On Horny Helmets and Blood Eagles

           To the layman, this isn’t a serious point, but to the informed Viking historian—or to the blogging wannabe—issues surrounding writing tales of those Norse raiders are several. Why? They are an obscure and less popular page in history, they were barbarians and pagans in the era of Byzantine grandeur; there are, in fact, more websites dedicated to a certain Minnesota football club than those pirating Norsemen. They were raiders, thieves and rapists, but they were also brilliant ship-makers, cunning sailors, they honoured their women—just no one else’s—and they were so obsessed with cleanliness that the Anglo-Saxons referred to them as dandies.

            In studying them much of my life, and synthesizing that knowledge into tale-making, I have encountered two historical speed bumps. One of these is easy to discuss, but hard to dispel—the second is madly enticing but probably mythical.

            The first: those silly horns on their helmets. Never happened.

No, not ever.

Okay, maybe some Swedish king had a couple of bullhorns affixed to his noggin to impress a visiting dignitary or—more likely—maybe some Wagnerian-obsessed recreationist society thought it up in Bismarck’s Germany—but the lads who piled into long ships and travelled and pillaged from North America to Sicily to Russia to Iraq did NOT wear helmets with horns on them.

            Yes, I understand it’s the first thing you think of when you think of Vikings. But it’s wrong.

            Think about the practicality: a helmet was worn to deflect sword blows away from your head. They were cone-shaped with eye and nose protection so that blows landed upon the thinker would slide off, hopefully missing the shoulder on the way down. Now, let’s say Raurik the Ale Sodden has himself a pair of fancy bullhorns riveted somehow and somewhy to his helmet. Forget the issue of turning your head and knocking your pals over mid-shield wall, or having trouble fitting through doorways, but if some Christian Frank who’s trying to defend his home, goats and daughters against your pillaging ways swings a sword at your fancy headdress, gets it caught in one of those stupid horns, and doesn’t give you whiplash, well, then he’s gonna turn your face to confetti trying to free his sword, right?

No, no, no!

          

Quite likely.

 

            No horns.

            Ah, now for the enticing myth: the blood eagle.

            Back this up a bit: there are two schools of thought when it comes to the Vikings, each with equal obstinacy. The larger group calls them barbarians—thugs who are best left as a footnote in the Middle Ages. The smaller group sees them as explorers, engineers, and pagans whose religion called for the slaughter because, as with the Greeks, glory was all. I’m in this second group, but with a slight hesitation to recognize that, yeah, they built ships that could ride the water rather than plough through it, thus making the first sea-faring vessels that could also travel up rivers and through swamps, much to the chagrin of the hapless English; they were the first Europeans in North America, and they were brilliant merchants—BUT, they also liked to hack people up on occasion. No denying it.

            The blood eagle was, supposedly, an especially nasty Viking execution in which the breastbone was first pierced with an axe, then the ribcage broken open, then the lungs pulled out to flap in the breeze calling to mind an eagle’s wings. I’m no butcher, so I don’t really know if this would even work. However, the Viking tale-teller (and former ten year old boy) in me stands up and declares: “COOL!”

Ow.

(Okay, so sue me, it was a cool movie)

            Problem is, most purists amongst the Viking historians say, excuse the pun, “Not bloody likely.” But it just sounds so darn fun to write about. I recently finished Edward Rutherfurd’s Sarum in which I read the depiction of a blood eagling and I must say, good show, old man.

            It’s a funny thing, writing history, because as a closet historian you want to be true to the source material, but as an artist, you also want to spin a good yarn. I mean, Braveheart was as historically accurate as The Flintstones but it was a butt-load of fun whereas Alexander . . . wait, did anybody even go to that?

           

My Lifehouse

            Earlier this month, I finally staged a version of Lifehouse, and though the venue didn’t allow me to create exactly the piece I wanted, at least I’ve scratched that particular itch. The obsession was getting a mite unhealthy.

            Lifehouse is one of the great white whales of the rock and roll world, a reference as wink-able as shouting “Freebird” at a gig and as complex in back-story as Crash Karma. It started as an aborted concept album by the Who—planned to be the follow-up to Tommy, the grand-daddy of all rock operas. It was to be released alongside a Universal film, filled with footage from the enigmatic “Lifehouse experience” series of weekly concerts at London’s Young Vic. The ambitious but ultimately misconceived project fell apart, but what was salvaged was sewn together as the band’s tightest and best album: Who’s Next. That was 1971.

            Pete Townshend, the band’s creative spring, kept pecking away at the thing over the years, adding songs, rewriting portions, reflecting on it through side projects, and at last—sort of—finishing it in 1999. This involved re-recording a double-album of all related songs and some new additions, packaged with a BBC3 radio play, all under the lofty designation: The Lifehouse Chronicles.

            Enter: me.

            Concept album, a pompous way of saying “a buncha songs strung together by story and theme.” But I love them in rock music. They combine narrative with musical composition—they’re what Wagner would’ve done with a six-string. From Tommy to American Idiot via 90% of the Pink Floyd catalogue, as long as the music is good—and many artists save their best work for these gruelling ventures—and the concept is cool, I’m into it.

            As for Who’s Next, “Baba O’Riley” is rock at its purest form, three chords at their best, and “Won’t Get Fooled Again” is simply my favourite song ever. The combined vocal powers of Roger Daltry, Townshend and John Entwhistle are far from impressive—even as far as rock goes—but any music can be made well if it’s made with passion.

            ‘Cept screamo.

            Anyway, I’ve always been intrigued by the story that “Baba” and “Won’t Get Fooled” were meant to bookend, and in my own tragically obsessive way, I’ve followed Townshend quite far down the rabbit hole. Unfortunately, Townshend is a rock star.

            The 1971 Lifehouse concept was beautiful and simple. Set in a dystopian near-future (yeah, one of those), people find interaction and stimuli coming from the Grid, a network tied into household spacesuits that most everyone lives in full time. In these experience suits, people experience nothing of reality. Then a pirate radio broadcaster begins calling the young to London, to the Lifehouse, a place where humans can interact, listen to a concert (guess Who’s?) and add their individual signatures to the overall effect.

Y’know, thanks to super-computers.  

Keep in mind it was 1971 and that most rocks stars don’t finish high school.

A Northern English farming family who don’t have these experience suits abandon their crops and get in their air-conditioned caravan in the hopes of tracking down their daughter Mary who is on her way to the Lifehouse. The family is racing the authorities—of course The Man has something against the Lifehouse—to the place just as all the young people inside are giving up their musical signatures (?), adding to the One Note (which, for the trivial of us, is an A major). Boots pound in doors of flagrant non-conformity, but just then the music reaches its crescendo, and the whole place explodes and those inside—and many watching from their experience suits at home—go poof.

Where? Open to interpretation: anywhere from being one with the music to joining God, as the One Note calls for religious comparison.

Again, 1971.

Lovely idea, though. Add Townshend to the long list of folks who supposedly invented the Internet.

I love it, there’s nothing more re-invigorating for a work of science fiction than to see its bleak predictions realized a few decades later. But it was never completed—how could it have been?—and so Townshend was constantly quizzed about it over the years. He’d add to the story, muddy it up—just to keep himself interesting. Worse, since he’s a self-absorbed rock star, every time he came at it, it reflected the sensibilities of his particular life stage more and more. 1993’s boringly autobiographical Pyschoderelict and the plodding Chronicles lose the entire concept but keep the music. The focus is now on an aging hippy and his lost dreams—Mary and the titular musicgasm are minor effects in the “Daddy didn’t love me enough” meandering scenes of the radio play. Worst of all, many of the re-recorded tunes for Chronicle are lighter, sometimes acoustic, losing all sense of the raw destructive energy that the Who bled in 1971. “Won’t Get Fooled Again” sounds like it’s been castrated. All that redeems Chronicles is a collection of synthesized “Baba O’Riley” movements that have never before been in one place.    

It’s our own fault it got this bad. We the public create this narcissism by treating artists—especially those from rock’s seminal years—like their opinions and ideas about everything matter and should be voiced. Townshend Lifehouse mess is the result of him hearing too much of his own hype for thirty years. There should come a point when a concept is public domain, because if you give any creator enough time with anything, they’ll rub the thing until it bleeds. I mean, did anybody else read the last three books of The Dark Tower?

But enough about Tonshend’s selfishness, let’s get back to ME. I’ve always wanted to stage Lifehouse—a musical drama of the original concept, plus the related Who songs before Townshend “reconceived” (read: ruined) them. This has been in my head for years.

Finally, last month I gave it a go at a performing arts summer school I teach. I had to use recorded Who music rather than a live band—possibly my own humble ensemble. Because of time constraints, I had to use the good bits—which are few—of the radio play. I had to cast a female as the pirate, losing the whole sexual dynamic between him and Mary. . . . And it was for teenagers.

Did it work?

I know I presented the other three teachers the idea of it possibly being the over-reaching theme for everything we performed and not a one of them picked up on the idea.

Yeah, but did it work?

Well, if you have to ask then you already know I’m not completely satisfied with the experience. I can, however, say that I at last staged Lifehouse. Kinda.

Maybe Lifehouse is to musical theatre what “The Scottish Play” is to conventional.

I love the music and the concept of this thing. It’s a sure sign that I’m too far gone that I am convinced I can do a better job of it than the man who originally conceived it. Copyright infringements aside, I still hope to see my dream realized, but it may be that Lifehouse’s curse is that it cannot be staged.