“FOR me, diving into a song is a way to explore something where you don’t know how you feel,” explains Sam Beam. “Or how to communicate different kinds of images or paint different pictures inside of a song. How you can tell a story. That’s what I’m most interested in.”
As alter ego Iron & Wine (named after a protein supplement he chanced upon in a Georgian gas station), Beam has made a career of such painterly explorations, his richly allegorical and allusive songs feeding into an intuitive sense of melody and rhythm. The native South Carolinian made his start with 2002’s hushed, folkish The Creek Drank The Cradle, going on to release six more solo albums, numerous EPs and a trio of collaborative efforts with Jesca Hoop, Calexico and Band Of Horses’ Ben Bridwell. His latest is Light Verse, a gorgeous set of songs recorded in LA with various players and, on four tracks, a 24-piece orchestra. Its arrival coincides with a new documentary, Who Can See Forever, which serves as both concert film and a wider study of its often-elusive subject.
Two decades on from his debut, and despite various stylistic turns, Beam feels that his approach to songwriting is essentially the same. “I like songs that talk about what we want, whether it’s a romance or some existential answer,” he says, locating a through line. “But they also need to place us in the world. The songs show our desires in a frame. I just like making the portrait.”
THE CREEK DRANK THE CRADLE
SUB POP, 2002
Beam’s rustic debut is a bewitching batch of home demos, softly burnished with acoustic guitar, slide and banjo. Good
