“King of Spain”
from the album The Wild Hunt
2010
iTunes
The lone musician with a guitar, a voice, and a song is one of the oldest and the most common line-ups in popular music, and whenever such a musician gets up on stage, he naturally builds off the work of those who have done the same thing long before him. So the Tallest Man on Earth (a.k.a. Kristian Matsson, who is not actually the height record holder) has born countless comparisons to other, older likeminded folkies, yet he’s done an admirable job projecting his own personality into his music.
“King of Spain” (off his upcoming Dead Oceans debut The Wild Hunt) does nothing to dispel such comparisons; in fact, Matsson actively invites them. Working squarely within the folk-revival revival, this is another rough-hewn, rambling rumination, with a heraldic melody that’s becoming a Tallest Man trademark and a gruff vocal halfway between Dock Boggs and a badger in heat. The only gaffe is the “boots of Spanish leather” remark that alludes all too obviously to the one artist I’m trying hard not to name. But “King of Spain” isn’t intended as a folk usurpation. Instead, as an ode to the transformative powers of love, the song hits the right notes of celebration and excitement: “If you could reinvent my name, if you could redirect my days, I wanna be the king of Spain.”