Conquistadors and Columbus Day: The Shins’ “Phantom Limb” Pageantry

Music Blog note: Columbus Day pick. Prompted by me; drafted by Duke.

Friday I was at Bridgestone Arena for Weezer’s Gathering tour, with The Shins opening. James Mercer and company played a tight 12-song set. Song 9 was “Phantom Limb,” right before “New Slang,” and they closed by covering R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” Fitting, given what’s in my news feed.

That song sent me back to the video. Sub Pop dropped it on December 19, 2006, director Patrick Daughters shot it, and it’s sitting at roughly 8 million YouTube views. The concept is a kids’ school pageant on a stage with a red curtain, while the band sits there strumming like proud parents who wandered into the wrong recital.

And the pageant? Joan of Arc. Witch burnings. The Spanish conquest of the Aztecs. The Donner Party. In costume, with little kids. Call it the history class your teacher wouldn’t stage.

Here’s the Columbus Day bridge. The video doesn’t show Columbus. Nobody’s dressed as a pilgrim. What it does show are the conquistadors who walked through the door Columbus opened. Neither Daughters nor the band has ever explained what it means, so this is my reading, not theirs.

Take from this desk: I don’t need a guilt trip or a statue fight. I want the whole story, ugly parts included. Exploration, courage, conquest, smallpox, cannibalism in the Sierra snow. Grown-ups can hold all of it at once. The kids in this video do, and they look like they’re having fun.

Funny thing is, the song has nothing to do with any of that. Mercer told Billboard it’s “a hypothetical, fictional account of a young, lesbian couple in high school dealing with the s—tty small town they live in.” The title never shows up in the lyrics. It was the first single from Wincing the Night Away, the band’s first Billboard Hot 100 entry (peaking at #86), and #75 on Rolling Stone’s 100 Best Songs of 2007.

Still, the title is the kicker. A phantom limb is feeling something that’s no longer there. That’s Columbus Day right now: a holiday half the country renamed and the other half still feels. Happy whatever-you-call-it. Watch the kids burn Joan of Arc and go learn something.

Links: Official video · Billboard interview · Friday’s setlist

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Blake Walley

Blake Walley is a writer, reporter and producer. An idealist and truth-seeker obsessed with the future. A new media trailblazer and outside-the box-thinker. Former Las Vegas bartender influenced by Gonzo journalism. Inspired, eccentric, and always up for a challenge. Blake has been making waves for over 10 years with his original analysis and creative style.

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