I just bought Dylan’s Bootleg Series Vol. 8 and I must say it was one of those perfect purchases. The music just comes shining through in all its subtle glory. There are many delightful alternate versions of several recent Dylan classics including “Mississippi” and “Most of the Time“. The net effect of this album for me is that it puts me at ease. With the world on fire as it seems to be this not an emotion that is easy to come by. But Dylan delivers and it has been good for my psychological state of mind and my adjustment to the unravelling we are witnessing all around us. At the moment I have a guarded optimism about the future, but also a heavy feeling that it is going to take a lot work to put it all back together.
The end result is that I feel at ease “most of the time”.
Most of the Time
My head is on straight
Most of the Time
I am strong enough not to hate
I got enough faith I got enough strength
I keep it all away way beyond arms length
I can smile in the face of mankind…
Most of the time.
Just watched the trailer for the latest Cohen brothers film “Burn After Reading“. The movie looks pretty funny and I am eager to see what the Cohen brothers do with Brad Pit. But the real story is the kick ass song in the movie trailer. I did a little researching and found out it is a song by a UK band called Elbow. The song is called Grounds for Divorce. It is a catchy, hard hitting little number. The break down into the heavy guitar is truly awesome. Well worth giving a listen. I think it is one of those bands that has been around for awhile, they have a bunch of albums and you ask yourself why haven’t I heard them before? Hopefully, this trailer will get them some notice.
Which gets to my gripe. Why do we have to search for songs in movie trailers? It was fairly easy to research the song by looking up IMDB message boards. But I was kind of zealously interested in the song. It seems to me that when a trailer uses a previously released but relatively obscure pop song it would be good to be more upfront about the music. Why not flash a quick name and band at the end? Song XXXX by Band ZZZZZ, something simple for 2-5 seconds. Catchy little song that grabs the audience? Do the band a favor and put the info out there so that people when watching a trailer can go buy the single right away direct from their iPhones or computers when they get home. Give the band a chance to capitalize on the the impulse buy potential. And if you don’t want to give screen time at the very least put this info up on the website in a prominent place.
I know it will never happen, but just once I want to see Hillary Clinton play Eminem’s “Business” at one of her rally’s just to get these lines put out there:
Quick gotta move fast, gotta perform miracles
Gee willikers Dre, holy bat syllables
Look at all the bullshit that goes on in Gotham
When I’m gone time to get rid of these rap criminals
So, skip to ya lou, while I do what I do best
You ain’t even impressed no more, you used to it
Flows too wet, nobody close to it
Nobody says it was till everyone knows the shit
The most hated on outta all those who say they get hated
On eighties songs
Exaggerate it all so much
They make it all up
If applied to the Clintons and their treatment by the media, truer words have never been spoken. And the more they hate on her the more and more I think she is right for the presidency.
Every so often someone comes along and just spits the truth and it is beautiful.
They gotta war for oil, a war for gold
A war for money and a war for souls
A war on terror, a war on drugs
A war on kindness and a war on hugs
A war on birds and a war on bees
They gotta a war on hippies tryin’ save the trees
A war with jets and a war with missiles
A war with high seated, government official
Wall street war, on high finance
A war on people who just love to dance
A war on music, a war on speech
A war on teachers and the things they teach
A war for the last 500 years
War’s just messin’ up the atmosphere
A war on Muslims, a war on Jews
A war on Christians and Hindus
A whole lotta people just sayin’ kill them all
They gotta a war on Mumia Abu Jamal
The war on pot, is a war that’s failed
A war that’s fillin’ up the nations jails
World war one, two, three and four
Chemical weapons, biological war
Bush war 1, Bush war 2
They gotta a war for me, they gotta a war for you!
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Give me your hungry, your tired your poor I’ll piss on em
Thats what the statue of bigotry says
Your poor huddled masses, lets club em to death
And get it over with and just dump em on the boulevard
The world seems awash in poker metaphors these days. These are interesting, often trite, but meaningful nonetheless. I don’t have much to add to the discussion but it is a topic that has consumed me for awhile. The sheer poetry of poker is a fundamental theme in American culture. The song that best captures it for me is “Loser” by the Grateful Dead.
All that I am asking for is ten gold dollars,
and I could pay you back with one good hand.
You can look around about the wide world over,
and you’ll never find another honest man.
This line sums it up for me. The promise of the next moment. The turn of the card. The eternal optimism of the loser. Whatever the consequences, this seems like the most correct way to live life and it is quintessential to the spirit of americana. Or maybe that is just a silly romantic notion I just can’t shirk. But when you have been down so long you only have upwards to look. And what can be better for the soul than a spirit of renewal and rebirth, an opportunity to start over, and fix things anew? That is how I feel about this upcoming political season. Frankly the Bush presidency doesn’t have me down anymore. I know that 2008 will bring a turn of the cards, and all it takes is one good hand and this country will be back on track.
Others have criticized Bush and compared his actions to a desperate gambler. Kos blog makes pretty compelling poker analogy about the Republicans and the war. But I don’t think this is giving enough credit to gamblers. These metaphors while seemingly apt, are a little too pretentious to me. Bush certainly is a degenerate gambler, but I don’t think he encapuslates the more positive aspects of the game. And it is a shame to draw the analogy. Bush and the behavior of his cronies strike me more as assuming the characteristics of card sharps, the deck is stacked and they behave with such arrogance because they truly know the next card in the deck. The people are being taken for a ride because they are operating under the assumption of a fair deal. There is another side to it. The election cycle represents a reshuffle of the cards and a reinvigorated determination on the part of the American public.
Don’t you push me baby
because I’m moaning low
I know a little something
you won’t ever know
Don’t you touch hard liquor just
a cup of cold coffee
Gonna get up
in the morning and go
And that is it isn’t it? “I know a little something you won’t ever know…” Only experience can reap positive benefits. There is a moment of truth in this experience. An appreciation of the randomness of life. A reassertion of positive determination. No liquor and distraction for me, just some cold coffee and I am going to refocus my efforts and get up and go.
This is americana and this is what makes this country great. It is not the cynicism, the cheats, and the desperation. It is the people who look at things with a clear head, redouble their efforts and work positively towards a new, brighter future. There is a little gamble in everything because the future is unknown. But there is something positively constructive about this American optimism.
I can tell the Queen of Diamonds by the way she shines
Come to Daddy on an inside straight
I got no chance of losing this time
Ok enough rambling on my part. I will leave you with an early performance of Loser by the Dead.
Far and away my favorite Bob Dylan song of all time is Shelter From the Storm. However, I have only been keen on the Blood on the Tracks album version. I have not heard many versions that capture the emotional intensity of the album version. And quite frankly they have always felt quite flat and lacking. However I stumbled across a live recording from 1976 on youtube that lives up to the full expectations of the song. It is certainly different than the album and does not reproduce the mood of the album but it delivers the song in a stunning and dynamic way that redefines the meaning of the song for me. Hope you enjoy.
And by the way, what is with those hats? Crazy hippies. But they are cool in a way that only 70’s Dylan could make cool.
Listening to the third movement of Gustav Mahler’s first symphony. I can’t really explain why but the music just makes me want to be alive in the 19th century. There is a mood to the music that makes me think of an atmosphere, pace, time and space that is quintessentially 19th century. It is an atmosphere I wouldn’t mind inhabiting far away from modern conveniences.
However I recognize the impossiblity of recapturing this atmosphere and abandoning the modern conveniences. Even though the music was composed in the 19th century the atmosphere it creates is not necessarily of that time. My experience of the music is mediated by modern conveniences. I am able to call up the digital replication of the music and listen to it over and over as I like. Psychologically invoking the mood and atmosphere with each listen. This is an experience not possible in the 19th century. Even the most ardent symphony buffs in the 19th century probably were only able to hear Mahler’s symphony a few times in their lifetime. And moreover, this experience would have been mediated through a great concert hall and live performance. In other words, in the 19th century listening to Mahler would have been an “event” not a mere casual experience in the middle of the night when one is prone to specific moods and atmospheric modalities.
So in essence I am alive in the music today. The atmosphere is present in my phenomenological experience of my headphones. There is no 19th century, there is no past, only a trace of it and my experience of the here and now. The next song in my playlist is a song by Johnny Cash. Now that is an experience that nobody in the 19th century has ever been able to experience, concert hall or no concert hall.
I have been listening to Tom Waits’ latest effort “Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, & Bastards”. Far and away my favorite track is The Long Way Home. Norah Jones covered this song on her second album but Tom Waits’ version is much, much, more haunting and sadly beautiful. My favorite line of all time is in this song:
Got a head full of lightning
A hat full of rain
What a succint way to sum up existence and individual experience. Running and bumping around full of ideas but rarely the time, means, or opportunity to actualize our dreams. The droning pace of existence can be unbearable at times for the inspired and excited. So many ways in which our mind is telling us yes (the lightning) and so many times reality and the world puts up roadblocks of no (the rain).
If I seem scattered, uncertain, manic or depressed its all because I have a head full of lightning and a hat full of rain.
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