By Riley Glickman
On a Tuesday evening, September 17, 2024 to be exact, students and professors alike gathered in Claudia Cohen Hall for an event truly like no other. Organized by Professor James Ker and the UPenn Undergraduate Classics Advisory Board, the classical studies department welcomed Chicago-based singer-songwriter Joe Goodkin for a performance of his newest album: The Blues of Achilles. After a brief introduction by Professor Ker, Goodkin immediately picked up his guitar and started singing. The lights dimmed and the first notes of the (admittedly awesome) metal guitar could be heard, and thus the incantation of the Muses began. Premiered in 2020 and recorded in 2021, the album consists of seventeen songs, runs for forty-two minutes, and pays homage to traditional American blues. A follow-up to his one-man rock opera based on the Odyssey, this album aims to capture the essence of grief and humanity running through Homer’s Iliad. These are not adaptations or retellings, but instead a conversation with the original texts.
Goodkin, who has traveled to all fifty states (and abroad) to perform his renditions of Homer, played the album from start to end, sometimes providing a brief spoken introduction to the next song, other times playing through. The lyrics were displayed on a screen behind him so the audience could follow along. Subtle differences between the lyrics sung and those on the screen pointed to the variation and adaptations found within the oral poetry tradition. The songs are written in first person and carry a narrative function, often one character speaking to another, so these were spelled out on the screen. For example, What Kind of Love depicts Patroclus singing to Achilles before donning his armor and setting out to his fateful battle, where he perishes. Hands of Grief represents Priam speaking to Achilles, asking for his son Hector’s body back. Each song speaks to the emotional themes that are woven throughout the story.
At the end of the performance, the floor was opened up to questions from the audience. One thing that was discussed at length was how Goodkin chose to incorporate, or not incorporate, certain elements of the Iliad. Strikingly, all the songs focused on the humanistic parts of the Iliad. Goodkin sang softly of sorrow, grief, and love; there were no raging numbers of battle or anger or war. In this album, the cataclysmic wrath of Achilles took a backseat to the very human emotions seen through the epic. Goodkin cited Simone Weil, who once noted there was no type of love not present in the Iliad: there are romantic partners, love between fathers and sons, husband and wife, and men on the same side of the war. Goodkin spoke about how he did not originally intend this. In fact, before he started writing, he had planned to follow more of the story. But as he started writing, and love song after love song filled his album, he decided to surrender to the feeling, and focus on this very theme.
There is one exception to this moment of humanism, which is found in the song of Patroclus’ death (noted as Goodkin’s favorite of the album). In this instance, the themes of sorrow and battle weariness are presented by an unlikely party: the horses on the battlefield who really do not want to be there and do not understand the point of war. As Goodwin put it, if you ever have the opportunity to write a song from the perspective of a horse, then you need to take it.
In preparing for this project, Goodkin read a lot of material about the Iliad, its reception, and modern retellings (including everyone’s favorite The Song of Achilles, whose title bears a similarity to the album’s), as well as works based on war trauma and PTSD. He also has done a lot of work with veterans, which inspired this work. He has worked with VA hospitals and musical therapy programs as well as conducted interviews with veterans and their family members, which helped him write about the emotional tolls of war experienced now and in the past.
Listening to Goodkin’s Blues of Achilles in person was an experience like no other. Through his original songs, the audience was taken on a musical, classic American blues rendition of epic proportions.
For those interested, The Blues of Achilles can be found on Spotify and Apple Music.
Riley Glickman is Editor-in-Chief for Discentes. She is a senior from Los Angeles majoring in Classical Studies and sub-matriculating into an MA in Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World (AAMW).
Endnote
- Photo Credit: https://www.thebluesofachilles.com/