It might just be me. But in every film I have seen, a music box is a kind of talisman. Only ever opened by a person alone, or at least alone in their thoughts, letting the music box play as if its sound could bring back something or someone lost. And the more precious that box, elaborate and bejeweled even if grimed or damaged, the more precious, valuable is the memory being returned to one.

It might be a soldier, sweaty and dirty and fatigued, lifting it out of rubble. Opening it, letting a delicate waltz play out in the middle of war. Cheap symbolism, one might say, as cheap, manipulative a theatric. But clear in its meaning, inside a scene full of the harsh arrhythmia of shells and bullets, human screaming and human gore.

Genesis live 1982, Abacab [via PhilGenesisDB]

Not to wade too deep into an eternal argument, Genesis with and without Peter, what Phil added: rhythm, driving, alive. And what Peter in his eccentric perfection could lack: as alive, urgent emotion.

Look up on the wall, there on the floor,
Under the pillow, behind the door.
There’s a crack in the mirror.
Somewhere there’s a hole in a window-pane.
Do you think I’m to blame?
Tell me do you think I’m to blame?

(When they do it) you’re never there.
(When they show it) you stop and stare.
(Abacab) isn’t anywhere.
(Abacab)

If you’re wrapping up the world
cos you’ve taken someone else’s girl,
When they turn on the pillow,
Even when they answer the telephone,
Don’t you think that by now,
Tell me, don’t you think that by now.

(When they do it) you’re never there.
(When they show it) you stop and stare.
(Abacab) isn’t anywhere.
(Abacab) doesn’t really care.

You want it, you got it, you gotta go
You want it, you got it, now you know

It’s an illusion, it’s a game,
Or reflection of someone else’s name.
When you wake in the morning,
Wake and find you’re covered in cellophane.

Well, there’s a hole in there somewhere.
Yeah, there’s a hole in there somewhere.
Baby, there’s a hole in there somewhere.
Now there’s a hole in there somewhere.

(When they do it) you’re never there.
(When they show it) you stop and stare.
(Abacab) isn’t anywhere.
(Abacab)

Not that Phil wasn’t conscious of what Peter had wrought: why it must be a waltz in the middle of the brute simplicity of war. The search for something more complex, dainty and vulnerable as it must be, to express what is in one that is more complex, and as vulnerable. Like a soldier’s want for peace. And not just because peace is not war.

Kate Bush live 1987, Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) [via ReMasterYoda]

The first time I heard Kate Bush, I thought like that soldier: the sound impossible as a waltz in wartime.

It doesn’t hurt me.
Do you want to feel how it feels?
Do you want to know, know that it doesn’t hurt me?
Do you want to hear about the deal that I’m making?
You, it’s you and me.

And if I only could,
I’d make a deal with God,
And I’d get him to swap our places,
Be running up that road,
Be running up that hill,
Be running up that building.
Say, If I only could, oh…

You don’t want to hurt me,
But see how deep the bullet lies.
Unaware, I’m tearing you asunder.
Ooh, There is thunder in our hearts.

Is there so much hate for the ones who love?
Tell me we both matter don’t we?

You,
It’s you and me,
It’s you and me who won’t be unhappy.

And if I only could,
I’d make a deal with God,
And I’d get him to swap our places,
Be running up that road,
Be running up that hill,
Be running up that building.
Say, If I only could, oh…

You,
It’s you and me,
It’s you and me who won’t be unhappy.

Come on baby, come on darling
Let me steal this moment from you now
Oh come on angel, come on come on darlin’
Let’s exchange the experience oh…

And if I only could,
I’d make a deal with God,
And I’d get him to swap our places,
Be running up that road,
Be running up that hill,
With no problems…

Say if I only could,
I’d make a deal with God,
And I’d get him to swap our places,
Be running up that road,
Be running up that hill,
With no problems…

Say if I only could,
I’d make a deal with God,
And I’d get him to swap our places,
Be running up that road,
Be running up that hill,
With no problems…

Say, If I only could…
Oh…
Be running up that hill,
With no problems…

If only I could,
Be running up that hill…

As complex, eccentric as one could barely bear, one could understand why not so many could take it in to deep. But such a perfect, eccentric beauty in it, that I must nonetheless, and to that deep.

Genesis live 1976, Entangled [via rselfmade]

When three were still four, and the fifth as present a ghost, old and new must entangle together. The sound one heard that I must always confuse with love as I have said, also confused time, until one could not be sure which it was, past or present, one was inhabiting then.

When you’re asleep they may show you
Aerial views of the ground,
Freudian slumber empty of sound.

Over the rooftops and houses,
Lost as it tries to be seen,
Fields of incentive covered with green.

Mesmerized children are playing,
Meant to be seen but not heard,
“Stop me from dreaming!”
“Don’t be absurd!”

“Well if we can help you we will,
You’re looking tired and ill.
As I count backwards
Your eyes become heavier still.
Sleep, won’t you allow yourself fall?
Nothing can hurt you at all.
With your consent
We can experiment further still.”

Madrigal music is playing,
Voices can faintly be heard,
“Please leave this patient undisturbed.”

Sentenced to drift far away now,
Nothing is quite what it seems,
Sometimes entangled in your own dreams.

“Well, if we can help you we will,
Soon as you’re tired and ill.
With your consent
We can experiment further still.

Well, thanks to our kindness and skill,
You’ll have no trouble until
You catch your breath
And the nurse will present you the bill!”

Genesis live 1980, Squonk [via Tommygun128]

Like father like son
Not flesh nor fish nor bone
A red rag hangs from an open mouth.
Alive at both ends but a little dead in the middle,
A-tumbling and a-bumbling he will go.
All the King’s horses and all the King’s men
Could never put a smile on that face.

He’s a sly one, he’s a shy one
Wouldn’t you be too.
Scared to be left all on his own.
Hasn’t a, hasn’t a friend to play with, the Ugly Duckling
The pressure on, the bubble will burst before our eyes.
All the while in perfect time
His tears are falling on the ground
But if you don’t stand up you don’t stand a chance.

Go a little faster now, you might get there in time.

Mirror mirror on the wall,
His heart was broken long before he ever came to you.
Stop your tears from falling,
The trail they leave is very clear for all to see at night
all to see at night.

In season, out of season
What’s the difference when you don’t know the reason.
In one hand bread, the other a stone.
The Hunter enters the forest.
All are not huntsmen who can blow the huntsman’s horn
By the look of this one you’ve not got much to fear.

Here I am, I’m very fierce and frightening
Come to match my skill to yours.
Now listen here, listen to me, don’t you run away now
I am a friend, I’d really like to play with you.
Making noises my little furry friend would make
I’ll trick him, then I’ll kick him into my sack.
You better watch out… You better watch out.

I’ve got you, I’ve got you, you’ll never get away.

Walking home that night
The sack across my back, the sound of sobbing on my shoulder.
When suddenly it stopped,
I opened up the sack, all that I had
A pool of bubbles and tears – just a pool of tears.

All in all you are a very dying race
Placing trust upon a cruel world.
You never had the things you thought you should have had
And you’ll not get them now,
And all the while in perfect time
Your tears are falling on the ground.

But, ‘There’s too many men,\there’s too many people,\making too many problems’. The tension cannot hold forever, nor that confusion. One must close that lid again, let present be present, past be left behind again inside past.

Kate Bush live 1979, Wuthering Heights [via nick8gab]

But why open a music box if not to capture something one has lost? Even if it was too perfect, too much on hearing it the first time, too large a cascading lost beauty on hearing it again.

Out on the winding, windy moors
We’d roll and fall in green.
You had a temper like my jealousy
Too hot, too greedy.
How could you leave me,
When I needed to possess you?
I hated you. I loved you, too.

Bad dreams in the night
You told me I was going to lose the fight,
Leave behind my wuthering, wuthering
Wuthering Heights.

Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy, I’ve come home and I´m so cold,
let me in your window

Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy, I’ve come home and I´m so cold,
let me in your window.

Ooh, it gets dark! It gets lonely,
On the other side from you.
I pine a lot. I find the lot
Falls through without you.
I’m coming back, love,
Cruel Heathcliff, my one dream,
My only master.

Too long I roamed in the night.
I’m coming back to his side, to put it right.
I’m coming home to wuthering, wuthering,
Wuthering Heights,

Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy, I’ve come home and I’m so cold,
let me in your window.

Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy, I’ve come home and I’m so cold,
let me in your window.

Ooh! Let me have it.
Let me grab your soul away.
Ooh! Let me have it.
Let me grab your soul away.
You know it’s me–Cathy!

Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy, I’ve come home and I´m so cold,
let me in your window
Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy, I’ve come home and I´m so cold,
let me in your window.

Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy, I’ve come home and I’m so cold.

Kate Bush video 1980, Army Dreamers [via jonkers70]

One must be careful opening that lid, opening oneself to a sudden ensnaring beauty. Careful like that soldier lost to a waltz.

“B.F.P.O.”
Army dreamers.
“Mammy’s hero.”
“B.F.P.O.”
“Mammy’s hero.”

Our little army boy
Is coming home from B.F.P.O.
I’ve a bunch of purple flowers
To decorate a mammy’s hero.

Mourning in the aerodrome,
The weather warmer, he is colder.
Four men in uniform
To carry home my little soldier.

“What could he do?
Should have been a rock star.”
But he didn’t have the money for a guitar.
“What could he do?
Should have been a politician.”
But he never had a proper education.
“What could he do?
Should have been a father.”
But he never even made it to his twenties.
What a waste –
Army dreamers.
Ooh, what a waste of
Army dreamers.

Tears o’er a tin box.
Oh, Jesus Christ, he wasn’t to know,
Like a chicken with a fox,
He couldn’t win the war with ego.

Give the kid the pick of pips,
And give him all your stripes and ribbons.
Now he’s sitting in his hole,
He might as well have buttons and bows.

“What could he do?
Should have been a rock star.”
But he didn’t have the money for a guitar.
“What could he do?
Should have been a politician.”
But he never had a proper education.
“What could he do?
Should have been a father.”
But he never even made it to his twenties.
What a waste –
Army dreamers.
Ooh, what a waste of
Army dreamers.
Ooh, what a waste of all that
Army dreamers,
Army dreamers,
Army dreamers, oh…

(“B.F.P.O.”)
Did-n-did-n-did-n-dum…
Army dreamers.
Did-n-did-n-did-n-dum…
(“Mammy’s hero.”)
(“B.F.P.O.”)
Army Dreamers.
(“Mammy’s hero.”)
(“B.F.P.O.”)
No harm heroes.
(“Mammy’s hero.”)
(“B.F.P.O.”)
Army dreamers.
(“Mammy’s hero.”)
(“B.F.P.O.”)
No harm heroes.

The 80s for me was university then work, with some broken love in between. Like, ‘broken English’, I mean. Sincerely wanting to connect, but too much vocabulary gone missing in the action. If you know what I mean…

She drives me crazy still, even as ’she’ has changed bodies and faces and voices. While the 80s were hard, hard as a boss wanting ‘results’. Money as everything, and bling before it was “bling”. And the Trump already braying. No place for any dreamer, with even the green leaf turned crystalline white. “‘Just say no’,” holding out the rolled-up twenty. Hypocrisy, like “political correctness”, gone rampant. So must become a kind of collective uprooting madness.

What the 80s were like: a lot like the 00s just ending. When everyone forgot “Neutron Jack” had set a river on fire, put him on the cover of all the magazines instead. And more wars “hot” or “cold”, than one could shake the proverbial stick at. And all of them “dirty” with God or chance as Napoleon predicted, stayed on the side of the stronger battalions. No place for a dreamer, I said.

Fine Young Cannibals live 1985, Johnny Come Home [via mmusicool]

I didn’t want my MTV, I wanted none of it though the flash of it all tempted as it must. What I wanted was the glimpses of being fully human one got. Only glimpses though they were there, and shining like small vivid stars through a murk of gray and black.

Nobody knows the trouble you feel
Nobody cares the feelin’ is real
Johnny, we’re sorry, won’t you come on home
We worry, won’t you come on…
What is wrong in my life
That I must get drunk every night
Johnny, we’re sorry won’t you come on…
Use the phone, call your mom
She’s missing you badly, missing her son
Who do you know, where will you stay
Big city life is not what they say
Johnny, we’re sorry, won’t you come on home
We worry, won’t you come on…
What is wrong in my life
That I must get drunk every night
Johnny, we’re sorry won’t you come on home…
You’d better go, everything’s closed
Can’t find a room, money’s all blown
Nowhere to sleep, out in the cold
Nothing to eat, nowhere to go
Johnny, we’re sorry, won’t you come on home
We worry, won’t you come on…
What is wrong in my life
That I must get drunk every night
Johnny, we’re sorry won’t you come on home
We worry, won’t you come on home…

I didn’t need the 00s to teach me that money was a dissolving agent like bleach, killed real life to substitute instead one built on fakery and bluff, and boring o so dreary tedious boring in the end.

The Police live 1979, I Can’t Stand Losing You [via featherysunshine]

It didn’t take long, understand. Not when the money came so large, and too fast. Not ego, defect of character. Just the money, instead.

I’ve called you so many times today
And I guess it’s all true what your girlfriends say
That you don’t ever want to see me again
And your brother’s gonna kill me and he’s six feet ten
I guess you’d call it cowardice
But I’m not prepared to go on like this

I can’t, I can’t, I can’t stand losing
I can’t, I can’t, I can’t stand losing
I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t stand losing you
I can’t stand losing you
I can’t stand losing you
I can’t stand losing you

I see you sent my letters back
And my L.P. records and they’re all scratched
I can’t see the point in another day
When nobody listens to a word I say
You can call it lack of confidence
But to carry on living doesn’t make no sense

I can’t, I can’t, I can’t stand losing
I can’t, I can’t, I can’t stand losing
I can’t, I can’t, I can’t stand losing
I can’t, I can’t, I can’t stand losing
I can’t, I can’t, I can’t stand losing
I can’t, I can’t stand losing you

I guess this is our last goodbye
And you don’t care, so I won’t cry
But you’ll be sorry when I’m dead
And all this guilt will be on your head
I guess you’d call it suicide
But I’m too full to swallow my pride
I can’t, I can’t, I can’t stand losing
I can’t, I can’t…

One felt the slack come into the art, that aspiring urgent quick from a real life snuffed. And one couldn’t stand losing it.

Genesis live 1987, Land of Confusion [via vanriz]

I must’ve dreamed a thousand dreams
Been haunted by a million screams
But I can hear the marching feet
They’re moving into the street

Now did you read the news today
They say the danger’s gone away
But I can see the fire’s still alight
And burning into the night

There’s too many men
There’s too many people
Making too many problems
And there’s not much love to go round
Tell me why,
This is the land of confusion

Now this is the world we live in
And these are the hands we’re given
Use them and let’s start trying
To make this a place worth fighting for

Now Superman where are you now
Seems everything’s all wrong somehow
The men of steel, and the men of power
They’re losing control by the hour

This is the time
This is the place
So we look for the future
But there’s not much love to go round
Can’t you see,
This is a land of confusion

This is the world we live in
And these are the hands we’re given
Use them and let’s start trying
To make this a place worth fighting for

I remember long ago -
When the sun was shining
And the stars were bright
All through the night
And the sound of your laughter
As I held you tight
So long ago -

But I won’t be coming home tonight
‘Cause my generation will put it right
We’re not just making promises
That we know, we’ll never keep

There’s too many men
There’s too many people
Making too many problems
And there’s not much love to go round
Can’t you see,
This is a land of confusion

Now this is the world we live in
These are the hands we’re given
Use them and let’s start trying
To make this a place worth fighting for

This is the world we live in
These are the names we’re given
Stand up and let’s start trying
To make this a place worth fighting for

Fine Young Cannibals live 198?, Couldn’t Care More [via TXyon]

The space opened up in this song, why I must stop on first hearing it. What was that? Wore out the tape, the rewind button, playing and re-playing it.

Another day…
Another pride…
Somebody died
long before their time

I couldn’t care more
I couldn’t care less
If it’s not happening next door
You couldn’t care more

Always a war being fought
many die before they ought
when this happens abroad
don’t give it a second thought

I couldn’t care more
I couldn’t care less
If it’s not happening next door
You couldn’t care more

Sometimes I get so tired
spiraled on that madness
I’m all right
minding my own business
trouble everywhere
and it’s not that I don’t care
it happens all the time
but it’s never going to change your life

I couldn’t care more
I couldn’t care less
If it’s not happening next door
You couldn’t care more

I followed the news, decoded the spin, newspeak arrived on schedule. As the song went, “trouble everywhere/and it’s not that I don’t care.” But, in a nutshell, what was wrong with ‘the times’: that caring couldn’t carry one anywhere. The prosperous were all numb.

Pink Floyd live 1980, Comfortably Numb [via cacaroq]

After Animals one knew what to expect from the Floyd. Detached dead-end despair made into a movie, with no one asking, what’s wrong with this picture? All one knew was no more Shine on You Crazy Diamond. No more, like a last link gone.

Hello?
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone at home?
Come on, now,
I hear you’re feeling down.
Well I can ease your pain
Get you on your feet again.
Relax.
I’ll need some information first.
Just the basic facts.
Can you show me where it hurts?

There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship, smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can’t hear what you’re saying.
When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like two balloons.
Now I’ve got that feeling once again
I can’t explain you would not understand
This is not how I am.
I have become comfortably numb.

O.K.
Just a little pinprick.
There’ll be no more aaaaaaaaah!
But you may feel a little sick.
Can you stand up?
I do believe it’s working, good.
That’ll keep you going through the show
Come on it’s time to go.

There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship, smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can’t hear what you’re saying.
When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown,
The dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb.

I saw Pink Floyd live, touring The Wall. From the floor at an Olympic stadium. Yet neither it nor they could raise a flat I must feel. I was as detached from them as they were detached from me, everyone else in that Wagnerian pile.

Pet Shop Boys live 1986, Love Comes Quickly [via pertan]

I’ve taken a lot of grief for liking the Pet Shop Boys. When it was the unadulterated sweet of this song, not West End Girls or any other ‘club hit’. “Disaster struck quickly,” is their comment. “Flopped just about everywhere” when first released.

Sooner or later
this happens to everyone
to everyone

You can live your life lonely
heavy as stone
Live your life learning
and working alone
Say this is all you want
but I don’t believe that it’s true
’cause when you least expect it
waiting round the corner for you

Love comes quickly
whatever you do
you can’t stop falling
Love comes quickly
whatever you do
you can’t stop falling

You can live a life of luxury
if that’s what you want
Taste forbidden pleasures
whatever you want
You can fly away to the end of the world
but where does it get you to?
’cause just when you least expect it
just what you least expect

Love comes quickly
whatever you do
you can’t stop falling
Love comes quickly
whatever you do
you can’t stop falling

I know it sounds ridiculous
but speaking from experience
It may seem romantic
and that’s no defence
love will always get to you

Sooner or later, sooner or later
this happens to everyone
to everyone

You can fly away to the end of the world
but where does it get you?

Love comes quickly
whatever you do
you can’t stop falling
Love comes quickly
whatever you do
you can’t stop falling

What one had to remember, hold to through ‘the times’ from inside one’s numb.

Fine Young Cannibals live 1990, Good Thing [via TheSnakeMovie]

Best epitaph one could give the 80s when they were over: that one had survived them.

The one good thing
In my life
Has gone away
I don’t know why
She’s gone away
I don’t know where
Somewhere I can’t follow her
The one good thing didn’t stay so long
- Woo who who who
My back was turned and she was gone
- Hey hey hey

Good thing
Where have you gone
- Doo doo doobie doo
My good thing
You’ve been gone too long
- Doo doo doobie doo

People say I should forget
There’s plenty more don’t get upset
- Don’t get upset
People say she’s doing fine
Mutual friends I see sometime
That’s not what I want to hear
- Woo who who who
I want to hear she wants me near
- Hey hey hey

Good thing
Where have you gone
- Doo doo doobie doo
My good thing
You’ve been gone too long
- Good thing
- Doo doo doobie doo

Then one day
She came back
I was so happy that I didn’t ask
Morning came
- Hey hey hey hey
Into my room
- Woo who who who
Caught me dreaming like a fool
- Hey hey hey

Good thing
Where have you gone
- Doo doo doobie doo
My good thing
You’ve been gone too long
- Good thing
- Doo doo doobie doo

Good thing,
my good thing
- Doo doo doobie doo
Good God girl
Where have you gone
- Doo doo doobie doo
It’s been so long,
Good God girl
- Doo doo doobie doo
Good God girl
Good God girl
- Doo doo doobie doo
Good thing

There’s a drink I like: vermouth half sweet, half dry, on the rocks with lemon twist. I never knew what to call it, until one waiter noted that was the mix for a ‘perfect martini’. So let’s call it a ‘perfect’, and raise one metaphorically at least for the ‘freaks for perfect’ that are Donald Fagen and Walter Becker.

And no prices for guessing which one be the ‘dry’, which one the ’sweet’.

In college they formed a “bad jazz band” with of all people, Chevy Chase. Where he must have picked up that look of utter wasp befuddlement wondering where his band mates were going while taking the melody with them. To the Brill Building as it turned out, which never got a grip on them either. It took Hollywood, in that unrelenting sun, creative heat of the 70s, to let out the true musical monsters they were. And the noun is not exclusively metaphorical.

Steely Dan live 2003, Home at Last [via carlospc]

Hollywood, I said. Or ‘el lay’ if you got any Spanish in you. And one of them stayed and the other went back home. Which didn’t split ‘the band’ as one might expect, since ‘the band’ was virtual anyway. Probably the first such, but then one knew somehow these guys were whip smart, geniuses of a way both. Freaks but understand, at a time when being freak was kinda cool. Since a ‘freak’ was a ‘freek’, free.

Even if these freeks quoted Homer. And no, not ‘duh’ Homer.

I know this super highway
This bright familiar sun
I guess that I’m the lucky one
Who wrote that tired sea song
Set on this peaceful shore
You think you’ve heard this one before

Well the danger on the rocks is surely past
Still I remain tied to the mast
Could it be that I have found my home at last
Home at last

She serves the smooth retsina
She keeps me safe and warm
It’s just the calm before the storm
Call in my reservation
So long hey thanks my friend
I guess I’ll try my luck again

Well the danger on the rocks is surely past
Still I remain tied to the mast
Could it be that I have found my home at last
Home at last

Steely Dan live 2003, Kid Charlemagne [via carlospc]

At their peak, like the Beatles, they stopped touring. Perhaps a good thing: these ‘freeks for perfect’ might stop a song half-way. ‘Sorry, missed a note back in bar 4.’ Take it again from the top. They were young then, with that perfectionist, impatient exigency of the young, that paradoxical rigidity.

While the music played you worked by candlelight
Those San Francisco nights
You were the best in town
Just by chance you crossed the diamond with the pearl
You turned it on the world
That’s when you turned the world around
Did you feel like Jesus
Did you realize
That you were a champion in their eyes

On the hill the stuff was laced with kerosene
But yours was kitchen clean
Everyone stopped to stare at your Technicolor motor home
Every A-Frame had your number on the wall
You must have had it all
You’d go to L.A. on a dare
And you’d go it alone
Could you live forever
Could you see the day
Could you feel your whole world fall apart and fade away

Get along, get along Kid Charlemagne
Get along Kid Charlemagne

Now your patrons have all left you in the red
Your low rent friends are dead
This life can be very strange
All those day-glo freaks who used to paint the face
They’ve joined the human race
Some things will never change
Son you were mistaken
You are obsolete
Look at all the white men on the street

Get along, get along Kid Charlemagne
Get along Kid Charlemagne

Clean this mess up else we’ll all end up in jail
Those test tubes and the scale
Just get them all out of here
Is there gas in the car
Yes, there’s gas in the car
I think the people down the hall
Know who you are

Careful what you carry
‘Cause the man is wise
You are still an outlaw in their eyes

Get along, get along Kid Charlemagne
Get along Kid Charlemagne

And like the young are wont, taking down the old, even then. Only one of the ironies in playing this song 27 years after they first wrote it.

Steely Dan live 2003, My Old School [via carlospc]

But they were freeks, outlaws of a kind. “Yacht rock,” one know-nothing opined when these two were too independent and too defiant of every one and every thing. Tacking their own free-willed course, sales be damned. Flying a musical pirate’s flag, and with the black, sardonic humor to match.

I remember the thirty-five sweet goodbyes
When you put me on the Wolverine
Up to Annandale
It was still September
When your daddy was quite surprised
To find you with the working girls
In the county jail
I was smoking with the boys upstairs
When I heard about the whole affair
I said oh no
William and Mary won’t do

Well I did not think the girl
Could be so cruel
And I’m never going back
To my old school

Oleanders growing outside her door
Soon they’re gonna be in bloom
Up in Annandale
I can’t stand her
Doing what she did before
Living like a gypsy queen
In a fairy tale
Well I hear the whistle but I can’t go
I’m gonna take her down to Mexico
She said oh no
Guadalajara won’t do

Well I did not think the girl
Could be so cruel
And I’m never going back
To my old school

California tumbles into the sea
That’ll be the day I go
Back to Annandale
Tried to warn you
About Chino and Daddy Gee
But I can’t seem to get to you
Through the U.S. Mail
Well I hear the whistle but I can’t go
I’m gonna take her down to Mexico
She said oh no
Guadalajara won’t do

Well I did not think the girl
Could be so cruel
And I’m never going back
To my old school

Like, “I cried when I wrote this song/Sue me if I play too long.” And one just had to respect that.

Steely Dan live 2003, Black Cow [via carlospc]

Half dry, half sweet, like the drink I started with. And mixing like vermouth, trails of a beautiful ruby red to permeate that astringent clear. Perfect as the drink.

In the corner
Of my eye
I saw you in Rudy’s
You were very high
You were high
It was a cryin’ disgrace
They saw your face

On the counter
By your keys
Was a book of numbers
And your remedies
One of these
Surely will screen out the sorrow
But where are you tomorrow

I can’t cry anymore
While you run around
Break away
Just when it
Seems so clear
That it’s
Over now
Drink your big black cow
And get out of here

Down to Greene Street
There you go
Lookin’ so outrageous
And they tell you so
You should know
How all the pros play the game
You change your name

Like a gangster
On the run
You will stagger homeward
To your precious one
I’m the one
Who must make everything right
Talk it out till daylight

I don’t care anymore
Why you run around
Break away
Just when it
Seems so clear
That it’s
Over now
Drink your big black cow
And get out of here

Steely Dan live 2003, Hey nineteen [via drhey19]

Beauty in the music, beauty in the arrangements, even a strange beauty in the limpid intelligence of the lyrics. Why a pair of ‘freeks for perfect’ must stop me dead, first time I heard their sound.

Way back when
In Sixty-seven
I was the dandy
Of Gamma Chi
Sweet things from Boston
So young and willing
Moved down to Scarsdale
Where the hell am I

Hey Nineteen
No we can’t dance together
No we can’t talk at all
Please take me along
When you slide on down

Hey Nineteen
That’s ‘Retha Franklin
She don’t remember
The Queen of Soul
It’s hard times befallen
The sole survivors
She thinks I’m crazy
But I’m just growing old

Hey Nineteen
No we got nothing in common
No we can’t talk at all
Please take me along
When you slide on down

The Cuervo Gold
The fine Colombian
Make tonight a wonderful thing

No we can’t dance together
No we can’t talk at all

One forgives them anything, understand. The irresolvable contradictoriness of their songs and their minds, and their “growing old” even if they seemed born old, too knowing wise even back when they were young. For a perfect beauty one heard, so clear and so sharp.

I’m definitely an odd, though not (yet) a sod. By nature so no use fightin’ it. I like what I like, love what I love. Odd or sod it might be, or simply outside of whatever times I be in.

But we’re all ghosts, I believe, before we are the human being we be. Ghosts so time travelers by nature. Free and easy.

Jefferson Airplane ‘live’ 1970, Wooden Ships [via aurora1957A]

I was a fan of the Airplane not for their songs everyone knows, but for this one. The studio version out of Volunteers has the more beautiful vocalizations but this ‘live in studio’ version captures the centrifugal and centripetal forces loose in a band that was too large, too talented to keep together for long. But was glorious for as long it did.

If you smile at me you know I will understand
Cause that is something everybody everywhere does
In the same language

I can see by your coat my friend that you’re from the other side
There’s just one thing I got to know
Can you tell me please who won

You must try some of my purple berries
I been eating them for six or seven weeks now
Haven’t got sick once
Probably keep us both alive

Wooden ships on the water very free and easy
Easy you know the way it’s supposed to be
Silver people on the shoreline leave us be
Very free and easy

Sail away where the morning sun goes high
Sail away where the wind blows sweet and young birds fly
Take a sister by her hand
Lead her far from this barren land

Horror grips us as we watch you die
All we can do is echo your anguished cry and
Stare as all you human feelings die
We are leaving
You don’t need us

Go and take a sister by her hand
Lead her far from this foreign land
Somewhere where we might laugh again
We are leaving
You don’t need us

Sailing ships on the water very free and easy
Easy you know the way it’s supposed to be
Silver people on the shoreline leave us be
Very free
And gone

NO C’MON
GO RIDE THE MUSIC
C’MON RIDE IT CHILD

Kylie Minogue live 2001, Can’t Get You Out Of My Head [via OzianBoy]

To break it down, why I picked this version: it’s the gentleness behind that propelling bass beat, the sweetness and lilt of that wordless chorus of ‘La la la’, the stretching and reaching in ‘Won’t you stay’ and ‘Set me free’.

La la la
La la la la la
La la la
La la la la la

I just can’t get you out of my head
Boy your loving is all I think about
I just can’t get you out of my head
Boy it’s more than I dare to think about

La la la
La la la la la

I just can’t get you out of my head
Boy your loving is all I think about
I just can’t get you out of my head
Boy it’s more than I dare to think about

Every night
Every day
Just to be there in your arms

Won’t you stay
Won’t you lay
Stay forever and ever and ever and ever

La la la
La la la la la
La la la
La la la la la

I just can’t get you out of my head
Boy your loving is all I think about
I just can’t get you out of my head
Boy it’s more than I dare to think about

There’s a dark secret in me
Don’t leave me locked in your heart

Set me free
Feel the need in me
Set me free
Stay forever and ever and ever and ever

La la la
La la la la la
La la la
La la la la la

I just can’t get you out of my head
I just can’t get you out of my head
I just can’t get you out of my head…

Lifting as infatuation itself.

The Who live 1970, Naked Eye [via BritIronRebel]

The first album I bought by The Who was Odds & Sods. I was that kind of fan, they were that kind of band. This song as much their anthem as any other song Pete ever wrote, to that wild flail of an ending.

Take a little dope
And walk out in the air
The stars are all connected to the brain.
Find me a woman and lay down on the ground,
Her pleasure comes falling down like rain,
Get myself a car, I feel power as I fly,
Oh now I’m really in control,
It all looks fine to the naked eye,
But it don’t really happen that way at all,
Don’t happen that way at all.

You sign your own name and I sign mine,
They’re both the same but we still get separate rooms,
You can cover up your guts but when you cover up your nuts,
You’re admitting that there must be something wrong,
Press any button and milk and honey flows,
The world begins behind your neighbor’s wall,
It all looks fine to the naked eye,
But it don’t really happen that way at all,
Nah nah no, don’t happen that way at all.

You hold the gun and I hold the wound,
And we stand looking in each other’s eyes,
Both think we know what’s right,
Both know we know what’s wrong,
We tell ourselves so many many many lies,
We’re not pawns in any game, we’re not tools of bigger men,
There’s only one who can really move us all,
It all looks fine to the naked eye,
But it don’t really happen that way at all.

They were never pretty, never bothered much with light shows or costumes. Roger stomped more than danced, Pete windmilled. Keith was Keith, John ever the quiet rock of their sound. Uncertain and raw as any teenager, with a same defiant force and will to life.

Coldplay live 2003, Clocks [via fernandofru]

“A short piano hook,” as someone commented, what seem incomplete lyrics. And not even Chris knowing what any of this song means. Yet one must react, feel a lifting, a reaching for something undescribable but real from its urgency.

Lights go out and I can’t be saved
Tides that I tried to swim against
You’ve put me down upon my knees
Oh I beg, I beg and plead (singing)
Come out of things unsaid, and shoot an apple off my head
(With a) trouble that can’t be named, a tiger’s waiting to be tamed (singing)
You are, you are

Confusion never stops, closing walls and ticking clocks
(Gonna) come back and take you home,
I could not stop that you now know
(So I) come out upon my seas, curse missed opportunities
(Am I) a part of the cure, or am I part of the disease

You are
You are
You are
You are
You are
You are
And nothing else compares
Oh no nothing else compares
Oh and nothing else compares

You are
Home, home, where I wanted to go (I went)
Home, home, where I wanted to go (I went)
Home, home, where I wanted to go (I went)
Home, home, where I wanted to go

I may be the Rolling Stones’ strangest fan. Because while they were exploding out their music and their ever larger fame, from Exile to It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll, I was rooting through racks for their older music, even misses like Satanic Majesties Request.

And for one simple reason: Brian Jones, though he was already dead.

It was said he could pick up any instrument, from anywhere in the world, and in twenty minutes get music out of it. And one could hear that out of every instrument he did pick up and play, while he could.

An object lesson, a misadventured life, a mystery that ends abruptly at the bottom of his pool. One could say any of that or simply, like Brian Wilson was the musical heart of the Beach Boys, this Brian was the musical heart of the Stones. And, rest in peace if you can.

Rolling Stones live 1964, It’s all over now [via fritz51139]

If one asks, if Brian was the heart, what kind of heart? Rebellious, anarchic and nihilist as a mad poet’s. Sophisticated and rough.

Well, baby used to stay out all night long
She made me cry, she done me wrong
She hurt my eyes open, that’s no lie
Tables turn and now her turn to cry

Because I used to love her, but it’s all over now
Because I used to love her, but it’s all over now

Well, she used to run around with every man in town
She spent all my money, playing her high class game
She put me out, it was a pity how I cried
Tables turn and now her turn to cry

Because I used to love her, but it’s all over now
Because I used to love her, but it’s all over now

Well, I used to walk in the morning, get my breakfast in bed
When I’d gotten worried she’d ease my aching head
But now she’s here and there, with every man in town
Still trying to take me for that same old clown

Because I used to love her, but it’s all over now
Because I used to love her, but it’s all over now

Because I used to love her, but it’s all over now
Because I used to love her, but it’s all over now

Which, strangely enough, is exactly what a bunch of English boys needed to play the blues to English girls and boys.

Rolling Stones live 1966, Paint it black [via drunklikeme]

Beatles or Stones as an eternal argument, with who one picks saying something about one. For me it was simple, even then: did I like rock ‘n’ roll or blues? Blues, with the grit and sad, jump to falling again, that only the blues can bring to one.

I see a red door and I want it painted black
No colors anymore I want them to turn black
I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes

I see a line of cars and they’re all painted black
With flowers and my love, both never to come back
I see people turn their heads and quickly look away
Like a newborn baby it just happens ev’ryday

I look inside myself and see my heart is black
I see my red door and it has been painted black
Maybe then I’ll fade away and not have to face the facts
It’s not easy facing up when your whole world is black

No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue
I could not foresee this thing happening to you
If I look hard enough into the setting sun
My love will laugh with me before the morning comes

I see a red door and I want it painted black
No colors anymore I want them to turn black
I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes

Hmm, hmm, hmm…

I wanna see it painted black, painted black
Black as night, black as coal
I wanna see the sun, blotted out from the sky
I wanna see it painted, painted, painted, painted black
Yeah

Hmm, hmm, hmm…

This song that must decide it for me, strange melding that it is of English poesy and blues, and what is that to produce that propelling drone and swirling, a “sitar”? A feeling I was looking for like a place to be, found here. Whatever it says about me.

Rolling Stones live 1968, Sympathy for the devil [via lenchik1]

Vinyl as time machine, with one already knowing the arc. Such as this being Brian’s last show live, and barely hanging on at that. Such as the Stones and their sound, like Keith’s open tuning on lead guitar, already evolving past him.

Please allow me to introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste
I’ve been around for a long long year stolen many a man’s soul and faith
I was around when Jesus Christ had His moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate washed his hands and sealed His fate
Pleased to meet you hope you guess my name
But what’s puzzling you is the nature of my game

Stuck around St. Petersburg when I saw it was a time for a change
Killed the Czar and his ministers, Anastasia screamed in vain
I rode a tank held a general’s rank when the blitzkrieg
raged and the bodies stank
Pleased to meet you hope you guess my name. Oh yeah
Ah what’s puzzling you is the nature of my game. Oh yeah

I watched with glee while your kings and queens fought for
ten decades for the Gods they made
I shouted out “Who killed the Kennedy’s?” when after all
it was you and me
Let me please introduce myself I’m a man of wealth and taste
And I lay traps for troubadours who get killed before they reach Bombay
Pleased to meet you hope you guess my name. Oh yeah
But what’s puzzling you is the nature of my game. Oh yeah
Pleased to meet you hope you guess my name
But what’s puzzling you is the nature of my game

Just as every cop is a criminal and all the sinners, Saints
as heads is tails, just call me Lucifer ’cause I’m in need
of some restraint
So if you meet me, have some courtesy have some sympathy
and some taste
Use all your well learned politesse or I’ll lay your soul to waste
Pleased to meet you hope you guess my name
But what’s puzzling you is the nature of my game

Rolling Stones live 1972, Love in Vain [via serralheiro]

But dead is dead, final. While one must reconcile oneself to what survives instead. With the blues, immortal shape shifter this music be, as joining thread. In place of Brian, another Mick, even if the transplant never quite took. And a down-and-out blues from Robert Johnson, soul seller at a crossroads.

Well, I followed her to the station with a suitcase in my hand
Yeah, I followed her to the station with a suitcase in my hand
Well, it’s hard to tell, it’s hard to tell, but all true love’s in vain
When the train come in the station I looked her in the eye
Well, the train come in the station I looked her in the eye
Well, I felt so sad and lonesome that I could not help but cry
When the train left the station, it had two lights on behind
Yeah, the train left the station, it had two lights on behind
Well, the blue light was my baby and the red light was my mind
All my love’s in vain
All, all my love’s in vain

]]> http://petermorales.wordpress.com/2009/02/07/stones-in-my-shoe/feed/ 0 peter jan http://petermorales.wordpress.com/2009/01/12/vulnerable/ http://petermorales.wordpress.com/2009/01/12/vulnerable/#comments Tue, 13 Jan 2009 04:05:01 +0000 Peter Jan Morales http://petermorales.wordpress.com/?p=482 ]]>

Bob Dylan was a trickster, what I always believed. American like a tall story is American, as concrete and abstract as the dream. Until I saw and heard him live in ‘75, and must expand my mind.

The lyrics of his songs were as slippery and wild as his singing pitch. Allusive, and one must think, deliberately confusing the rest of us. As if to jam one’s own sense of them, so they meant whatever Bob wanted them to mean.

Until he was in front of me, with the Rolling Thunder Revue behind. Still allusive, elusive, illusive in white face. But in his eyes, that unique trickster voice, something different, not seen nor heard before. Not ‘65 but ten years after, dream gone like his youth. And to replace that singular incandescence, only the shadows cast on one by loss.

He had the Revue. Though it could be said the Revue had him. He was the leader still, clear in Hard Rain. But I looked for ‘the look’, that withering back glance he had that put a musician, any musician, back in place, and it wasn’t there. Not that anyone could put that caravan of rebel musicians back into any place they weren’t going to already.

Bob Dylan & Rolling Thunder Revue, One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below) [via 5thdayofMay]

It was a unique, uniquely evanescent sound, Bob and the Revue. Not heard before, not to be heard since. A melding and arranging (barely) of loosed rebel musical genius, like a meandering speeding train that is only just in control. Until that train slowed, when nothing but a true, melancholy musical beauty emerged.

Your breath is sweet
Your eyes are like two jewels in the sky
Your back is straight your hair is smooth
On the pillow where you lie
But I don’t sense affection
No gratitude or love
Your loyalty is not to me
But to the stars above

One more cup of coffee for the road
One more cup of coffee ‘fore I go.
To the valley below.

Your daddy he’s an outlaw
And a wanderer by trade
He’ll teach you how to pick and choose
And how to throw the blade
He oversees his kingdom
So no stranger does intrude
His voice it trembles as he calls out
For another plate of food.

One more cup of coffee for the road
One more cup of coffee ‘fore I go.
To the valley below.

Your sister sees the future
Like your mama and yourself
You’ve never learned to read or write
There’s no books upon your shelf
And your pleasure knows no limits
Your voice is like a meadowlark
But your heart is like an ocean
Mysterious and dark.

One more cup of coffee for the road
One more cup of coffee ‘fore I go.
To the valley below.

One word I must reach for to name what I saw and heard then and never before. Bob Dylan, the magical trickster, was vulnerable, mortal and real. And as his one act, reaching to the rest of us.

One cannot capture, not even experience an explosion in whole. It happens too fast, and moving in all the directions one knows and even some, one didn’t know. Like the connections forming through one’s brain that will be one’s memory of it: not under one’s conscious control. Not all of it, not even most of it.

Which is to say, one remembers more than one know. But only what one snatched out of that blast wave.

Time machine: one’s memory is a time machine, and flashback is the transport. Though it be only the snatches one holds of what one passed through. And though one need the keys to unspool what one remembers without knowing: one needs the songs.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Hey hey, my my (Into the black) [via CSNYmusic]

‘79 I remember as I remember Karen Black in a strange Canadian film called The Pyx. A thriller about a devil’s cult which sacrifices humans, and Karen is a junkie call girl that unknowingly hires out for that sacrifice. One scene where she has to strip in front of the proper, severe old man that is hiring her, let him scan her while an instinctual terrifying passes along the naked length of her, across her face.

The world was changing, hardening like that old man’s ownership of her once her high fee had been accepted too quickly. Like Karen, one sensed there would be human sacrifices.

Hey hey, my my
Rock and roll can never die
There’s more to the picture
Than meets the eye.
Hey hey, my my.

Out of the blue
and into the black
You pay for this,
but they give you that
And once you’re gone,
you can’t come back
When you’re out of the blue
and into the black.

The king is gone
but he’s not forgotten
Is this the story
of Johnny Rotten?
It’s better to burn out
’cause rust never sleeps
The king is gone
but he’s not forgotten.

Hey hey, my my
Rock and roll can never die
There’s more to the picture
Than meets the eye.

Dire Straits, Sultans of Swing [via dookofoils]

‘78 the guitars strummed a little tighter, the beats closed in. One’s escape was inside the roll of that thrum, the grace note sounded in passing. The best team money could buy had won the World Series, as if on cue from lucky 7 going to hard 8. While one tried to hang in, hang on.

You get a shiver in the dark
It’s been raining in the park but meantime
South of the river you stop and you hold everything
A band is blowing Dixie double four time
You feel all right when you hear that music ring
You step inside but you don’t see too many faces
Coming in out of the rain to hear the jazz go down
Competition in all the places
All but the horns keep blowing that sound
Way on downsouth, way on downsouth London town
You check out Guitar George he knows all the chords
Mind he’s strictly rhythm he doesn’t want to make it cry or sing
And an old guitar is all he can afford
When he gets up under the lights to play his thing
And Harry doesn’t mind if he doesn’t make the scene
He’s got a daytime job he’s doing alright
He can play the Honky Tonk like anything
Saving it up for Friday night
With the Sultans, with the Sultans of Swing
And a crowd of young boys they’re fooling around in the corner
Drunk and dressed in their best brown baggies and their platform soles
They don’t give a damn about any trumpet playing band
It ain’t what they call Rock ‘n’ Roll
And the Sultans, yeah the Sultans played Creole
And then the man he steps right up to the microphone
And says at last just as the time bell rings
“Goodnight now it’s time to go home”
and he makes it fast with one more thing
“We are the Sultans, we are the Sultans of Swing”

Steely Dan, FM [via djthalie]

‘77 was a bye year, is the best I can put it. Must be from that double lucky 7: though the winter was very cold, what I remember is green, and a clear yellow sun shining down on one.

Worry the bottle Mamma, it’s grapefruit wine
Kick off your high heel sneakers, it’s party time
The girls don’t seem to care what’s on
As long as it plays till dawn
Nothin’ but blues and Elvis
And somebody else’s favorite song

Give her some funked up music, she treats you nice
Feed her some hungry reggae, she’ll love you twice
The girls don’t seem to care tonight
As long as the mood is right

FM – no static at all

Give her some funked up music she treats you nice
Feed her some hungry reggae she’ll love you twice
The girls don’t seem to care tonight
As long as the mood is right

FM – no static at all

One knew these guys were freaks. Fagen and Becker, pursuing the perfect note, every note. Even if it took 400 takes, or burnt out the best session musicians of their generation, and more than one sound engineer. One had to be careful who one told, that one liked what they wrought. Too perfect, understand.

The paradox of that relatively peaceful bye year: one already sensed how all had fissured and divided into too many tribes.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Born to Run [via bruchee]

‘76 was a bicentennial. As if one could forget that, living next door to a celebrating elephant. But the strangest bicent, an elephant could have only two years after the summer “I’m not a crook” was about to be impeached so quit instead. And only a year after helicopters on an embassy rooftop, helicopters thrown over the side because aircraft carrier turned parking lot was full: Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, 3 defeats for the cost of one. Elephant on ‘ludes, best put, party and forget and party. While this guy tearing out his larynx with his soul, and this band, were already inescapable. One didn’t mind, though. Like a straight shot of oxygen to the brain, this went in, like something one needed.

In the day we sweat it out in the streets of a runaway American dream
At night we ride through mansions of glory in suicide machines
Sprung from cages out on highway 9,
Chrome wheeled, fuel injected
and steppin’ out over the line
Baby this town rips the bones from your back
It’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap
We gotta get out while we’re young
‘Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run

Wendy let me in I wanna be your friend
I want to guard your dreams and visions
Just wrap your legs ’round these velvet rims
and strap your hands across my engines
Together we could break this trap
We’ll run till we drop, baby we’ll never go back
Will you walk with me out on the wire
‘Cause baby I’m just a scared and lonely rider
But I gotta find out how it feels
I want to know if love is wild
girl I want to know if love is real

Beyond the Palace hemi-powered drones scream down the boulevard
The girls comb their hair in rearview mirrors
And the boys try to look so hard
The amusement park rises bold and stark
Kids are huddled on the beach in a mist
I wanna die with you Wendy on the streets tonight
In an everlasting kiss

The highway’s jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive
Everybody’s out on the run tonight
but there’s no place left to hide
Together Wendy we’ll live with the sadness
I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul
Someday girl I don’t know when
we’re gonna get to that place
Where we really want to go
and we’ll walk in the sun
But till then tramps like us
baby we were born to run

Bob Dylan & Rolling Thunder Revue, A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall [via sandypepe]

I missed a great many great shows through the 70s. But not this one: Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue touring the Northeast in ‘75. And I got to see it the old-fashioned way, by standing in line out in bitter cold, for all of a long night. I remember how we pressed past the doors as soon as they were opening: as much for the warmth inside as for the tickets we were after.

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains,
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways,
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests,
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans,
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard,
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard,
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it,
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’,
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’,
I saw a white ladder all covered with water,
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken,
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children,
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard,
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’,
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world,
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’,
Heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’,
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’,
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter,
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley,
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard,
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony,
I met a white man who walked a black dog,
I met a young woman whose body was burning,
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow,
I met one man who was wounded in love,
I met another man who was wounded with hatred,
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard,
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

Oh, what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what’ll you do now, my darling young one?
I’m a-goin’ back out ‘fore the rain starts a-fallin’,
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest,
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden,
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten,
Where black is the color, where none is the number,
And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it,
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’,
But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’,
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard,
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

Like a Lazarus, understand, Dylan in ‘75. Re-energized, re-awakened as if from a too premature sleep, singing as if the songs mattered once more. And the sound out of that band was like a loud rolling thunder, playing the songs, old and new, from this one to Hurricane. With the encore as signature tune for this show, this tour, this moment in Dylan’s, our own lives: Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door.

A clip won’t do, understand. One simply had to be there.

Genesis, Dancing With the Moonlit Knight [via Magog64]

I came to Genesis late, and because of love. A beautiful girl I knew liked their music. So for ever I must associate the two: her face, blond hair, who she was, with the subtle, languid beauty of this song.

“Can you tell me where my country lies ?”
Said the unifaun to his true love’s eyes
“It lies with me !”, cried the Queen of Maybe
- For her merchandise, he traded in his prize

“Paper late !”, cried a voice in the crowd
“Old man dies !” The note he left was signed
“Old Father Thames” – it seems he’s drowned
Selling England by the pound
Citizens of Hope & Glory
Time goes by – it’s “the time of your life”

Easy now, sit you down
Chewing through your Wimpy dreams
They eat without a sound
Digesting England by the pound

Young man says “you are what you eat” – eat well
Old man says “you are what you wear” – wear well
You know what you are, you don’t give a damn
Bursting your belt that is your homemade sham

The Captain leads his dance right on through the night
- Join the dance …
Follow on ! Till the Grail sun sets in the mould
Follow on ! Till the gold is cold
Dancing out with the moonlit knight
Knights of the Green Shield stamp and shout
There’s a fat old lady outside the saloon
Laying out the credit cards she plays Fortune
The deck is uneven right from the start
And all of their hands are playing a part

Captain leads his dance right on through the night
- Join the dance …
Follow on ! A Round Table-talking down we go
You’re the show !
Off we go with: You play the hobbyhorse
I’ll play the fool
We’ll tease the bull
Ringing round & loud, loud & round
Follow on ! With a twist of the world we go
Follow on ! Till the gold is cold
Dancing out with the moonlit knight
Knights of the Green Shield stamp and shout

‘74 was cataclysmic, understand. A president toppled, wars being lost, lineups for gasoline, stagflation, bankruptcies, profits and jobs disappearing down the same black hole. One needed the escape of beauty in music and love.

Rolling Stones, Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker) [via JBraden]

The Rolling Stones with and without Mick Taylor: one got to hear both sides of that through the 70s. Though it seems obvious in retrospect: better, much better with than without that singular talent. And in ‘73 it was still with that fluid fresh energy, the slashing, cascading guitar lines that this Mick added to their sound.

The police in New York City
They chased a boy right through the park
And in a case of mistaken identity
They put a bullet through his heart

Heartbreaker with your forty four
I wanna tear your world apart
You heartbreaker with your forty four
I wanna tear your world apart

A ten year old girl on a street corner
Sticking needles in her arm
She died in the dirt of an alleyway
Her mother said she had no chance, no chance

Heartbreaker, heartbreaker
She stuck the pins right in her heart
Heartbreaker, pain maker
Stole the love right out of your heart

Heartbreaker, heartbreaker
You stole the love right out of my heart
Heartbreaker, heartbreaker
I wanna tear your world apart

Doo doo, doo doo doo doo doo doo,…

And why it mattered, why one needed to hear that added edginess and wild: because the times were wild. Rebellions, the center not holding, all certainties and crafted illusions about the world being torn apart.

Al Green, Let’s Stay Together [via richradtylr2]

Soul music, is my belief, the music of souls, rises up when it is most needed. For the salve it offers, a space to breathe.

I, I’m so in love with you
Whatever you want to do
Is all right with me
‘Cause you make me feel so brand new
And I want to spend my life with you

Since, since we’ve been together
Loving you forever
Is what I need
Let me be the one you come running to
I’ll never be untrue

Let’s, let’s stay together
Lovin’ you whether, whether
Times are good or bad, happy or sad

Whether times are good or bad, happy or sad

Why, why some people break up
Then turn around and make up
I just can’t see
You’d never do that to me (would you, baby)
Staying around you is all I see
(Here’s what I want us to do)

[Repeat to fade:]
Let’s, we oughta stay together
Loving you whether, whether
Times are good or bad, happy or sad

There was almost too much soul music in the 70s: a measure of the need, in those times of a too painful freedom with boundaries and restrictions dissolved, but with any certainty gone as well. The pure sweetness of this song for salve, in a year of election and defection, reaction and division. Imagine, Lennon had sung. But in ‘72, one could no longer imagine peace and love suffusing the world.

Marvin Gaye, What’s Going On/What’s Happening Brother [via Insightful]

Free, I have said, the time we were most free. And none quicker to take advantage than Marvin, free to compose and arrange as he willed at last in ‘71. With the result being this song, the record of the same name. Monsters of creation, both.

Mother, mother
There’s too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother
There’s far too many of you dying
You know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some lovin’ here today – Yah

Father, father
We don’t need to escalate
You see, war is not the answer
For only love can conquer hate
You know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some lovin’ here today

Picket lines and picket signs
Don’t punish me with brutality
Talk to me
So you can see
Oh, what’s going on
What’s going
Ya, what’s going on
Ah, what’s going on

Mother, Mother, everybody thinks we’re wrong
Oh, but who are they to judge us
Simply because our hair is long
Oh, you know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some understanding here today
Oh

Picket lines and picket signs
Don’t punish me with brutality
Talk to me,
So you can see
Oh, what’s going on
What’s going on
I’ll tell you Ya, what’s going on – Uh
Ah, what’s going on
Right on baby
Right on baby

Artists, I believe, are the receptors and distillers of their time. And Marvin’s soul, sensitive and vulnerable as he was, had the finer antennae, the underlying painfulness that must open it to that larger painfulness of the world. Though, I can’t describe it, it was too large and too wide. I can only let you see it.

The 70s were such an explosion of new art, that even those of us growing up then did not realize until later, just how rich a harvest it was. In film from Dog Day Afternoon to Apocalypse Now with Godfather, Taxi Driver, Nashville in between. And in music too much to count: David Bowie, Traffic, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Led Zeppelin, Credence Clearwater Revival…

Even then we had the then twenty-somethings telling us how much better the 60s had been, what we had missed. When I have learned, it wasn’t true. Let me put it this way: the 60s was the experimentation, the 70s the matured, finished work. Even for the survivors of the 60s like the Stones (Exile on Main Street, 1972), Dylan live with his Rolling Thunder Revue, Floyd without Syd. To put it another way: the 60s was the seeding, the 70s the germination. And every new tendril of art bloomed quickly to a replete flowering, as sudden but complete revelation.

Led Zeppelin, Rock and Roll (Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, John Bonham) [via EverSinceDecember]

Consider it a long version of a short song, with Bron-Yr-Aur and Black Dog as the book-end songs. And because nowhere else is captured so well, what it was to be a rock-n-roll band then. From that crowd’s fervid impatience to the sheer sonic impact of the opening chords, out to the liquid, hectic improvisation from Jimmy’s guitar.

It’s been a long time since I rock and rolled,
It’s been a long time since I did the Stroll.
Ooh, let me get it back, let me get it back,
Let me get it back, baby, where I come from.
It’s been a long time, been a long time,
Been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time. Yes it has.

Seems so long since we walked in the moonlight,
Making vows that just can’t work right.
Open your arms, opens your arms,
Open your arms, baby, let my love come running in.
It’s been a long time, been a long time,
Been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time.

It’s been a long time since the book of love,
I can’t count the tears of a life with no love.
Carry me back, carry me back,
Carry me back, baby, where I come from.
It’s been a long time, been a long time,
Been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time.

Bron-Yr-Aur is the name of a small countryside cottage that Jimmy and Robert retreated to, after an earlier US tour. Why that song to begin: emerging out of that peace, the slack to compose, play one’s instrument as one liked. Back to the dynamic hell of touring.

And why a quick, seamless transition to Black Dog: because they had come to play, they were ready. Like the Stones in ‘69, Led Zeppelin in ‘73: at peak, both willing and able at long last to conquer the US.

Led Zeppelin, Whole Lotta Love (John Bonham, Willie Dixon, John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant) [via EverSince December]

The 3-minute pop song comes from 78s being able to hold about that much music. 3:20 tops, so every recording was timed with a stopwatch, back when the master was cut direct. But it stuck, to this day. Except in the 70s. When every songwriter, at the same time, asked ‘Why?’

Interesting that the result doesn’t fit YouTube. Literally. When Jimmy turns Dazed and Confused into a 22-minute fly by, Whole Lotta Love not much shorter, what’s a guy to do but provide a thin but representative slice. Jimmy, taking it home to the tonic. Closing song.

You can watch the long coda or not. I found it instructive as the rest: Jimmy’s face, sweated and spent as he was but a happy man. And Led Zeppelin was the first band to not only charter their own jet, but paint it in their colors. The 70s were like that: a lot of what you know as facts of life, from trade with China to the Internet, was invented in the 70s. A reason why: because not just songwriters asked ‘Why?’ of any restriction or limitation.

Led Zeppelin, No Quarter (John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant) [via sinabrigo]

The usually forgotten one, John Paul, I said. Except where the foundation of the band’s sound that he was is allowed a showcase song like this one.

Close the door, put out the light.
You know they won’t be home tonight.
The snow falls hard and don’t you know?
The winds of Thor are blowing cold.
They’re wearing steel that’s bright and true
They carry news that must get through.

They choose the path where no-one goes.

They hold no quarter.

Walking side by side with death, The devil mocks their every step
The snow drives back the foot that’s slow, The dogs of doom are howling more
They carry news that must get through, To build a dream for me and you

They choose the path where no-one goes.

They hold no quarter. They ask no quarter.
The pain, the pain without quarter.
They ask no quarter.
The dogs of doom are howling more!

The lyrics are simple, the music is not. Jimmy and his wah-wah, and his other ‘custom’ pedal, being only the half of it. What I watched: John Paul creating a musical space for Jimmy’s guitar and Robert’s voice to roam in, with keyboards and bass pedals. Flawlessly.

Led Zeppelin, Stairway to Heaven (Jimmy Page, Robert Plant) [via aiosilver27]

Since I teased above with half that long sung opening. When the resolution of this song, musical, emotional, spiritual, is that solo. As perfect a catharsis, descent then rise to as free soar and flight, in few other songs besides Layla.

There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold
And she’s buying the stairway to heaven.
When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for.
Ooh, ooh, and she’s buying the stairway to heaven.

There’s a sign on the wall but she wants to be sure
‘Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.
In a tree by the brook, there’s a songbird who sings,
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgivings.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it makes me wonder.

There’s a feeling I get when I look to the west,
And my spirit is crying for leaving.
In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees,
And the voices of those who stand looking.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it really makes me wonder.

And it’s whispered that soon if we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason.
And a new day will dawn for those who stand long
And the forests will echo with laughter.

If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now,
It’s just a spring clean for the May queen.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run
There’s still time to change the road you’re on.
And it makes me wonder.

Your head is humming and it won’t go, in case you don’t know,
The piper’s calling you to join him,
Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow, and did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind.

And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul.
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold.
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last.
When all is one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll.

And she’s buying the stairway to heaven.

Some just don’t get this song. ‘Best song ever? Whaa…?’ Which is to say, I suspect they don’t get others’ reaction to the song. What is being woken…

It is a song of hope, with both the music and the lyrics blending Celtic and Saxon, both rebel peoples, the lilt of one to the storm of the other, with as pure electric blues, born in the bone rebel music itself. And rebellious for what is most dangerous to rebel for, why it is the solo that must balance and resolve this song, its free flight to return as thunder at “When all is one and one is all/To be a rock and not to roll.” What this song is really about, which is about being free.

Understand, in the 70s every ‘power that be’ there was, from multinationals and bankers to governments and armies, took hits. Inflation, stagflation, ‘oil shocks’, deficits and defeats and declines. Revolutions and nationalizations, rebels winning or losing but being rebels still, sensing that weakness.

It was chaos and uncertainty and doubt about every held certainty. It was also remarkably peaceful: airplanes blown up not against buildings but in the middle of a desert, and with passengers and crew all disembarked beforehand. As a gesture instead of a crime against humanity.

There were ‘dirty wars’ with crimes on both sides. Gangsters and terrorists and gangster terrorists and as brute secret police, and the ‘crime rate’ rising. It wasn’t so nice as that, just ask Chile or Northern Ireland. But these were not what those times were about. War was over, or at least didn’t work as planned. While so many ‘dominoes’ fell and the world did not come to its predicted end because Vietnam or Mozambique or Angola went ‘red’. No one knew anything is the point.

What killed the 70s? My vote is Mr. October, homering the damn Yankees to the ‘78 World Series. One could sense it: the empire about to strike back. Punk, screaming about “God save the Queen,/the fascist regime.” Because they could sense it too.

I knew it was a done deal when Reagan claimed “Morning in America”. Getting it exactly backwards. Because the 70s in their explosion of art and invention had been the morning, the 80s the fall back into night.

It’s been 28 years since of “It is glorious to be rich” and “Doesn’t matter if the cat is white or black, so long as it catches mice.” Or more succinctly, “Greed is good.” To bring us to this unique juncture which must remind me because no one knows anything again.

Why that explosion then and of complete, complex works, why the opportunity if we are only brave enough. Because this chaos and uncertainty and doubt about everything must remind me of that last time when we were most free.

Two sides to every story, it is said. But for an immigrant as for anyone who leaves one lover for another, there are three. Who leaves and who is left behind, yes, but as well, who’s there to meet the one that left. And all three must feel the space of absence created whenever the familiar is forsaken for the new.

The phrase comes from Dylan Trigg’s essay on the music of Giya Kancheli, an expatriate Georgian composer, though the phrase (and the idea) recurs in other contexts such as architecture and psychology. It is not an emotion per se; rather it evokes emotions. Because it is a space inside one, an opening to emptiness beneath. Inescapable for the one that left, the one that was left: emptiness in place of the fullness of linkage. But as inescapable for who next knows, loves the one that’s left. Meeting an emptiness to be filled, as the common thought, the immigrant who need only forget, adapt, adjust. When in truth, there is no filling that space of absence.

It is the game of human attachment, to which too few are immune. And it can be attachment to place, culture, language: anything that one remembers as warmth. Though ultimately, it is to other human beings. Whoever knew one, loved one, so must become a piece of one’s self. To be carried by one gone away from them and as a space that marks their absence. A space like that absence, that cannot be filled.

Frank Sinatra, Summer Wind (Henry Mayer/Johnny Mercer) [via mbiza1]

Songs are places, I said elsewhere. But not places that exist, except inside one’s self. And if I am to pick a song that represents the space of absence, it must be this one.

The summer wind, came blowin’ in – from across the sea
It lingered there, to touch your hair – and walked with me
All summer long, we sang a song – and then we strolled, that golden sand
Two sweethearts, and the summer wind

Like painted kites, those days and nights – they went flying by
The world was new, beneath a blue – umbrella sky
Then softer than, a piper man – one day it called to you
I lost you, I lost you to the summer wind

The autumn wind, and the winter winds – they have come and gone
And still the days, those lonely days – they go on and on
And guess who sighs, his lullabies – through nights that never end
My fickle friend, the summer wind – the summer wind,
one summer wind, the summer wind.

It is not just the “majestic sadness” of Frank’s singing, or even how he lingers on the last lyric, stretches it. But how his voice fits the evanescence of the images and emotions in this song.

Katie Melua, Ghost Town (Mike Batt) [via baabaar]

The back story of this song is that Mike wrote it, then Katie changed it to a reggae beat. But the underlying back story, is that this song is one of the last musical collaborations between the two. And I must wonder if the space of absence, inside the one left behind, that this song contains, is not partly Mike’s own. And if so, how he must feel, watching her sing it.

The thing that makes me feel the most down,
Is the feeling that I’m living in a ghost town.
Barn door bangin’ in my face,
Like tumbleweed,
I’m rolling ‘round this place.

I see you arriving at the station,
But it’s only my imagination.
So I’m begging on my knees,
Turn around,
And save me, baby, please.

From this ghost town,
I feel like giving in,
Since you left I’m living in,
This old ghost town.

Hey kid, I remember all the laughter,
Especially when we woke the morning after.
Why did you have to go away,
Leaving me to wander every day.

In this ghost town,
I feel like giving in,
Since you left I’m living in,
This old ghost town.

We were born to ride,
Side by side.
We were always reaching for the stars,
And they can still be ours.

(If you free me from this)

Ghost town,
I feel like giving in,
Since you left I’m living in,
This old ghost town.

I feel like giving in,
Since you left I’m living in,
This old ghost town.

Living in this old ghost town.

The paradox of this song: written by the one being left, sung by the one leaving. Beside the unique genius of the image to indelibly capture the emptiness created by absence. And that reggae beat that only emphasizes the tumbling blues of the song’s lyrics.

Led Zeppelin, Since I’ve Been Loving You (Jimmy Page/Robert Plant/John Paul Jones) [via spitonuall]

The blues are about the space of absence, it might be said. Including (no, specializing in) the space of absence that love betrayed creates. Perhaps why I wore out the vinyl of this song, playing and re-playing it, way back when. Why I have been loving this song since. Songs make places, and blues make complicated places, with the knots, oppositions and contradictions we all truly are. But one can breathe in such places, one can be as one is.

I admit I saw Song Remains the Same 12 times. And I bought the third copy of the soundtrack sold in Montreal. I was a fan. And it was Jimmy I watched, though he seemed inside his own space. And John Paul, the usually forgotten one. Places, being created in front of me, for me to inhabit. Song by song, from my seat. Why, the 12 times.

Working from seven to eleven every night,
It really makes life a drag, I don’t think that’s right.
I’ve really, really been the best of fools, I did what I could.
‘Cause I love you, baby, How I love you, darling, How I love you, baby,
How I love you, girl, little girl.
But baby, Since I’ve Been Loving You. I’m about to lose my worried mind, oh, yeah.

Everybody trying to tell me that you didn’t mean me no good.
I’ve been trying, Lord, let me tell you, Let me tell you I really did the best I could.
I’ve been working from seven to eleven every night, I said It kinda makes my life a drag.
Lord, that ain’t right…
Since I’ve Been Loving You, I’m about to lose my worried mind.

Said I’ve been crying, my tears they fell like rain,
Don’t you hear, Don’t you hear them falling,
Don’t you hear, Don’t you hear them falling.

Do you remember mama, when I knocked upon your door?
I said you had the nerve to tell me you didn’t want me no more, yeah
I open my front door, hear my back door slam,
You must have one of them new fangled back door man.

I’ve been working from seven, seven, seven, to eleven every night, It kinda makes my life a drag…
Baby, Since I’ve Been Loving You, I’m about to lose, I’m about lose to my worried mind.

I change the lyrics of a song to match what is being sung. But on this one, I won’t even try. Like Jimmy solos with his guitar, Robert solos with the lyrics. And at this concert, Madison Square Garden, July 1973, Robert had clear diction which is to tell you, you’re on your own here.

]]> http://petermorales.wordpress.com/2008/12/12/the-space-of-absence/feed/ 0 peter jan http://petermorales.wordpress.com/2008/12/08/immigrant-song/ http://petermorales.wordpress.com/2008/12/08/immigrant-song/#comments Tue, 09 Dec 2008 02:53:10 +0000 Peter Jan Morales http://petermorales.wordpress.com/?p=377 ]]>

It is too late to mourn on separation,
too late for place, song or nation.
Pieces, only pieces I get to load to bear,
of my immigrant song.

I wanted, that step inside heaven,
wanted that clear new as sensation,
as if floating, lightened, weightless,
but it is still sad, it is still true,
my immigrant song.

Oh I can’t bear
this weightless
no more
uprooted, derooted,
still sad and still true
my immigrant song.

I could tell you I have traveled continents and oceans
to find you
but it wouldn’t be true
could tell you I have crossed an ocean of time, too many
years to count
too many days, wakened nights
but it wouldn’t no would not be
true.

Lost you so long back,
you’ve been gone and I’ve been back,
and where I lost you, where I must leave you behind
I knew then I would not, could not, find my way back.