Big Two-Hearted River EP by P.J.M. Bond

P.J.M. Bond's "Big Two-Hearted River EP" includes three songs from his forthcoming album "In Our Time."
1. Big Two-Hearted River: Part II
2. Indian Camp
3. Mr. and Mrs. Elliot

“Big Two-Hearted River: Part II” is the new single by the Dutch singer-songwriter P.J.M. Bond. Melancholy guitars and Hammond organs, blues harp and upbeat percussion echo the world created by Ernest Hemingway in his short story from 1925. For this unprecedented and unique project, Bond put to music all 17 stories from Hemingway’s short-story collection “In Our Time.” The marriage between literature and music is most potent in this new single, which seeks to translate the medium of literature to the art of music. Both story and song explore the meditational solitude the human soul finds in nature, and for the song Bond craftily applied the sounds of acoustic guitars and keys to echo the mood of Hemingway’s prose.

“Big Two-Hearted River” is often considered to be the quintessential Hemingway masterpiece, the American author at the height of his powers. In the two-part story, Nick Adams leaves the chaos of society behind him and travels into the woods for some much needed rest. Nature is the great equalizer in these stories, and Nick regains a bit of control over his life by imposing a structure on his activities in the Michigan forests: fishing, building a tent, baking flapjacks on a smoking skillet, making an onion sandwich. The story still endures a century later due to Hemingway’s acute observation of the human soul and his intense and honest descriptions of the landscape. 


Lyrics
Time to get up, the sun is rising over the meadow and stream. Crawling out of your tent in the morning, there is nothing there to beat that feel. Baking flapjacks on a smoking skillet, listening to the sound of the trees. Taking my rodcase out of the camp, I’m ready to put on that reel. A bottle of grasshoppers swings against my chest, I’m ready for the big exhale, there’s freedom from the struggle out here by the river, there’s trout enough for a thrill. I’m under clear blue skies.

Sitting here smoking, watching the swamp, cleaning my fish in the stream, I don’t miss the city, my wife or my kid, there’s time enough for them and me. Thinking of our room in the center of Chicago, staying in our beds for a week. If I’m out today I might be back tomorrow, don’t hold your breath for me. I’m under clear blue skies.

Yeah, thinking of our room in the center of Chicago, staying in our beds for a week. If I’m out today I might be back tomorrow, don’t hold your breath for me. I’m under clear blue skies.

Contains tracks

• 1. Big Two-Hearted River: Part II by P.J.M. Bond