Monument - Keaton Henson (album review)

this is not a new album i found, this is an old love of mine that i thought about writing about because i think it is beautifully done.

keaton is a british song writer, composer, poet and artist and all around sad guy who writes beautifully tragic music.

this album was written around the time his father was dying/died from cancer, if i'm not mistaken his father was battling cancer for a decade and it finally caught up to him in december of 2019 (so right before lock down) which must have been extra hard for keaton, losing someone so dear to you and then being shut out from the world.

i'm going to go through and give my thoughts on all of the songs in the album.

== Ambulance  ==

a great way to start off the album, the soft plucking at the beginning and then "i'll write till there's nothing left of me"- i really resonate with this. i don't know if it was his intention but the way that i interpret it is that feeling that i get when i make art, this feeling of wanting to pour out your soul till there is nothing left besides your art and the broken feelings that it has within it. "i'm empty but don't it sound so good, oh no i'd stop if i could" - again this idea of having all of these awful feelings and such but having that being a drive for your art and also needing so much to MAKE art for what you're feeling "i'd stop if i could" - sometimes it really does feel like the art forces itself out of you. i wonder if keaton feels the same, like there is this force driving it out of you, the lyrics (and for me the drawings) flowing out of you when everything is so terrible.

== Self Portrait  ==

"Here is a song for the lonely, and a prayer whispered into the night" - this songs feels like an introspection into how he views himself (duh that's kind of the title of the song lmfao), it feels very apt to have something like this on an album that is so much about his father "losing my sanity, losing my mind, finding my home, i don't blame you, i'm growing old" - it is hard losing a parent, i have seen this from people in my family and in my person life who have lost them, the introspection by way of, this person i have known my whole life and they're gone, who am i, what if life, how much longer do i have, i am aging is such so elegantly in this song. and just as an aside that will say the same for all these songs is how perfect keatons voice is for his music, i always feel so cradled in my sadness by his voice and the feel of his fingers against the strings of his guitar, like i can feel him bend over the instrument pouring his whole soul into the song.

== Ontario  ==

the tone/sound of this song is immediately different than the first two "i'm mostly medicine now please, i want to feel this around me, the 4am sky keeps me alive, i love the arrogant cold, im off balance but i feel my soul, ontario" this song again feels very lonely but that type of "comfortable" lonely where your sadness sits beside you. i assume that there is some person experience he has with ontario that this is about. it seems like he is comfortable there, this is a good place for him. this reminds me a lot of how joni writes about california (because keaton loves joni mitchell) it feels like a very good comparison. joni loves the warmth of cali and keaton loves the biting cold of ontario and both places make them both feel at home and alive, i wonder if he got any inspiration by her and how she speaks about cali.

== Career Day  ==

i listen to this song when i feel like i am failing in some way. when i feel apart from myself and lost. "im a struggling comedian i can not find the laughs" - keaton makes all of these "examples" of being poor at a particular position/job (hence the title; career day). this is all so obvious but i really do like how these feel like representations of hats that he wears and feels inadequate in/hats he wears in general and kind of putting this "career" spin on them. i relate to some of the things he talks about and it is comforting to hear.

== Prayer  ==

"i'm losing you" - "we made a deal, god don't make me feel, i got addicted to us" - "darling you've been my greatest defeat so hate me to death if you must" - this song has elements of his older love songs but it is for sure about his father. it feels like he is trying to mask his feelings of slipping away of his father with something he is good at writing, something comfortable, as if life will go on as it has. at the end of t his song he has what sounds like an old home video of him when he was younger and his father saying "keaton smile for daddy", i think the touch of this was very cute and saddening, also mixed with the latter half of the song being this beautifully composed violin, he just has this way of conveying emotion though music composition that is just gut wrenching and beautiful to me.

== While I Can  ==

this song i BELIEVE was released as a single and i remember freaking out when he released it because this song is stunning to me, the chorus is so lovely to me and for the time felt very "unkeaton" very new and different and i liked it. "im a master of denial while i still have teeth to smile, {..} like an actor wears a new name, if you cast me i will be there i wanna take the lead" - i love this frantic, i want to prop myself up and not think about you being gone till you are so i can make the most of your time. similar to the other songs on this album this shows such variability, something so intimate between him and his fading father.

== Bed  ==

"it's like i'm waiting for bad news, am i waiting to lose you" - i love that this song is after while i can because it almost feels like the two states of being. when he's with his father (while i can) and when he doesn't have to pretend, when he's alone (bed). "i'll grind my teeth down to the nerves again, as long as you are breathing, i'll make my bed and i'll sit down" - this lying in wait, sitting around thinking of things to do to distract, making your bed even, cleaning around trying to get your mind off of things, even just sitting down and not being able to stomach your own routine "i'm so tired of waiting for bad news" - "i'll lie awake for you again father, i'll lose my teeth, what good is sleep anyway,  i'll brace myself to be in hell" - again, very different from while i can, but also very similar, it's that, i don't want to waste my time, but in this song it is a lot more full of despair and longing and heartache, knowing what is coming, and being aware of it instead of trying to push it away to act a part like in while i can.

== The Grand Old Reason  ==

this might be my favorite song on the album. it is awful feeling. but so utterly beautiful. the instrumentals are so perfect and to me, reflect that feeling of loss and fear and desperation. this song is very so much about his father and doesn't try to be anything else. it discusses the fear of dying and the unknown and that awful place where you are waiting for death. i don't even think i want to really discuss further i think this song deserves a listen, but i'll share some of my favorite lyrics. "fate meets death; times cruel younger daughter" - "if you believed i believe you'd be leaving, but you much like i don't know where when we die we will go so we cling desperate fingers onto life, we'll all miss you to death when you go" - "the bastards home is a hospital bed where the life drains so gladly from your graying head" - "i'm so fucking sorry that you are afraid" - "i have tried for so long not to cry that i don't even know if i can when you die,  but i'm sure as damn hell gonna try" - fucking masterpiece of a song.

== Husk  ==

this is the same thing as prayer where i feel like this is about his dad but it sounds like a love song, and i think that, as i said before, that he is doing this because it is what he is used to and when you lose a lover, they aren't dead, they're alive somewhere else without you and maybe that idea is more comfortable, familiar and less tragic then what the truth of his situation with his father is. and i could be wrong and this might be about a lover but that would be so removed from this whole album but who knows. i think that if this is about his dad and its veiled in his comfortable song type then that is so beautiful and sad to me, and so unique and personal "must you be leaving so soon, i was just falling for you" - "the death of a century has sunken it's teeth in me how the hands of the clock are beating to death our memory" - "i must be aging now too" - again this idea of facing your own mortality when you lose a loved one, and especially a parent.

== Thesis  ==

i love the sound of this song, this was also a single before the album, i actually think that this one is another where you should go listen to it "i felt the words turn to cliches and we repeat the things we say" - keaton is just such a master of putting his emotion into sound and i think that this song is such a good representation of that, i really can't even put into words how its almost like his sorrow becomes tangible and i can feel it when i listen to him, like a blanket around me "and i fear i won't feel it" - in my mind this line is about his father but again, i don't know.

== Bygones  ==

last song on the album, what a way to end it. "every chorus breaks me apart, my hear" - "am i right or am i wrong i got sick of all my songs, don't sing the lines just read between them"- "i play till my fingers bleed just to get you out of me, just to get you on those pages" - this line goes back to what i was saying around those first few songs of having to make art to cope with things and how it feels like its the same as breathing, something so necessary "i give up, i'm gonna live if it kills me" - this line repeats for a large portion of the song. i honestly don't want to know his exact intentions behind the line because it feels like such a person conclusion that he has here at the end of the album, it is such a thing to say and for me it is always something comforting to hear and especially from him in his voice with his beautiful playing in the background.

i would recommend a listen to this BUT i will say that keaton's music has a way of depressing people but if you're not doing well i think it can help be a comfort. if you want to just want to listen to one or two to get a taste of him then i would say that any of the last 6 songs would be a good way to go (or actually literally any song of his lmfao) but if you're doing mentally well don't listen to too much of his music lol xD