Meat Shield

Everyone depends upon the man who stands before danger; scarcely anyone remembers to ask how he is doing.

Darrin Steelheart’s weathered delivery gives the sturdy ballad an ache its title deliberately conceals. The humor remains, but the music leaves room for a more uncomfortable truth: reliability can become a costume others stop looking beneath, and the fellow who absorbs every blow may also be the one least often asked whether it hurt.

Among all the songs upon this collection, I suspect none surprised me more than this one. What began as a jest concerning the fighter’s thankless role gradually revealed itself to be something altogether more melancholy. Every adventuring company dependeth upon the steadfast soul who standeth between danger and everyone else, yet such constancy is so reliable that it quickly becometh invisible. The wizard is praised for brilliance, the rogue for cunning, the bard for charm, and the cleric for compassion. The fighter is congratulated for remaining upright. I wished to give voice to the quiet sorrow of a man who hath become so dependable that those around him scarcely remember he possesseth feelings beyond the capacity to endure another blow. His final observation—that no one thought to ask the fighter first—struck me as both the saddest and the funniest line in the piece.

I entrusted the performance to an Irish vocalist known as Darrin Steelheart—a name I do not for one moment believe to be genuine, though I shall permit him the dignity of keeping whatever truth it concealeth. He delivered the song with precisely the weathered warmth it required, allowing the humor and heartbreak to inhabit the same melody without either diminishing the other. One laugheth at the fighter’s misfortune, only to discover, a moment later, that one ought perhaps to apologize to every dependable soul who hath quietly carried heavier burdens than anyone ever thought to notice.