Wainwright's weaving the myth of Orpheus's attempt to redeem his bride Eurydice from the Underworld with the tragic drowning of Jeff Buckley is one of the saddest and beautiful moments in contemporary music.
In the myth, Orpheus's wife dies. However, he could play his lyre so sweetly that it even melted the heart of Hades himself. Hades agreed to release Eurydice back into the living world with her beloved husband on one condition--that Orpheus walks ahead of her and both do not look back until they've reached the world above. In his nervous excitement, Orpheus looks back just as his feet touch the mortal earth, and Eurydice vanishes back into Hades forever. This must be why Rufus sings "turn back" twice during his song. I think it's a song about many things--desire, jealousy, adoration. But I think, on a more elemental level, it's also about letting a person be dead.
The water imagery flows in from both Greek myth and from Shakespeare's "Hamlet". Orpheus's own death was tragic, being torn apart by Maenads (female servants of Dionysius) while minding his own business at an oracle. They lopped off his head and sent it floating down the river along with his lyre. In "Hamlet", Ophelia drowns herself from apparent madness over the murder of her father by Hamlet, coupled with the denouncement of their relationship ("get thee to a nunnery") by Hamlet himself.
Wainwright's weaving the myth of Orpheus's attempt to redeem his bride Eurydice from the Underworld with the tragic drowning of Jeff Buckley is one of the saddest and beautiful moments in contemporary music.
In the myth, Orpheus's wife dies. However, he could play his lyre so sweetly that it even melted the heart of Hades himself. Hades agreed to release Eurydice back into the living world with her beloved husband on one condition--that Orpheus walks ahead of her and both do not look back until they've reached the world above. In his nervous excitement, Orpheus looks back just as his feet touch the mortal earth, and Eurydice vanishes back into Hades forever. This must be why Rufus sings "turn back" twice during his song. I think it's a song about many things--desire, jealousy, adoration. But I think, on a more elemental level, it's also about letting a person be dead.
The water imagery flows in from both Greek myth and from Shakespeare's "Hamlet". Orpheus's own death was tragic, being torn apart by Maenads (female servants of Dionysius) while minding his own business at an oracle. They lopped off his head and sent it floating down the river along with his lyre. In "Hamlet", Ophelia drowns herself from apparent madness over the murder of her father by Hamlet, coupled with the denouncement of their relationship ("get thee to a nunnery") by Hamlet himself.
I think it's one of his best.