and ‘Snow Borne Sorrow’. ‘Obviously this is a more autobiographical piece,’ said Sylvian. ‘It’s dealing with aspects of divorce and the conflicting emotions that that throws up. And because the work was going through these different changes and different modes, I was able to focus on different elements of these… you know, what divorce brings up in you. Which is obviously the conflict between the couple involved, but primarily the concern for the children and their well-being, and how to resolve things amicably for their sake, you know. I hope it’s not too mawkish.’

‘Our first winter came
the silence misunderstood
snowblind, we lost
sight of all that was good’
Ingrid Chavez, excerpt from ‘No Goodbyes’
from A Flutter and Some Words

Whereas Blemish was written in the midst of the personal crisis, the Nine Horses tracks addressing the same subject come from a later stage, working through the implications of a failed relationship. ‘Certainly when you write work that’s primarily autobiographical, a lot of it is digested prior to writing it, so it may sound possibly more autobiographical than it actually is, because you’re just trying to tap into something, you know, that speaks for a lot of people.’

‘Strip the branches
Unsheathe the hatchets
The threads of friendship
Are coming off

The teeth of lawyers
Man the trenches
Bands of betrothal
Are coming off’

Sylvian saw a link not only between Blemish and Nine Horses, but also between the tracks on Snow Borne Sorrow focusing on a fractured relationship between individuals and those dealing with wider issues in the world. ‘Well, you know, Blemish and Nine Horses exist side by side in terms of thematic content. Whereas Blemish describes the breakdown of a personal relationship, Nine Horses tends to generally take a broader look at the same issue, so it’s a more socially aware album. I’d say more or less each piece deals with conflict on some level or another, but it also promotes compassion and tolerance. These are the abiding themes of the album as I see them.’

The Nine Horses title track portrays conflict in the household…

‘It’s a harrowing world
Of adults and girls
Lashing out at the hurt
That surrounds them

With the knives drawn apart
They shatter the heart
Of anyone that dares come between them’

…with the incoming season, everything has changed…

‘Once a playground of swings
Then the malice set in
And reduced all the colours to winter

So we made it our own
This snow borne sorrow
And this love that stutters and splinters’

Sylvian subverts an everyday phrase to reinforce the starkness of a new reality:

‘There’s so much to be ungrateful for’

…but in a section accompanied by the sweetness of the Bardot sample there is hope expressed of finding some stability out of compassion for the young lives involved:

‘But if we’re good
If we’re kind
But if we’re good
Generous and kind
We’ll inhabit their sunsets
Their goddesses and queens
We’ll try to do the right thing

(Oh save them)
Oh save them’

Anyone with a Christian upbringing will recognise the phrase ‘let the children come to me’ as a biblical one, ‘suffer the little children to come unto Me’ in older translation. The episode is from the gospels where Christ’s disciples have prevented young children from approaching Him, but Jesus calls them forward and scolds those who have held them back. It’s a moment of compassion, of seeing worth in those who might seem insignificant.

Sylvian was asked whether he was ‘making any deliberately Christ-like references?’ ‘Absolutely not, no,’ was the response. ‘No, it’s really about the sharing of responsibility of children, you know, that’s really what it’s about. And just seen from one perspective. Obviously there’s multiple perspectives in such a situation.’

‘When their feet touch the ground
Naked unbound
I want them to know they can trust me’

As I was preparing this article, Ingrid Chavez posted a link to a new mix of a track called ‘White House’ on her instagram. ‘Each day we get closer to the full Hunter’s Moon,’ she wrote, ‘and although I no longer measure the coming winter by low temperatures and hoarfrost, the golden leaves of the Big Leaf Oak trees are beginning to fall here in the canyon, and Big Sur winter is on its way.

‘‘White House’ was written in 2010, a collaboration with Takashi Mori when I was still living in Temple, New Hampshire. Takashi released a new version of it today, and it has brought back a flood of memories. Snow was everything to me then. It began with the turning of leaves, red and golden, and then their gentle dance, twirling, falling from the branches, to form a blanket of leaves soon to be covered in snow.

‘The winter of 2010 was marked with genuine sadness and pure poetry. This song is about the end of a marriage.’

‘White House’

‘I can feel it
something’s happening
everything I know
will soon be covered in snow
all colour faded
winter’s on its way
my heart is bracing
for the cold, cold, cold
I know out there
love’s just waiting for me…’

David and Ingrid continued to live in the property at Temple after trouble hit their marriage not long after their move there in 2000. The accommodation was divided as they separated their lives but retained some sense of togetherness with their daughters. The spoken word section at the end of ‘White House’ signals that this time is now coming towards an end.

‘Souvenirs wrapped in silk
Packed in pretty little boxes

Gone with the coyote’s cry
Any pretence of hope

The hard part is over
The ropes have been cut,
Shredded lifelines
Worn by the passing of time

There is no forgiveness in a house divided
So experience has taught us
We tried ~

Breath on windowpanes
Whispered prayers unanswered
Hoarfrost sparkling
in the last light of a Hunter’s Moon

Traces of a dream
Gone by noon

The snow is coming soon
It’s in the air

Another winter
pushed upon our slow descent
Its deafening silence
Surely this will be the last ~

It’s happening
I can feel it.’

‘White House’ dates from around the same time as Ingrid’s solo album, A Flutter and Some Words. In a YouTube video posted for fans in 2019, she looked back on the promotional film made for that album, much of which was shot in the snow at Temple. The footage, she says, ‘reminds me of how beautiful it is here in New England. As you can tell I’m very inspired by the winter season, and once again that’s what we’ve captured here.’ Despite the evident difficulties, good memories were also forged. ‘I’m also reminded of the beautiful home that my children grew up in and what a lovely start in life they had.’

‘Snow Borne Sorrow’

Arve Henriksen – trumpet; Steve Jansen – sample programming, keyboards; Ryuichi Sakamoto – piano, piano treatment; David Sylvian – vocals

Music by Steve Jansen. Lyrics by David Sylvian.

Produced and arranged by Steve Jansen & David Sylvian. From Snow Borne Sorrow by Nine Horses, Samadhisound, 2005.

Mixed by David Sylvian with Steve Jansen at samadhisound

Incorporates a sample taken from ‘Un Jour Comme un Autre’ by Brigitte Bardot courtesy of Mercury Records, a label of Universal Music, France. Lyrics by Jean-Max Riviére. Music by Gérard Bourgeois. © 1963 Warner Chappell Music, France & Peer Music.

lyrics © copyright samadhisound publishing

‘Gone from the Landscape’ © David Sylvian

‘No Goodbyes’ and ‘White House’ © Ingrid Chavez

The featured image is a photograph by Ingrid Chavez titled ‘Home’ and was taken in New Hampshire. Ingrid’s photos were published on her artist facebook page, shots taken during the making of the promotional film for A Flutter and Some Words. At the time of writing the film can be viewed here: Part One, Part Two. The album is available at her bandcamp site here.

All artist quotes are from interviews in 2005/6 unless indicated. Full sources and acknowledgements for this article can be found here.

Download links: ‘Snow Borne Sorrow’ (Apple); ‘White House’ (bandcamp); ‘Un Jour Comme un Autre’ (Apple)

Physical media links: Snow Borne Sorrow, as part of the 10-cd boxset Do You Know Me Now? (official store); Bonnie and Clyde (Amazon)

‘Winter here is not for the faint-hearted. There is a strength in the people who choose to live in cold climates that I admire. I see it in my own children. They may choose to live in a warmer part of the world someday but they have this experience of braving the weather and pushing through in their character. They are stronger for it.’ Ingrid Chavez, 2010

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