Music as Myth in _O Brother, Where Art Thou?_, or how this movie ruined my childhood.

I, like many people in this class, was born in the year 2000, the same year O Brother, Where Art Thou? was released. Like most moms, my mom sang lots of lullabies to me. O Brother Where Art Thou? is one of my mom’s favorite movies, so naturally she had the CD, and sang the songs from it as she tried to get me to fall asleep. “Didn’t Leave Nobody But the Baby” was one of my favorites, and as I got older I remember learning how to sing harmony from Alison Krauss’ performance of “Down in the River to Pray.” I always knew the recordings I loved were from a movie, but never really thought to watch it. Basically, the soundtrack to O Brother Where Art Thou? was an entirely standalone media experience for me as a kid.

You can imagine my surprise upon viewing the Siren scene in the film.

But that’s the genius of the Coen brothers’ use of music in O Brother, Where Art Thou? By including the traditional music of the setting in the rural American South, the film creates an immersive setting. But even deeper than that, the use of American folk music creates a mythology for the film. What I mean by that is, that since the United States doesn’t have a thousands-year-long history to draw upon in telling/retelling myths and legends, looking to folk music is a very clever way to create that legendary setting, as well as to put in place a bunch of the godly interventions of The Odyssey-- the Judeo-Christian God of 1930s Mississippi really isn't the visiting/advice giving type.

Going along with a few things that came up in class, music also serves as a way to invoke the muse/gods/splendor/many other things that we see in The Odyssey. Opening up on the prison work song feels similar to the “muse tell me the story of a complicated man” beginning to the poem. Of course, the Sirens singing their song is a direct parallel, and the song of the Lotus Eaters kind of tracks narratively as well. However, many other places where music is used are not directly paralleled in the poem, for example, during O Brother, Where Art Thou?’s answer to the book “Bloodshed”, the Soggy Bottom Boys’ performance of “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow” acts as a version of Athena’s powers (it saves them from imprisonment), as a version of Odysseus’ reveal (“They’re the Soggy Bottom Boys!), and as a version of the slaughter of the suitors (it gains Everett his wife back).

Basically, wherever there’s magic or gods using their powers in The Odyssey, O Brother, Where Art Thou? has a musical sequence. I was really impressed by the ingenuity of the Coen brothers’ use of music to create a mythological feeling in an adaptation of The Odyssey taking place in a Christian setting, in the 1930s, in the United States. The multilayered composition of the film-- note that I’m not the only person who wrote about the music-- is incredibly full of things to explore and pick apart. 


Update, 2/16/19-- I was talking with my dad about this blog post this morning at breakfast, and he brought up something I thought was important and was sad to have missed last night: Not only is O Brother, Where Art Thou? drawing upon American folklore to create its setting for Greek myth, using American folklore brings the film solidly into the territory of American myth/retelling.