<\/p>\n
Decemberists are a hyperliterate indie-folk band from Portland, formed in 2000. The band formed in 2000, that is, not the city. Portland formed in 1851.<\/p>\n
But if you read only their lyrics and song titles, you might be guilty of thinking Decemberists originated in that era, when the individualism, divine nature and intuition of transcendentalism began to give way to the gristle and grit of realism.<\/p>\n
Of 2024\u2019s \u201cAs it Ever Was, So It Will Be Again\u201d NPR wrote, \u201cThere\u2019s no shortage of death to be found in The Decemberists\u2019 catalog and on their new album.\u201d<\/p>\n
As phillyburbs.com wrote in 2011, \u201cTheir lyrics are incredibly eloquent, and The Decemberists also convey a wide spectrum of emotions through their storytelling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Decemberists were actually pretty huge in the era of indie-folk about 15 to 20 years ago, along with Fleet Foxes. I was not a fan then, to be honest, their stuff being very twee, defined by Merrian-Webster as affectedly or excessively dainty, delicate, cute, or quaint. I\u2019d say they were definitely quaint, as someone raised on the sound of electric guitars from the Ramones, Fugazi, Pixies and Archers of Loaf.<\/p>\n
But then a single Decemberists song won me over. That was the case with \u201cBurial Ground,\u201d a single from 2024s \u201cAs it Ever Was,\u201d a song so harmonically catchy that some said upon its February 2024 release that it owes a possible debt to The Beach Boys\u2019 version of \u201cSloop John B.\u201d<\/p>\n
I think that\u2019s a simplistic comparison, made mainly because it has amazing counter harmonies with James Mercer of The Shins, another band that was huge 20 years ago, thanks in part to the indie film \u201cGarden State.\u201d I don\u2019t know that the critics were right about that, but I do think if you like \u201cSloop John B,\u201d you\u2019ll also dig \u201cBurial Ground,\u201d which ended up topping my most played songs in 2024 on Spotify.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always been a soft touch, and so I\u2019ve also had a soft spot for the tragic earworm \u201cJanuary Hymn,\u201d which I defy you to listen to on a winter day and not just tear up a little when singer Colin Meloy\u2019s abandoned narrator intones, \u201cWhat were the words I meant to say before you left\/When I could see your breath lead where you were going to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Very evocative stuff. The other day, I was thinking, as I do now and then, about how much their song titles and lyrics sound so earnestly 19th century, and I had a thought that gave rise to this quiz: I wonder if someone only slightly familiar with the songs of Meloy and the poems of Walt Whitman, could guess correctly which is which.<\/p>\n
I mean, \u201cI Dream\u2019d in a Dream,\u201d \u201cYankee Bayonet,\u201d \u201cShanty for Arethusa,\u201d \u201cSail out for Good, Eidolon Yacht!\u201d and \u201cTo Those Who\u2019ve Fail\u2019d\u201d seem to share a certain strand of poetic DNA. Even the most achiev\u2019d Whitman scholar and well-manner\u2019d Decemberists fan would mayhap concede that.<\/p>\n
Henceforth, a quiz. To mix it up a little, I threw in some colorful headlines from Civil War-era journalists and snake oil labels and advertisements.<\/p>\n
From this list, try to decide whether each is an A) Decemberists title, B) Whitman poem, C) verbiage from a snake oil ad or D) a Civil War headline.<\/p>\n
1) A Valuable Discovery<\/p>\n
2) Lingering Last Drops<\/p>\n
3) Here I Dreamt I was an Architect<\/p>\n
4) Still Though the One I Sing<\/p>\n
5) The Artilleryman\u2019s Vision<\/p>\n
6) When the War Came<\/p>\n
7) The War Commenced<\/p>\n
8) Beat! Beat! Drums!<\/p>\n
9) To Men Only, Young or Old<\/p>\n
10) O Me! O Life!<\/p>\n
11) O Valencia!<\/p>\n
12) It Has Stood the Test of 40 Years\u2019 Trial<\/p>\n
13) Youth, Day, Old Age and Night<\/p>\n
14) The Grandest Discovery of the 19th Century<\/p>\n
15) Spirit that Form\u2019d this Scene<\/p>\n
16) A Bower Scene<\/p>\n
17) The Singer in the Prison<\/p>\n
18) The Singer Addresses his Audience<\/p>\n
19) This is Why We Fight<\/p>\n
20) Bathed in War\u2019s Perfume<\/p>\n
That\u2019s it. Answers are at the end of this week\u2019s column. Don\u2019t feel terrible if you did poorly. All these titles fell from the same linguistic tree, which died at least five, maybe six score ago.<\/p>\n
Results<\/p>\n
0-4 \u2014 0 so terrible!<\/p>\n
5-9 \u2014 Going somewhere<\/p>\n
10-14 \u2014 Starting to sing the body electric<\/p>\n
15 or more \u2014 Truly transcendent(al)<\/p>\n
Answers:<\/p>\n
1) c, 2) b, 3) a, 4) b, 5) b, 6) a, 7) d, 8) b, 9) c, 10) b, 11) a 12) c, 13) b, 14) c, 15) b, 16) a, 17) b, 18) a, 19) a, 20) b<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source bendbulletin.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Decemberists are a hyperliterate indie-folk band from Portland, formed in 2000. The band formed in 2000, that is, not the city. Portland formed in 1851. But if you read only their lyrics and song titles, you might be guilty of thinking Decemberists originated in that era, when the individualism, divine nature and intuition of transcendentalism […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2335749,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2335748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Bend-columnists-quiz-Decemberists-Whitman-snake-oil-or-Civil-War.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2335748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2335748"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2335748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2335750,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2335748\/revisions\/2335750"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2335749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2335748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2335748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2335748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}