5 all day
One of a handful of bands I love that my wife also really enjoys, although our inability to see them live together has become a running joke with 4 failed attempts for various reasons.
For me, Colin Meloy is a remarkable lyricist, creating vivid and varied tales and characters. I think if someone described his songwriting to me I would assume it was cringeworthy but there’s some perfectly pitched magic which just works for me.
Likewise, the instrumentation feels like it should put me off, with accordions and harmonicas all over the place, but it’s held together with a musicality which effortlessly glides from grandiose to heartfelt. Heartfelt is a key word really, and it’s what brings Meloy’s characters to life. Everything feels fleshed out, like there’s a full backstory to everyone and the worlds they live in. Rather than being cartoonish or hackneyed, they feel like real people with desires and motivations.
And among the fantastical tales there are moments of more stark emotion. My wife walked down the aisle to a stunning rendition of June Hymn by a couple of friends - I would urge anyone who is unconvinced to give it a listen and immerse themselves in his description of a summer’s day in the garden. Songs like that, Angels and Angles and Dear Avery feel all the more beautiful set against the theatre around them.
On a very personal note, when I was walking up and down the post-natal ward, trying to get our newborn to sleep, I quietly sang her every Decemberists song I knew the words to. That’s what made sense to me in those overwhelming sleep-deprived beautiful terrifying moments. I sang her to sleep countless times in the first few months. In the car when she was tiny and feeling alone I would start singing Eli The Barrow Boy and it almost always calmed her down. They will always be intertwined with that in my mind on top of the basics of loving their music.
Oh, and what a live band, eh? Mariner’s Revenge is one of the ultimate closers 
