Amongst Butterflies (Paul Weller, 1992)
Paul, Nature and God
TONY BLACKBURN ONCE ASKED why Paul couldn’t write about the nice things in life – the birds, the bees, the fields. Fourteen years later, Paul took his advice.
Whenever an artist heads out in a new direction, he worries hard about his audience accepting it. Yet it was vital for Paul that he stay true to his instincts, that he strike out for pastures new. In this case, it was nature he now began to examine with poetic vigour, and this Sly Stone-influenced song was one of his first stabs at it.
Following in the tradition of Tales from the Riverbank, this is another homage to the countryside Paul played in as a child. In this case he is thinking of the woods near his old home in Stanley Road, where a statue had been erected to honour the contribution of Indian soldiers in the Second World War. (It got into such a state of disrepair that Paul privately offered twenty grand to have it restored. Overjoyed, the owners made public Paul’s offer and in a fit of temper he withdrew his proposal.)
In such childhood-tinged songs, Paul always sought to replicate the magic he felt as a young innocent. He wanted to touch upon the magnificence that had touched him. But now he also wanted to know deeper things, such as where had this magnificence come from?
When Paul spoke of God in his songs, which was a rare occurrence, it was usually to link the Church to the hypocrisy engendered by its link with the Establishment: vicars waving boys off to war, churches groaning with gold while the poor go begging, that kind of thing. Weller instinctively shunned organized religion, its churches and its rituals. He thought it all hypocritical. Yet he did believe in a God, had done so for a long time. This is him talking to Melody Maker in 1982: ‘It’s very difficult when you start talking about religion because everybody thinks you have gone a bit nutty. I don’t belong to any particular religion, but I do believe in God, as such.’
Paul’s belief in a higher force was probably ignited by his love for and awe of nature, and strengthened during the course of writing songs such as Wild Wood, which seemed to flow through him. This intense feeling, that a power is conducting itself through a human vessel, is nothing new to musicians. American jazz drummer Art Blakey has spoken of it, so has Keith Richards, and many others. It was a feeling strong enough to convince Weller that God’s wish for him, his purpose on this earth, was to provide music.
God now became much more of a presence in Paul’s songs (see All Good Books). He is manifest here in the lovely image of a whisper upon the breeze. This sensitivity towards nature was always in Paul, but dope smoking had probably helped bring it to the fore. As for his audience, they too were having similar experiences and feelings as they aged: the birth of children, which in turn triggered a spiritual questioning, followed by a growing need to explain the world and their place in it before time called time. No wonder those young bucks at the music press thought up the term ‘Dad Rock’ to pillory Weller with. He didn’t care, nor did his loyal audience.