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On the Cutting Board in the Rain [single]

by The Parlor

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about

Uncle Joe used to go pheasant hunting every Thanksgiving. He'd always come by our house and drop some off for me, those majestic birds with iridescent feathers. Sometimes he'd just leave them on the picnic table if we weren't home. He respected that I didn't mind dressing them. Plucking their feathers, saving them for projects, preserving their wings in salt and borax.

The year he passed away his son and son-in-law went hunting in his stead. And just like Joe, they brought some birds back for me. When they uncovered the crate there was a male and a female inside...alive. It happened so quickly. I don't know who opened the crate, but just as they were asking if Eric and I wanted to keep them on the farm, the male took off, flying straight up into a neighboring white pine, his long tail feathers trailing behind like a cape. I could hear Uncle Joe laughing. His son-in-law snatched the female out of the crate then and (partly out of anger, partly out of despair), broke her neck. We field dressed her and prepared her for dinner.

I clipped off her wings to save, and her feet. Her head was on the cutting board. We stood around in the late November afternoon with my cousins, Joe's twins who were biology majors in college. I don't remember if we dissected her eye first or her brain. (We come from a long line of undertakers. Understanding anatomy and death is a sacred and loving act). We marveled at how light her head was. How hollow her bones. One of my cousins described the difference between the shape of a bird's eye vs a mammals eye. We admired the arbor vitae of the brain and its botanical resemblance.

The day was full of heartache. But it filled my heart. If life is about living and feeling and loving, this day I was more alive than ever.
"On the Cutting Board in the Rain" is for Uncle Joe, and for my cousins, and for those beautiful pheasants -all the living and the dead.

lyrics

You flew up in the tree,
you like a pheasant on the flee,
and you remain a mystery.

The arbor vitae of the brain
of the bird that you caught yesterday
lays on the cutting board in the rain.

The plans will never be the same
but I'll keep hunting for the game
on every future Thanksgiving Day.

credits

released November 18, 2022
The Parlor is Jen O'Connor + Eric Krans
Recorded in the parlor of The Kirk Estate
written, recorded + produced by Jen O'Connor + Eric Krans
mixed by Eric Krans
mastered by Scoops Dardaris

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The Parlor Albany, New York

Neo-psychedelic dream-pop. A project by husband and wife: Eric Krans and Jen O’Connor, named after a room in the 19th century farmhouse where they live, farm, and create. The multi-instrumentalist, producer-composers make immersive art-pop soundscapes through which they share their lived experience. ... more

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