Song Of The Week - "Submarines" - The Lumineers

One of the reviews that I read of The Lumineers’ self-titled debut pointed out that “Submarines,” the third track on the album, starts out as a silly story, but, towards the end, suddenly dissolves into sadness. Opening with the premise of a military satire, the narrator claims that he has seen a Japanese submarine off the coast and that no one believes him, instead treating his story as a joke. The sighting of the submarine (and the presumable negative aftermath) consumes the narrator, who muses that “it all boils down to credibility. / I had none, so I will die with the secrets of the sea.”

It’s a brutally sad lyrical turn and songwriter Wesley Schultz leaves ample room for the listener to explore that transition. The sudden maneuver pushed me to consider the submarine account less as a literal situation and more as a metaphor. I always hate to drag biographical information into analysis, but the story of the Lumineers begs me to consider this song in light of their tragic career arc.

Before Wesley Schultz (vocals/guitar) played with Jeremiah Fraites (percussion/vocals), he used to play with Jeremiah’s older brother Josh, who was Wesley’s best friend. Ten years ago, at age 19, Josh died from a drug overdose and left his younger brother and Wesley to pick up the pieces. Dealing with the tragedy through their music, the duo pressed on for several years through the competitive New York City music scene, before throwing in the towel on NYC dreams, packing up a trailer with their musical equipment, and, in the most cliché of American gestures, heading out west to Denver. Placing an online ad for a cellist, the duo was contacted by Neyla Pekarek, a classically-trained Colorado native, who has played with them ever since. Their narrative, thankfully, is happier thereafter.

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Once familiar with the drama of Josh’s death, drawing parallels between the band’s tragic biography and their music becomes almost a game. Despite the trio’s buoyant sound—critics have drawn obvious Mumford and Sons/Avett Brothers comparisons—their songs are leavened by a noticeable sadness. There is an intriguing darkness to several of the compositions on their debut album, “Submarines” among them. With a little effort, it’s not hard to see the connection between “Submarines” and Josh’s death.

Whether or not it’s accurate to the experience of Wesley (and Jeremiah) with regard to Josh’s death, the story of the narrator functions as a metaphor for the experience of someone who recognizes the approach of a dangerous situation, but decides to ignore it. In order to properly understand the metaphor, we need to collapse all the figures in the song—the narrator, the people in the town bar, and the laughing policemen—into a group of warring figures within a single mind. One lone part of this individual’s brain picked out key moments that pointed to danger—the 'flags' and the 'periscope'—but these symbols were seen as silly and absurd. How could Japanese subs be lounging right off of Atlantic Beach? But even though they seemed trivial, the danger that they posed was real, evidenced by the narrators chilling vision of how "ships will rust in Baldwin Bay," a small bay in southern Long Island.

Again, I hesitate to so crudely apply that loose metaphorical concept to biography, but I think that its premise holds when considered against Wesley’s friendship with a young man who must have had somewhat of a noticeable drug problem. (I feel safe in assuming to a degree that as a best friend, Wesley was at least partially aware of Josh's difficulties.) The warning signs were there in retrospect (could a periscope have been any more obvious?), but it must have seemed like such a silly thought at the time…