Colin Meloy’s Story Songs

10 Tunes featuring odd characters and mad capers

One of my goals this autumn is to spend more time discovering and reading Substacks. This week I’ve become a paid subscriber to Colin Meloy’s Machine Shop, after enjoying his tour diaries this summer. Meloy fronts The Decemberists and is an incredibly unique vocalist and songwriter, plus a best-selling author.

I first discovered The Decemberists at the start of university, around 2003, and their debut album, Castaways and Cutouts. I think a uni friend turned me on to them because he knew I loved Neutral Milk Hotel. “This guy also has a nasally voice and tells weird stories” is probably what Quinn said. To my ears, The Decemberists sounded more refined and academic, less chaotic and lo-fi, than NMH, but I was hooked nonetheless. 

Mr. Colin Meloy looking suitably author-y

Meloy’s writing follows the storytelling tradition of British and Irish folk music; exquisitely-crafted vignettes featuring odd characters and mad capers. He is also clever and edifying in his use of language. Early Decemberists’ tunes had such titles as “Odalisque,” “The Legionnaire’s Lament,” “Shanty for the Arethusa,” and genuine head-scratcher, “The Bagman’s Gambit.” His words may sound old-fashioned, but his tales feel timeless.

Perhaps my favourite example of a Meloy mini-story is the second verse of “Red Right Ankle” from 2003’s Her Majesty The Decemberists:

This is the story of your gypsy uncle
You never knew 'cause he was dead
And how his face was carved and rift with wrinkles
In the picture in your head
And remember how you found the key
To his hide-out in the Pyrenees
But you wanted to keep his secret safe
So you threw the key away
This is the story of your gypsy uncle

What I love about this verse — and Meloy’s skill as a storyteller — is how he provides just enough detail for the listener’s mind to conjure a continuation, a much larger story for these characters, long after the four-minute song has ended.

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