Ten Degrees of Strange: The Spiritual Life on the Run

Johnny Flynn and Robert McFarlane’s “Ten Degrees of Strange” hits you with an almost discomfiting musical introduction, marked by wild and loud arpeggios and a chaotic harmony. Right away you know you’re in for a ride.

“There’s a black dog following hard on my trail / Set firm on hollowing my heart ‘til it fails.” The opening rhyme sets the tone; no wonder the sound is so wild, it’s a chase! But why the black dog? Well, as the artists themselves said in an interview, it stands for something like anxiety. I think we can do more with the image, but let’s hear more first.

“Gone nine days sleepless, / Seeking to keep this dog off my tail.” Now, there’s a hyperbole! But just wait for the coup de grace: “Lugged this old bag of bones / Through seven time zones.”

Next, we get the title and the motive: “I’m ten degrees of strange, / I’m trying to change, / Trying to shake off my shadow, / Still hoping to get out of the black dog’s range.” We see now that the ‘black dog’ really is part of the protagonist, something about himself that he’s trying to escape.

What does he think he needs to do? That question brings us to the chorus: “I run, ‘cause I must / Leave that dog in the dust.” He’s on the run in a comically hyperbolic manner, going sleepless for days and crossing whole meridians, yet backed by a chaotic and freewheeling sound that conjures not dread but a sort of whimsicality, the joy of escaping a hunter, the exhilaration of a speedy flight, of not standing inert!

We see that attitude confirmed further: “Gonna run like a river, / Right down to the sea / Gonna run like the sap / Through the heart of a tree.” This flight is something actually natural, accomplishing something inherent in our protagonist; swift as a river, steady and alive as sap.

The protagonist further sings of his past, referring in riddles and roundabout phrases to his relation to some unknown (“You were the pebble, / And I was the ripple”) up until the present: “Now I’m stormbound on high ground, / A jack of the hedge, / A wreck on the beach, / Still trying to stay out of the black dog’s reach!” Again there is a sense of wonder and, even in narrating his dire straits, a note of humor.

However, the adventure is not without its seriousness or toll: “Some days I long / The grace of an end, / Dam up the river, dry out its bed, / Bury me there, body and head, / Far from the black dog’s song.” Even though he runs like a river and takes joy in it, our protagonist is sometimes exhausted, left wondering just when he’ll finally find rest. Is death the only answer?

I think this song is an apt metaphor for fleeing not just anxiety but vice in general. Instead of being pursued by the hound of Heaven, here we see someone fleeing the hound of his own vices. What this song communicates is not fear but a kind of joy in escaping our sinfulness, a natural delight stemming from the irascible appetites God gave us to pursue the good, seen as difficult or glorious.