Today we’re Making Meaning with Joe Mruk of Saint Deadmule! Joe is a freelance illustrator, designer, educator, and musician living in Pittsburgh, PA.
Let’s make some meaning…
MAKING MEANING: THE BACKGROUND
Saint Deadmule is not Joe Mruk’s main thing, but it is a really good thing.
Joe’s main focus is on designs and illustrations. As Red Buffalo Illustration he creates posters, album art, package design, shirts, beer labels, sticker, maps, woodworks, and more (!) for local and national clients, and he teaches drawing and illustration classes for children and adults. In his spare time, he creates dreamy folk music as Saint Deadmule.
Saint Deadmule blends elements of Americana, Folk, and Post-Rock. It’s essentially a solo project, though you might find an extra musician on a track, or hear live-recorded voices from a party in Pittsburgh’s East End, or an unknown mariachi band recorded in passing in Tuscon. Joe has been releasing music as Saint Deadmule since 2018, including two singles and two albums. Saint Deadmule’s most recent offering is the single “Three Little Sisters.”
Get more information about Joe and Red Buffalo Illustration on his website and support Saint Deadmule by following him on Bandcamp and Facebook.
Saint Deadmule is: Joe Mruk.
MAKING MEANING: THE SONG
Listen to the song “Sleep Forgets the Sawmill” from Saint Deadmule’s album The Living Lions and learn what meaning Joe makes:
“Sleep Forgets the Sawmill” was written by Joe Mruk.
Lyrics for “Sleep Forgets the Sawmill”
No one sings the sawmill fast asleep,
cause it’s just a groaning catacomb of sad machinery.
But there ain’t no way to put to rest the silver saws and broken press—
sleep forgets the sawmill anyway.
Sawmills saw together out of tune, sawing out a blanket made for you.
Motors whine a hymn undying, hammers falling, shrapnel flying,
sleep was manufactured here for you.
No one asks the sawmill when it’s tired,
cause it’s just a heap of flaking rust and fraying wires.
But it don’t mind, it’s not the kind to bellyache.
Sleep forgets the sawmill anyway.
(Deep within a dream I saw a wagon winding westward,
worried horses blindly weaving through the foothills of the damned:
perilous, drunk and savage from the voyages beyond,
they champ the sands at the bottoms of canyons
burning red against the sun.)
Sawmills saw together out of tune, sawing out a blanket made for you.
Motors whine a hymn undying, hammers falling, shrapnel flying,
sleep was manufactured here for you.
Joe Speaks
“Sleep Forgets the Sawmill is a woozy little lullaby about a sawmill that manufactures sleep for all the folks in the land. The problem is, the sawmill is so busy making sleep for everyone, it never gets any sleep itself! But since it’s not the type to complain, it just keeps on sawing.
“It’s a pretty obvious metaphor for being creatively exhausted but trying to work through that feeling. … This song is about the artist as a dream factory…” – Joe Mruk on “Sleep Forgets the Sawmill”
It’s a pretty obvious metaphor for being creatively exhausted but trying to work through that feeling. It’s an honor to work with the Pittsburgh music community on artwork for their albums and posters and music festivals, but anything gets exhausting. This song is about the artist as a dream factory, chugging away in the small hours of the night when everyone else is asleep.” – Joe Mruk of Saint Deadmule
Thanks so much to Joe of Saint Deadmule for chugging away at his dream factory for us all. The meaning behind this song is interesting (and I’m sure relatable for many artists). Thank you for making meaning with us.
If you like what we’re doing, please support us by subscribing to Of Music and Mind, following us on social media, and telling others about us! Be well!
of music & mind 