Embers is a radio play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in English in 1957. First broadcast on the BBC Third Programme on 24 June 1959, the play won the RAI prize at the Prix Italia awards later that year^[1]. Donald McWhinnie directed Jack MacGowran – for whom the play was specially written^[2] – as “Henry”, Kathleen Michael as “Ada” and Patrick Magee as “Riding Master” and “Music Master”. Robert Pinget translated the work as Cendres and “The first stage production was by the French Graduate Circle of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Festival, 1977.”^[3]

The most recent version of Embers was broadcast in 2006 on BBC Radio 3 and directed by Stephen Rea. The cast included Michael Gambon as Henry, Sinéad Cusack as Ada, Rupert Graves, Alvaro Lucchesi and Carly Baker.^[4] This production was rebroadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 16 May 2010 as part of a double bill with a 2006 production of Krapp's Last Tape.

Opinions vary as to whether the work succeeds. Hugh Kenner calls it “Beckett’s most difficult work” and yet maintains that the piece “coheres to perfection,”^[5] John Pilling disagrees, remarking that Embers “is the first of Beckett’s dramatic works that seems to lack a real centre,”^[6] whereas Richard N. Coe considers the play “not only minor, but one of [Beckett’s] very few failures.”^[7] Anthony Cronin records in his biography of Beckett that “Embers met with a mixed reception [but tempers this comment by noting that] the general tone of English criticism was somewhat hostile to Beckett”^[8] at the time.

The author’s own view was that it was a “rather ragged” text.^[9] He said that it was “not very satisfactory, but I think just worth doing … I think it just gets by for radio.”^[10]

For all his personal reservations the play won the RAI prize in the 1959 Prix Italia contest, not, as has been often reported, “the actual Prix Italia … which went to John Reeve’s play, Beach of Strangers.”^[11]

Synopsis[link]

The play opens with the sea in the distance and the sound of footsteps on shingle. Henry has been walking along the strand close to where he has lived his whole life, at one time or other on either side of “a bay or estuary”.^[12]

Henry starts to talk, a single word, “on,” followed by the sea again, followed by the voice – louder and more insistent this time, repeating the same word, as it will say, then repeat as a command, the words “stop” and “down.” Each time, Henry obediently yet reluctantly does what his voice first says, then tells him to do, he stops and sits down on the shingle. Throughout the play the sea acts like a character in its own right (much as the light in Play does).

The first monologue[link]

The sea, it has always been assumed, was the cause of his father’s death: "the evening bathe you took once too often",^[13] however the next sentence tells us: "We never found your body, you know, that held up probate an unconscionable time”.^[14] Nothing in the text explicitly says that Henry’s father was suicidal – though this has been inferred from the story of Bolton and Holloway discussed later.

He imagines his father, whom he describes as “old … blind and foolish”,^[15] sitting beside him on the beach and addresses the whole opening monologue to him, apart from a single aside to the audience, but the father never once responds. His father could never stay away from the sea and it seems neither can his son. “The sea presents an antithetical image to Henry. He must stay near it, and yet he attempts to distance himself from its sound.”^[16] Even when he finally received his inheritance he only relocated to the other side of the bay; it has been a great many years since he actually swam in it. He tried once going to landlocked Switzerland but still couldn’t get the sound of the sea out of his head.

To drown out the sound, rather than seek out company, he began making up stories but could never finish any of them. He remembers “ a great one”^[15] and starts to tell it:

He describes a scene before a fire that is about to go out. A man, Bolton, is standing there in his dressing gown awaiting the arrival of his doctor, Holloway, who we learn later may be the name of Henry’s own doctor. It is late, past midnight. He hears the doorbell and goes to the window to check; it is winter and the ground is covered with snow. The doctor has arrived, a “fine old chap, six foot, burly”^[17] standing there in his macfarlane, a heavy caped overcoat.

Bolton lets him in. Holloway wants to know why he was called for but he is cut short. Bolton pleads with him, “Please! PLEASE!”^[17] and then they stand there in silence, the doctor trying to warm himself by the fire, what is left of it, and his patient staring out the window. Only all is not silent, not entirely, there is the sound of a drip (evocative of the remark Hamm makes in Endgame: “There is something dripping in my head”);^[18] this agitates Henry greatly, and he breaks off his story there for a second.

Henry tells his father that, after a time, his stories were not company enough and he began feeling the need for someone from his past to be with him. He then continues:

Holloway is annoyed. Presumably he understands what he’s being asked for but avoids showing that he does. Instead he complains about the fact that, despite his being dragged out on a night like this, his old friend has not had the common decency to heat and light the room suitably let alone provide a proper welcome and some kind of refreshment. He says he is going to leave, regretting having come in the first place, but doesn’t make any move to go.

Henry suddenly stops his story and jumps to the last time he saw his father alive. His father’s eventual disappearance followed an angry interchange between the two of them. He wanted Henry to go swimming with him but Henry refuses and so the last words his father ends up saying to him are: “A washout,^[19] that’s what you are, a washout!”^[15] Whether his father was accidentally washed out to sea and drowned or deliberately killed himself is something no one knows for sure. Understandably Henry has punished himself for years over his decision not to go with him.

His relationship with his daughter had not been good either, a clingy child and, as we discover later, not particularly proficient or interested in anything she was required to do; Henry blames the “horrid little creature”^[20] for the break-up of his marriage. He re-enacts going for a walk with her and how he ended up reducing the girl to tears when she refuses to let go of his hand.

Henry treats his Addie in much the same way his father appears to have treated him. He remembers: “That was always the way, walk all over the mountains with you talking and talking and then suddenly mum and home in misery and not a word to a soul for a week.”^[20] “The consequent judgement that Henry was a ‘sulky little bastard, better off dead’ is consistent with his father’s final verdict of his son as a ‘washout’.”^[21]

Out of the blue Henry calls out to his estranged, possibly ex, probably dead wife, Ada.

The dialogue[link]

The central sequence involves a dialogue between Henry and Ada, which provokes three specific memories presented in the form of short “evocation[s]”^[22] involving other characters (each lasts only a few seconds). Each occasion ends in a character crying or crying out and is artificially cut short at that instant.

Before this the two engage in quasi-domestic small talk. Ada wants to know where their daughter, Addie, is. Henry says she is with her music master. She chides him for sitting on the cold stones and offers to put her shawl under him, which he allows. She asks if he’s wearing his long johns but Henry is difficult about answering her. The sound of hooves distracts him. Ada makes a joke about horses and tries to get him to laugh. He then returns to his old preoccupation, the sound of the sea. He wants to go but Ada says they can’t because they’re waiting on Addie. This triggers the first evocation.

In his first flashback Henry imagines the couple's daughter, with her overbearing music master.^[23] Addie first plays some scales and then begins a Chopin waltz, number 5 in A-flat major. “In the first chord of bass, bar 5, she plays E instead of F.”^[24] The teacher strikes the piano with his cylindrical ruler^[25] and Addie stops playing. “Eff!^[26] Eff!”^[27] he insists and eventually has to show her the note. She starts again, makes the same mistake and has to endure his ranting again only this time he reduces his pupil to tears.

The second involves Addie again, this time with her riding instructor: “Now Miss! Elbows in Miss! Hands down Miss! (Hooves trotting.) Now Miss! Back straight Miss! Knees in Miss! (Hooves cantering.) Now Miss! Tummy in Miss! Chin up Miss! (Hooves galloping.) Now Miss! Eyes front Miss! (ADDIE begins to wail.) Now Miss! Now Miss!”^[27]

The third scene briefly recalls Henry forcing his attentions on Ada, some twenty years earlier. It ends with Ada crying out, the cry merging with the sound of the sea, louder now. As before the scene is unceremoniously truncated.

Ada suggests that he consult Holloway about his talking. This was a source of some embarrassment to her when they were together. She cites an instance where she has to explain to their daughter why her father was talking to himself in the lavatory.^[28] She can’t understand why such “a lovely peaceful gentle soothing sound”^[22] should upset him so and refuses to believe that his talking helps drown it out. He tells he that he’s even taken to “walk[ing] about with [a] gramophone”^[29] but forget it this day.

He reminds Ada that it was on this very beach they had sex for the first time. She’d shown great reluctance and they had to wait a long time before the coast was clear. She did not get pregnant right away however and it was years before they had Addie. He wonders what age the girl is now but – unexpectedly for a mother – Ada says she doesn’t know. He proposes going for a row, “to be with my father”,^[30] he tells her but, again, she reminds him that their daughter will be coming soon and would be upset to find him gone.

Henry explains to Ada that his father doesn’t talk with him like she does. She is not surprised and predicts that a day will come when there will be no one left and he will be alone with only his own voice for company. She remembers meeting his family in the midst of having a row, his father, mother and a sister threatening to kill herself. The father storms out slamming the door, as he did the day he disappeared for good (if this is in fact not the same day), but she passes him later sitting staring out to sea (bear in mind Henry said his father was blind) in a posture that reminded her of Henry himself.

“Is this rubbish a help to you, Henry? [she wonders out loud.] “I can try and go on a little if you wish.”^[31] He fails to answer though and so she slips out of his consciousness.

The second monologue[link]

He says he’s not ready and begs her to stay even if she won’t speak and “Henry improvises upon her story, attempting to build it into a more complex and extended narrative but he fails”.^[32] What is interesting here is that Henry imagines that Ada, after witnessing his father sitting on the rock, gets on the tram (possibly horse-driven)^[33] to go home, then alights and returns to check on him only to find the beach empty. Was she the last person to see him alive?

Resigning himself to being alone Henry picks up the Bolton story from where he left off:

The doctor says if Bolton wants an injection – “meaning an anaesthetic”^[31] – just to let down his trousers and he’ll give him one but Bolton doesn’t reply. Instead he starts playing with the blind, drawing it up and then letting it fall, like an eye blinking. This infuriates Holloway and he insists Bolton stop which he does. Instead he lights a candle and, holding it “above his head, walks over and looks Holloway full in the eye”^[34] but still says nothing. This obviously makes the doctor uncomfortable. He again offers to give him an injection but Bolton wants something else, something he has obviously asked for before and the doctor has refused to go through with, possibly to administer a lethal injection rather than merely a jab to dull the pain. “Please, Holloway!” he pleads one final time. There the story peters out with the two men standing eye to eye in silence.

Henry is like the “writer-protagonists of the novels, using their speech/writing to fill the moments until death.”^[35] But he finds he can’t go on. He curses, gets to his feet, walks over to the water’s edge where he takes out and consults a pocket diary. With the exception of an appointment with the “plumber at nine [to attend to] the waste”^[34] pipe his future is empty. The play ends with no resolution other than the certainty that the next day and the next day will be the same as the previous ones.

Interpretation[link]

Since Embers can be interpreted in a variety of ways it is perhaps worthwhile considering what Beckett said to Jack MacGowran, not specifically about this play, but about all his writing:

“Beckett told me that when I came to a passage with several meanings, the obvious one is the right one. He told me he did not create symbols where they did not exist, only where they are apparent. He kept repeating that line from Watt – ‘no symbols where none intended’.^[36] At the time he was very annoyed with the symbol-hunting scholars who seemed to be breathing down his neck all the time.”^[37]

Henry, the central character in this play, cannot find the words to articulate his situation and fills in the blanks with what he can in an effort to make sense of things. In this context, the play is its own metaphor. Words have become redundant, but they are all Henry has to explain the unexplainable. If critics get frustrated because there are no answers then they’ve got the point.

Sound Effects[link]

“Beckett’s paradoxical endeavour to question sound in this radio play is [partly] achieved through the use of grossly made sound effects (coconut-like sound of hooves, exaggerated amplifications of Addie’s cries, etc.).”^[38]

The sound of the sea dominates the play but it is not an accurate representation and deliberately so. Henry warns us that the sea sound effects are not perfect and this casts doubt as to whether he is even on the beach at all; perhaps everything in the play is taking place within his head.

The pioneering sound engineer Desmond Briscoe was responsible for the sound of the sea in the original BBC production. This was his second collaboration with Beckett (he also worked on All That Fall) only this time he “utilized a more traditionally ‘musical’ approach, moulding the abstract sound of the sea using distinct pitches.”^[39]

“Henry also demands certain sound effects to provide a contrast to the monotony of the sea. He twice asks for the sound of hooves, hoping that the 'ten-ton mammoth' can be trained to mark time; have it 'stamp all day' and 'tramp the world down'.^[13] He similarly asks for a drip, as if the sea could be drained by the sound effect.”^[40]

Henry[link]

Beckett himself, Zilliacus believes, has made the most important point about Embers: “‘Cendres,’ he remarked in an interview with P.L. Mignon, ‘repose sur une ambiguité: le personage a-t-il une hallucination ou est-il en présence de la réalité?’”^[41] (Embers rests on an ambiguity: is the person having an hallucination or is this really happening?) Paul Lawley feels the need to qualify this statement however: “The most important point [perhaps], but one to start from rather than conclude with.”^[42]

Like many of Beckett’s characters (e.g. Molloy, May in Footfalls), Henry is a writer or at the very least a storyteller, albeit by his own admission, a poor one never actually finishing anything he starts. Fortunately he doesn’t need to depend on his writing for a living. He may or may not commit what he has written to paper but he performs the core function of a writer, the creation of stories. And as a writer he also needs readers or listeners to hear what he has to say. Like the old woman in Rockaby he only has himself and the voices in his head left to acknowledge his existence however pathetic that existence has become.

Henry is undoubtedly a tormented soul. He interrogates the past rigorously but never gets round to actually verbalising what is really on his mind: How did his father die? Was he, in any way, responsible for that death? Is vital information missing or has he repressed it? Is this why he can never complete any of his stories because they are all really the same story and are all missing that something? His life is like a sentence (pun intended) – it reached a comma with his father’s death and he has been unable to satisfactorily finish it. He has no “professional obligations”, no familial ties and now not even a woman to justify his hanging around this place like, as he puts it, an “old grave I cannot tear myself away from”.^[24]

The Sea[link]

Henry's initial monologue focuses on his fixation with the sound of the sea. Right at the start he even says, “That sound you hear is the sea … I mention it because the sound is so strange, so unlike the sound of the sea, that if you didn't see what it was you wouldn't know what it was.”^[13] “The ‘you’ here can be taken to be the dead father, with whom Henry is sitting on the strand. But if so, it makes little sense since, as we soon learn, the father lived at the sea's edge all his life and presumably would know how the sea sounds. Henry's information thus functions ironically, or even metalinguistically: on the one hand, it shows the narrator having a brief moment of power over the father whose death haunts him; on the other, we can read the speech as an aside to the audience,”^[43] emphasising that everything they are experiencing is a part of a fiction, even the sea. Jonathan Kalb has even suggested that everything including the sea and the beach are all merely figments of Henry’s imagination.^[44]

The images (symbols and metaphors) that spring to mind when people see the sea (another pun Beckett cannot have failed to notice) have become somewhat clichéd over the years and Beckett takes full advantage of this fact; literature (not forgetting the visual arts) has done much of his groundwork for him.

The sound of the sea continues throughout the play always “moving according to the temporal laws of the tide”^[45] suggesting a linearality to the time line but the action is grouped by association rather than presented in a chronological order. The omnipresent sea is less of a natural phenomenon than another mental ghost haunting him no matter where he goes, even reacting to events (e.g. during the sex scene) by getting louder; it clearly has its own voice or perhaps it is all that remains of his father’s voice since it represents his grave. Either way the sea is a constant reminder of death and Henry’s attempts to drown out its sound “seem to manifest the typical Beckett antithesis: the desire for death and the desire to keep it at bay by continued speech”.^[35]

Beckett’s own father (actually a superb swimmer) died at home, of a heart attack it has to be said, on June 26, 1933. In October his mother rented “a little house by the sea just beyond Dalkey Harbour. Beckett accompanied her, laden with his books, manuscripts and typewriter. But he never settled down there and questioned ‘how people have the nerve to live so near, on the sea. It moans in one’s dreams at night.’”^[46] The beach there – “by contract with most Irish beaches – is notoriously composed of shingle and pebble”.^[47]

In May 1954 he received a phone call from his sister-in-law to let him know that his brother, Frank, had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Beckett spent several months there up until his brother’s eventual death in September. “Most evenings he walked alone after dinner along the seashore below the house”^[48]

Henry’s Father[link]

“‘To “act” it is to kill it’:^[49] ‘radio text,’ Beckett here reminds us, is par excellence an art that depends on sound alone and hence cannot be converted to the stage. Furthermore, the sound in question is not just that of the human voice but includes a complex network of nonverbal elements, musical or otherwise. It makes little sense, then, to complain, as does John Pilling, that Beckett should have included the voice of Henry's father, along with Ada's and Addie's voices, in the play:

‘The puzzling thing is that Henry's control over voices does not extend to the most crucial figure of all, his father … The failure to incorporate into the physical existence of the play its most important figure is not so much a failure of conception – though it might have served to link Henry's life to his story of Bolton – as of tact. There seems to be no good reason for the omission.’

“But there is a very good reason for the omission, which is that, unlike the theatre, radio makes it possible to represent characters by means of metonymic sound images: The ghost of Henry's father is indeed "heard" throughout the play: not only when his son acts the role of medium, imitating such parental exhortations as "Are you coming for a dip?", but also in the recurrent "Please! PLEASE!" that Bolton addresses to Holloway, and, most important, in the voice of the sea itself.”^[50]

Henry tells us at the very start of the play that his father is blind and yet when Ada passes him she makes mention that he did not see her. As Henry is not only talking to his father at the start it is also true that he is talking to a “blind” audience too. Is the man actually blind or even figuratively blind? Perhaps Ada was unaware that he was blind though think seems unlikely.

“As their names suggest, Ada and Addie may not be wife and daughter at all, not even imagined wife and daughter, only father-surrogates: Ada is a near anagram of Dad and Addie a rhyme for Daddie. And Henry himself? Is he perhaps just another of the fictional characters? Ruby Cohn notes that ‘Henry is a name derived from German Heimrih, meaning head of the family’^[51] he too is a father or father or father-surrogate – his own. Why should the figure of the father loom so large in every element of the play? Because the father, the head of the family, is its creator, and it is creation which is Henry’s obligation.”^[43]

Bolton and Holloway[link]

Although the scene where the action takes places is ostensibly a beach, the real action all takes place inside Henry’s head, which is why Beckett commentators generally speak of this kind of Beckettian dramatic setting as a “skullscape” or “soulscape.”^[52] Paul “Lawley has suggested that the enigmatic scene with Bolton’s opening and shutting the heavy drapes enacts the blinking of an eye, the room thus becoming a skull,”^[53] a skull-within-a-skull in fact.

A fuller appreciation of the story of Bolton and Holloway helps with an overall understanding of the rest of the play. Needless to say opinions differ. It is reminiscent of the story May tells in Footfalls where aspects of her and her mother are recast as “Amy” and “Mrs Winter”.

Bolton = Henry[link]

Hersh Zeifman, for whom Embers “dramatizes a quest for salvation, a quest which, as always, ultimately proves fruitless,”^[54] sees this scene as “a paradigm of human suffering and divine rejection”:

Bolton’s desperate plea to Holloway for help mirrors the confrontation between Henry and his father. Bolton is thus a surrogate for Henry—implicitly identified with Christ as sufferer. Both his name (Bolton) and the fact that he wears a red dressing gown (the colour is repeated three times in the text) link him with the Crucifixion (before Christ was nailed to the cross, he was dressed in a scarlet robe). And Holloway, the recipient of Bolton’s supplication, is a surrogate for Henry’s father—implicitly identified with Christ as saviour. Like Christ, Holloway is a physician, a potential healer of men’s souls. But the identification is an ironic one. The Physician of the Gospels exclaimed, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me’ (John 14:6); the physician of Embers is a hollow-way, a way leading nowhere. And whereas Christ’s death on the cross at `the ninth hour’ represents birth into a new life and a promise of salvation, Holloway’s actions, likewise at the ninth hour, result in the death of new life, a universal denial of salvation: `If it’s an injection you want, Bolton, let down your trousers and I’ll give you one, I have a panhysterectomy at nine’ (italics added [by Zeifman]).^[55][56]

Lawley’s contention could equally be valid in that “Henry is losing his creative impersonality and is consequently moving inexorably into identity with his fictional creation, Bolton.”^[57]

Whereas most scholars take Bolton’s begging to suggest he wants to die, Michael Robinson, in The Long Sonata of the Dead, puts forward a simpler interpretation:

“Into this tale in which Bolton … calls out his friend and doctor, Holloway, in the middle of an icy winter night, not because he is ill but because he is alone, Henry puts all his own isolation and desire for companionship. He does this with great imaginative sympathy and the ending, where Bolton does not receive the recognition he has longed for throughout the night, is the more painful because it is clearly Henry’s loneliness.”^[58]

The sad fact is that company is not the real answer. It is still only an anaesthetic, numbing the pain. In the Beckettian universal construct sadly death rarely brings any relief either.

Whether Holloway is a real person or the character in the story even based on a real person is unclear.

Bolton = Henry’s father[link]

An alternative stance is take by Vivian Mercier who “suggests that Bolton is in fact Henry’s father”^[59] because of the use of “your” rather than “his” in the expression, “and the glim shaking in your old fist”^[34] assuming of course that Henry has returned to telling his tale to his dead father which seems most likely. Marjorie Perloff concurs with this reading.^[60]

This option offers a simpler explanation of the story. If it is based on his father’s seeking some kind of escape from a life that has become unendurable, with a worthless son, a suicidal daughter and possibly an argumentative wife all symptoms of it, then Holloway could simply be a personification of any means of release. That the story is missing key elements is due to the fact that Henry himself doesn’t have these pieces. As his life has dragged on in its own version of unendurability it is only obvious that he will start to relate more and more to the figure of Bolton. If, at this point, Henry were able to end his story, he would be “going beyond the confines of his own condition, of which his story is, in all essential aspects, a duplicate. The moment the story can be finished, there will be no one there to finish it'”.^[61]

Ada[link]

Henry’s conversation with his wife at first “appears to take place in the present, but Ada does not really move into the scene and certain clues show that this dialogue actually took place years before when their marriage was only twenty years old and Addie was still a child.”^[45] For one thing Beckett stipulates that she makes “[n]o sound as she sits.”^[62] Also beforehand she was aware of “the least feather of smoke on the horizon”^[29] but now “she cannot see the beach where Henry is sitting (‘is there anyone about?’)^[29] without his words to describe it.”^[63]

Their nature of their dialogue is odd too – quite civilized – considering the comment Henry made just before evoking her presence: “Ada too, conversation with her, that was something, that’s what hell will be like.”^[20] Evidently he is remembering better times here. Katharine Worth conjectures that Ada represents a kind of muse, “a hint stressed in the sound of her voice – ‘low [and] remote throughout’^[62] – and in the curious fact that she has been present in some mysterious way before he spoke her name.”^[64] He calls on her because he needs her, his father doesn’t answer and he is struggling with his story on his own.

Roger Blin, in an interview on 2 March 1975, in Paris, said: "Beckett absolutely didn't want me to try to do Embers for the theatre because, when you listen, you don't know if Ada exists or not, [or] whether she only exists in the imagination of the character Henry."^[65]

Ada is “immensely there”,^[64] though, her personality is allowed to shine throughout her conversation with Henry; she doesn’t merely respond, she initiates lines of thought, she nags him like a mother with her list of don’ts, jokes with him, reproves him in a matter-of-fact way and refuses to mollycoddle him. She doesn’t appear to take him very seriously either. Henry is obviously incapable of imagining her any other way than how she was when they were together, further evidence of his declining creative powers. Parts of their conversation, for example, sound as if they are simply reenactments of things said to each other when they were a couple but noticeably not all.

Her advice to Henry that he seeks medical assistance from Holloway, assuming him to be “a figure in the fiction he [has been] weaving”,^[66] would add weight to the argument that Ada is both part imagined as well as part remembered.

Having performed her function to the best of her plainly limited abilities she leaves him to it with a down-to-earth, “Is this rubbish a help to you, Henry? … No? Then I think I’ll be getting back?”^[31]

Conclusion[link]

In a letter to Alan Schneider dated 6 September 1959, after finally hearing a tape of the BBC production, Beckett wrote: "Good performance and production but doesn't come off. My fault, text too difficult."^[67]

Beckett could never be called an “easy” author and one of the reasons for his success is undoubtedly the pleasure that comes from finding hidden meanings in his works even those you thought you were familiar with. So why did Beckett believe this particular text too hard?

The main problem here is the density of the writing. Beckett’s plays never provide all the answers; there are gaps where the audience has to do some digging and some filling in. In Embers there are a few too many plot holes and far too many clues pointing in all directions for such a short piece to bear.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Paul Lawley, Embers: An Interpretation
• Marjorie Perloff, The Silence that is not Silence: Acoustic Art in Beckett’s Embers
• RTÉ Audio file

v t e The plays of Samuel Beckett Stage: Act Without Words I Act Without Words II Breath Catastrophe Come and Go Eleutheria (posthumous) Endgame Footfalls Happy Days Krapp's Last Tape Not I Ohio Impromptu A Piece of Monologue Play Rockaby Rough for Theatre I Rough for Theatre II That Time Waiting for Godot What Where Radio: All That Fall Cascando Embers The Old Tune Rough for Radio I Rough for Radio II Words and Music Television: ...but the clouds... Eh Joe Ghost Trio Nacht und Träume Quad Screen: Film

This article is in a list format that may be better presented using prose. You can help by converting this article to prose, if appropriate. Editing help is available. (November 2011)

Owl City
Adam Young performing in 2009
Background information
Origin	Owatonna, Minnesota, United States
Genres	Electronica, synthpop
Years active	2007–present
Labels	Universal Republic
Associated acts	Sky Sailing, Lights, Breanne Düren
Website	owlcitymusic.com
Members
Adam Young

Owl City is an American electronica musical project by singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Adam Young formed in 2007 in Owatonna, Minnesota. Young created the project while experimenting with music in his parents' basement. Owl City developed a following on the social networking site Myspace, like many musicians who achieved success in the late 2000s, before signing with Universal Republic in 2008.

After two independent releases, Owl City gained mainstream popularity with the 2009 major label debut album Ocean Eyes, which spawned the quadruple-platinum^[1] hit single "Fireflies". The album was certified Platinum in the United States in April 2010.^[1]

In 2011, Owl City released its third studio album, All Things Bright and Beautiful.

History[link]

Early years (2007–2009)[link]

Suffering from insomnia while working loading Coca-Cola trucks in his hometown Owatonna, Minnesota, Young turned to composing music.^[2][3][4] He began uploading songs recorded in his parents' basement to Myspace.^[4][5] He started to receive favorable attention for his music and then helped cultivate this nascent fanbase by being an open and accessible web presence, responding to any messages he received and constantly posting blogs.^[6] His manager Steve Burksy later highlighted the significance of Young's engaging online manner in building his following saying: "People feel like they know him, like they've got a direct connection to him because of how he approaches his connection with them online."^[6] Through a deal with the digital aggregator CD Baby, he then started making the songs available for sale through iTunes.^[6] In 2007, Owl City released an EP titled Of June, followed by the 2008 release of the album Maybe I'm Dreaming. Of June reached No. 15 on the Billboard Electronic Albums chart, and Maybe I'm Dreaming peaked on the same chart at No. 13.^[7]

The viral phenomenon that was building through Myspace caught the attention of Universal Republic presidents Avery and Monte Lipman who approached Young with a view to signing the artist.^[6] Republic recommended Young partner up with 27-year-old manager Steve Bursky of Foundations Artist Management and the two began working together in late 2008. When later asked by HitQuarters why the label chose him for a major label act given his relative inexperience, Burksy said:

"I think they saw Owl City as representing the future of our business. This idea of a kid in a tiny town in rural U.S. being able to make songs in his basement that sound like Top 40 radio could never have happened ten years ago. By hiring a young management company who understands the business circa 2011 over a seasoned industry vet, who might not understand the online spaces well, showed a lot of understanding of where this kid was going to end up having success."^[6]

Owl City's label deal with Universal Republic was finally confirmed in February 2009.^[8] According to Bursky there was initially some disagreement about the direction Owl City should follow, telling HitQuarters: "They were ready to send him into the studio with big producers and polish him up to try to become this thing that he wasn't. But we put our foot down and said, 'Look, the reason you signed this kid is because it’s working. Whatever it is about him - his music, his interaction with his fans, his brilliance in the online space - these things are connecting with people, and as soon as you change that you lose what’s special about this artist.' To their credit, they really listened and they got it."^[6]

[edit] Ocean Eyes (2009–2010)

Ocean Eyes, Owl City's third full-length album and major label debut, was released on iTunes on July 14, 2009, with the physical release following on July 28, 2009. The album debuted at No. 27 on the Billboard 200. Owl City has released three official singles from this album: "Umbrella Beach", "Vanilla Twilight" and "Fireflies".^[9] "Fireflies" topped the US and Canadian charts. Ocean Eyes reached the top ten on the US album charts, topped the US electronic charts, and also reached Amazon MP3's top 10 most downloaded album list. By April 2010, it was certified Platinum in the United States. On January 24, 2010, Owl City reached the No. 1 spot in the UK Top 40 Singles chart with "Fireflies". The song "Tidal Wave" also received significant airplay on Christian music radio stations.^{[citation needed]} On January 2, 2011, it was revealed "Fireflies" was the 20th most downloaded song of all time in the UK.^[10]

Young is joined by Breanne Düren on several tracks; the most notable example of which is "The Saltwater Room". Owl City's live band consists of Breanne Düren (background vocals/keyboards), Casey Brown (drums), Laura Musten (violin), Hannah Schroeder (cello), and Daniel Jorgensen (vibes).^[11]

Relient K vocalist Matt Thiessen has toured and collaborated with Owl City on several tracks, including "Fireflies", where Matt can be heard providing the backup vocals. Young also produced Relient K's song "Terminals".

	"Fireflies" (2009) noicon Sample of the song "Fireflies" from Owl City's third album Ocean Eyes.
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	"Umbrella Beach" (2010) noicon Sample of the song "Umbrella Beach" from Owl City's third album Ocean Eyes.
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"Fireflies" was released as a free download on the game Tap Tap Revenge 3 by Tapulous. Prior to the July 14, 2009 internet release of Ocean Eyes, and the "Fireflies" single, Steve Hoover was hired as a director for a music video for "Fireflies". The video was to have had an exclusive premiere on MySpace,^[12] but had been leaked onto YouTube and Dailymotion hours earlier. "Fireflies" became a big sleeper hit, topping the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States for the week ending November 7, 2009.^[13]

Owl City is featured on Soundtrack 90210 with a song titled "Sunburn", which was released on October 13, 2009.^[14] Owl City has toured with The Scene Aesthetic, Lights, John Mayer, Maroon 5 and Brooke Waggoner. He was also guest featured in the soundtrack to Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland with a song entitled "The Technicolor Phase" that had already been featured in his debut album.^[15]

In 2010, Young revealed a new musical project known as Sky Sailing, which moved away from his usual electronica genre of music and introduced acoustic guitar and piano accompaniments into his work. The unrefined tracks were recorded in the summer of 2007 before he began making music as Owl City.^[16] His first album under this new project is entitled An Airplane Carried Me to Bed, and was released July 13, 2010 via iTunes.^[17]

In May 2010, Adam Young collaborated with high-profile British electronic composer, producer, musician, and songwriter Nick Bracegirdle. Under his Chicane alias, Bracegirdle released the single "Middledistancerunner" on August 1, 2010 featuring Adam Young on vocals. This is the first single from the fourth Chicane album Giants. He also worked with famed Dutch producer Armin van Buuren, appearing on a track called 'Youtopia' from the van Buuren album Mirage on September 10, 2010.

On September 21, 2010 "To the Sky" was officially released via iTunes on the soundtrack for Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'hoole.

On October 25, 2010, Young released a cover version of the praise and worship song "In Christ Alone" as a streaming MP3 on his website.^[18][19]

On November 13, 2010, a new album called Flight was released on iTunes for one of his other musical projects, Windsor Airlift.^[20]

On November 23, 2010, a new Christmas single called "Peppermint Winter" was released. A preview had been released the previous week on Facebook.

[edit] All Things Bright and Beautiful (2010–2011)

Production on Young's third studio album began around mid-2010, with Young being announced as the executive producer of the album.^[21][22]

On October 18, 2010 Young wrote an entry on his blog regarding his third studio album, saying that the album was nearing completion.^[23]

In February 2011, the title of the album was announced to be All Things Bright and Beautiful and that the album would be released on May 17. However, on April 6, Young released a statement on his website, along with lengthy previews of four of his songs (Dreams Don't Turn to Dust, Alligator Sky Featuring Shawn Chrystopher, Galaxies, and Deer in the Headlights), that the release date for All Things Bright and Beautiful would be pushed back to June 14.^[24]

	"Alligator Sky" (2011) noicon Sample of the song "Alligator Sky" from Owl City's fourth album All Things Bright and Beautiful, featuring Californian rapper Shawn Chrystopher.
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On March 22, "Alligator Sky" was released as the lead single from the album on iTunes.

In late March and early April, tickets went on sale for The All Things Bright and Beautiful World Tour,^[25][26][27] and All Things Bright and Beautiful became available for preorder.^[28]

On April 19, "Galaxies" was released as the second single from the album.

Owl City performing at the 9:30 club in Washington D.C in November 2011.

On May 6, the music video for "Alligator Sky" was released. Young discussed the concept in a making-of video posted on Owl City's VEVO account, "The concept is basically about these two guys who are leaving Earth. Rather than it being this very dark post-apocalyptic vibe, it's very optimistic, and so it's like people are excited to leave earth."^[29]

On May 23, "Deer in the Headlights", the third single from the album, was released on iTunes.

On June 14, All Things Bright and Beautiful was released on iTunes. Although only a few days prior on May 20, almost all of the album leaked onto the internet.^[30]

On June 30, the music video for "Deer in the Headlights" was released. It features Young driving through the night in the DMC DeLorean featured in the Back to the Future trilogy and Canadian musician Lights makes a cameo appearance in the video.

On July 19, "Lonely Lullaby" was released as a single on iTunes, which was previously available only to Owl City Galaxy members.

Young was interviewed in the August issue of Cliché Magazine. He also appeared on the cover of the magazine and the issue also featured some of Young's very own artwork.

On July 21, at The Club Nokia concert in Los Angeles, Young announced that the concert was being filming for a Live DVD. The Live DVD was eventually released on iTunes in November 2011.^[31]

[edit] The Midsummer Station (2011–present)

In Young's final tour dates of 2011, he performed a new song entitled "I Hope You Think of Me".^[32]

On January 2, 2012, Young wrote an entry on his blog regarding his fourth studio album. Young said that he would be collaborating with more producers and songwriters, saying that his new record "Marks a flying leap in this direction". Young expects the album to be released around late Summer to Fall 2012.^[33] In an interview with Billboard, Young revealed that the new album is around 80-85% complete, and that Dr. Luke, JR Rotem, Norwegian production team Stargate, Brian Kennedy and Emily Wright are involved with the production of the album. He was also unsure whether or not "I Hope You Think of Me" would make the final tracklisting.^[31]

On March 5, 2012, Young, along with Jewel and Jay Sean, released a song in promotion of the Child Hunger Ends Here campaign by ConAgra Foods entitled "Here's Hope".^[34][35]

	"Shooting Star" (2012) noicon Sample of the song "Shooting Star" from Owl City's fifth album The Midsummer Station, showcasing his new musical 'style' on his most recent album.
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On April 17 2012, "Dementia", a song by Young which was intended to be included on his upcoming album leaked onto the internet. The song features additional vocals by Mark Hoppus of Blink-182.^[36]

On May 3, 2012, Young announced via Twitter that a new EP entitled "Shooting Star" was to be released on May 15. The EP features four songs off his upcoming album. Young stated that he released the EP because he wanted to give his fans a clear taste of what his upcoming album would sound like.^[37]

On May 24, 2012, Young revealed on Twitter that his fourth studio album would be titled The Midsummer Station.^[38]

Musical styles and influences[link]

Owl City's music is described as indietronica and synthpop and is often described as belonging under the "electronic music" label.^[39] Young has stated that he is inspired by disco and European electronic music, as well as instrumental genres such as drone, ambient, and post-rock. He cites his biggest influences as Johnathon Ford of Unwed Sailor and Thomas Newman. Young also incorporates a large amount of his Christian faith into his music, since he is a vocal Christian.^[40][41][42] Young's faith is evident on the new album, "All Things Bright and Beautiful", especially in "Galaxies". Explaining why the faith-filled song was added to the mix, he said, "I feel like if I were ever to hide the fact that that’s what’s so important to me, it would be a crime, that I should probably be put in jail for that." ^[43]

Owl City also has been compared to The Postal Service, often critically, for his combination of fuzzy synths, ironic lyrics and use of female guest singers.^[44] Pitchfork.com goes far enough to say that "The surprise No. 1 single in the country, Owl City's 'Fireflies,' jacks the Postal Service in such a bald-faced, obvious manner that getting into specifics feels redundant at best and tacky at worst."^[45] In response to the suggestion that his work is derivative, Adam Young suggested in a 2009 interview with The New York Times that Ocean Eyes is perhaps the "next chapter" after American band The Postal Service: "The Postal Service released a record in 2003, and that was it. There was really nothing to compare it to until some one else came along and wrote the next chapter. Maybe that's this record. Maybe that's this band." ^[46]

Band members[link]

Current members

• Adam Young – lead vocals, programming, keyboards, piano, synthesizers, guitars, bass guitar, drums, percussion, vibraphone^[47]

Current touring members

While Young writes, composes, records, and produces all of Owl City's music, during live performances he is accompanied by a group of supporting musicians:^[47][11]

• Breanne Düren – keyboards, backing vocals
• Daniel Jorgensen – guitar, vibraphone
• Laura Musten – violin
• Hannah Schroeder – cello
• Casey Brown – drums

Concert tours[link]

Discography[link]

Extended Plays

• Of June (2007)
• Shooting Star (2012)

Studio albums

• Maybe I'm Dreaming (2008)
• Ocean Eyes (2009)
• All Things Bright and Beautiful (2011)
• The Midsummer Station (2012)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Owl City

• Owl City Official Website