Our Song of the Day comes from Pete & Crystal Damore, better known as Ordinary Elephant. Although they live a nomadic lifestyle living in their travel trailer that’s hitched to their van, Austin, TX and Lafayette, LA are their hometowns. We’ve been very lucky to have featured some incredible songsmiths recently and that roll continues with this duo who are incredibly gifted storytellers. They more than ably demonstrate this on The War which takes on both the travesty of what war does to service members and the tragedy of what society does to returning veterans. It also connects the dots between different kinds of trauma and loss. For the song’s protagonist, the war never ended.
Talking about the inspiration behind the song Crystal told us “Visiting the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC was an incredibly moving experience for us. After walking away, we also began to think about those whose names are not on that wall, but were there, and are still here.”
“The narrator represents the majority of the population, in that he does not know, first-hand, the experience of war,” Crystal notes, “but the story shows him having compassion for this veteran and understanding that some choices are made for you and this can lead to an inability to make good choices for yourself down the line.”
The War is taken from their forthcoming album Honest which is set for release on May 3, 2019, on Berkalin Records.
Find out more here: www.ordinaryelephant.net