He's soon joined by orchestral strings and, for a couple lines, what sounds like a children's chorus. Neil's voice finally enters the mix, singing Kipling's words to a pretty but again rather unconventional melody. (Come to think of it, it's vaguely reminiscent of similar effects employed in that prog-rock masterwork, "Close to the Edge" by Yes.) The sound of heavy breathing can also be heard, suggesting someone jogging through the forest. (Could it be that Chris is giving vent to the fondness for Pink Floyd that he alludes to from time to time?) It evolves into a highly atmospheric midtempo piece with a prominent synth line, backed by "natural" sound effects: birds singing, insects buzzing, perhaps wind and/or water, indeed evocative of a woodland setting. The PSB track opens with an extended instrumental section roughly a minute-and-a-half in length that's almost prog-rockish in its unusual melodic and harmonic structure. Kipling even suggests at the end that there had never really been a "road" there to begin with: that what was "lost" had been illusory all along. That is, religious faith once offered a secure path through the dark, forboding forests of life, but that particular road had been "closed" by the new ideas and ideals in the sciences and industry that burgeoned in the Victorian Age, such as Darwin's theory of evolution. But the reading that strikes me as the most interesting-and, to my mind, the most reasonable and appealing-is that the "way through the woods" Kipling is describing here serves as an extended metaphor for the state of religious faith in the modern age. My job here isn't to delve into all or even many of them. Like one of the songs with which it appears as a bonus track on the " Winner" single-the PSB remake of the Bee Gee's " I Started a Joke"-these enigmatic lines inspire multiple interpretations. You will hear the beat of a horse's feet, When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools Kipling's haunting poem-which many commentators regard as somewhat uncharacteristic of him, not at all like the more familiar works by which the general public knows him best-is now in the public domain and can therefore be reproduced here in its entirety: (More about that original version in a moment, however.) After returning to London they developed it further, in the process creating a longer track-and, in fact, one of the more ambitious, experimental tracks in the PSB canon. But they apparently felt somewhat dissatisfied with the original recording and decided more could be done with it. The Boys recorded their setting of this poem to music during the Winter 2012 Elysium sessions in Los Angeles. In the January 2013 issue of their fan club publication Literally, the Pet Shop Boys revealed that this is the first song to be released from several they have written for a prospective project-"which," Neil adds, "will probably never come to fruition"-that would consist of famous poems set to new Tennant-Lowe music "for schoolchildren to sing."Īlthough the poem "The Way Through the Woods" by the famed British author Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) may have appeared in print earlier, it was first anthologized in 1910 in his collection Rewards and Fairies. Other releases - bonus track with the single "Winner" Producer (long version) - Pet Shop Boys (original version) - Andrew Dawson, Pet Shop Boys Original album - Elysium 2017 reissue bonus disc Home > Miscellaneous releases > The Way Through the Woods
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