The Ballad of the Red Shoes – Review

Released in 2002, this album dare not be touted as new, but rather an instant classic. Why am I revisiting such old music? So few people know of this rare beauty, namely Brooklyn Serpico, I felt it my duty to share.

Andrew Bird’s The Ballad of the Red Shoes has the magical ability to whisk the listener away to the olde world where pagans and christians danced together in the dark light of the moon. They drink improper beers and go to the tops of mountains to share happiness with the village below. If people are dying of the black death, it is okay because people still believed in heaven. This world was probably fictional just like the lie told about thanksgiving, but how romantic.

In my perfect world, Andrew Bird is king. And as he decreed, The Ballad of the Red Shoes may only be listened to with a tall glass of dark beer in the comfort of your mother’s home plaid on vinyl with a box of photographs of people you never really liked, of people you can’t stand. By the end of the record, all 12 minutes of it, you’d see that we are all one living organism and balance makes the world go round and there is no truth behind the barrel of a gun.

That’s the best picture I can give of this album. Good enough? I wish it was. But, especially with an instrumental artwork like this, the poets couldn’t describe. This one, this one must be listened to.