I’ve got a cupboard with cans of food,
filtered water, and pictures of you
and I’m not coming out until this is all over.
And I’m looking through the glass
where the light bends at the cracks
and I’m screaming at the top of my lungs,
pretending the echoes belong to someone,
someone I used to know.
And we become silhouettes when our bodies finally go.
I wanted to walk through the empty streets
and feel something constant under my feet,
but all the news reports recommended that I stay indoors,
because the air outside will make
our cells divide at an alarming rate
until our shells simply cannot hold
all our insides in
and that’s when we’ll explode
(and it won’t be a pretty sight).
And we’ll become silhouettes when our bodies finally go.
Grey skies and light fading,
headlamps making patterns on the wall.
Uptown it’s dead now
but out here no one seems to care at all.
Slick girls and sick boys and each one lining up to take it home.
They hold tight their coin and
they pray no one has to see them fall.
I’m there, yeah, I serve them,
the one with the empty looking eyes.
Come closer, you’ll see me:
the face that is used to telling lies.
Saturday nights in neon lights,
Sunday in the cell.
Pills enough to make me feel ill,
cash enough to make me well.
Take me, take me to the riot!
You sprung me, I’m grateful.
I love when you tell me not to speak.
I owe you but I know you,
you’ll have me back but it’s gonna take a week.
What now kid? Which way love?
Will we ever make up and be friends?
Good news is my shoes is
lined with all my nickels and my tens.
Let’s do them! Just feed me;
I hate when I have to get to sleep.
You despise me and I love you.
It’s not much but it’s just enough to keep.
Saturday nights in neon lights,
Sunday in the cell.
Pills enough to make me feel ill,
cash enough to make me well.
Take me, take me to the riot,
and let me stay!
We are two mariners,
our ships’ sole survivors
in this belly of a whale;
it’s ribs are ceiling beams,
it’s guts are carpeting.
I guess we have some time to kill.
You may not remember me.
I was a child of three
and you a lad of eighteen.
But I remember you
and I will relate to you
how our histories interweave.
At the time you were
a rake and a roustabout,
spending all your money
on the whores and hounds.
You had a charming air,
all cheap and debonair
my widowed mother found so sweet.
And so she took you in,
her sheets still warm with him–
now filled with filth and foul disease.
As time wore on you proved
a debt-ridden drunken mess,
leaving my mother
a poor consumptive wretch.
And then you disappeared,
your gambling arrears
the only thing you left behind—
and then the magistrate
reclaimed our small estate
and my poor mother lost her mind.
Then one day, in spring
my dear sweet mother died.
But before she did
I took her hand as she, dying, cried:
“Find him, bind him,
tie him to a pole and break
his fingers to splinters,
drag him to a hole until he
wakes up naked
clawing at the ceiling
of his grave.”
It took me fifteen years
to swallow all my tears
among the urchins in the street
until a priory
took pity and hired me
to keep their vestry nice and neat.
But never once in the employ
of these holy men
did I ever once turn my mind
from the thought of revenge.
One night I overheard
the prior exchanging words
with a penitent whaler from the sea.
The captain of his ship
who matched you toe to tip
was known for a wanton cruelty.
The following day
I shipped to sea
with a privateer
and in the whistle
of the wind
I could almost hear…
“Find him, bind him
tie him to a pole and break
his fingers to splinters
drag him to a hole until he
wakes up naked
clawing at the ceiling
of his grave.
There is one thing I must say to you
as you sail across the sea:
always, your mother will watch over you
as you avenge this wicked deed.”
And then that fateful night
we had you in our sight
after twenty months at sea.
Your starboard flank abeam;
I was getting my muskets clean
when came this rumbling from beneath.
The ocean shook,
the sky went black,
and the captain quailed,
and before us grew
the angry jaws
of a giant whale.
Don’t know how I survived.
The crew all was chewed alive.
I must have slipped between his teeth.
But, oh! What providence!
What divine intelligence!
That you should survive
as well as me.
It gives my heart
great joy
to see your eyes fill with fear,
so lean in close
and I will whisper
the last words you’ll hear.
Crows pitch on the lawn, screeching a song.
The inmates wake up and they’re pulled to the bars
to pine their regrets and their rusting corvettes
and the tragedy they once had a part in.
They said “You ruined our lives. You pissed on our prize.”
It’s still pulling your knuckles to your palm.
(fucking conscience, you’re siding with the wrong side)
You know the devil’s not deep–no, no, he’s brushing your cheek,
and hearing him breathe you remember a song:
just another angel through the clouds and into the ground
just another pilot through the clouds and into the ground
just another child through the chrome sets out on his own
Birds shit on your car, you’re scraping it off.
Do they know who you are? Don’t they know who you are?!
They sing “You ruined our lives You pissed on our pride.”
Still pulling your knuckles to your tie.
You carry on, hunched over your job.
(start the engines i’m dying in the long line)
But you wanna get off and run away from it all…
You plan your escape, at the end of the day, you plan your escape
you take what you saved, and you get on a plane, yeah you take what you saved
and you start fading away, as you’re turning the page, you start fading away
(just another angel through the clouds and into the ground
just another pilot flying down
just another devil out of the dirt and back into the earth)
(fucking conscience, you’re siding with the wrong side start the engines, i’m dying in the long line)
I know the text on the screen says “Battles On”, but I swear, that’s the name of the album. The song is “Was a Universe” by the superb band The Ghost is Dancing:
You can get lost on the way to my house,
drifting through the mazes and the avenues.
Double-Gulp… put it down.
Find a place in the park and pretend it’s ours.
I think I’m ready for the country now;
all of this dreaming of a bigger downtown,
it`s got me doubting the life I’m living,
like my life was a universe.
And oh, every meter is a mile.
And oh, every second a goddamn while.
And oh, while I’m sleeping don’t grow old.
I say, while I’m dreaming don’t grow old.
Falling from the top floor,
your lungs fill like parachutes,
windows go rushing by;
people inside
dressed for the funeral
in black and white.
These ties strangle our necks,
hanging in the closet,
found in the cubicle;
without a name, just numbers
on the resume stored in the mainframe,
marked for delete.
Please take these hands,
throw them in the river!
Wash away the things they never held!
Please take these hands,
throw me in the river!
Dont let me drown before the workday ends.
9 to 5! 9 to 5!
And we’re up to our necks,
drowning in the seconds,
ingesting the morning commute
(lost in a dead subway sleep).
Now we lie wide awake in our parents beds,
tossing and turning.
Tomorrow we’ll get up,
drive to work
single file
with everyday—
it’s like the last.
Waiting for the life to start,
is it always just always ahead of the curve?
Just keep making copies
of copies
of copies!
When will it end?
(it’ll never end,
until it gets so bad
that the ink fills in our fingerprints
and the silouhette of your own face becomes the black cloud of war
and even in our dreams we’re so afraid the weight will offset who we are;
all those breaths that you took have now been canceled in your lungs.
last night my teeth fell out like ivory typewriter keys
and all the monuments and skyscrapers burned down and filled the sea)
Save our ship!
The anchor is part of the desk.
We can’t cut free.
The water is flooding the decks,
the memos sent through the currents,
computers spark like flares.
I can see them,
they don’t touch me,
touch me.
There’s a nice tempo change for those with patience. Read the lyrics. So good.
Go to the shore and pray for the sea.
Go towards the mirror and pray that you’ll see
someone else.
Downtown–
go downtown.
Go to the waves of grain in the center of the state.
Go away.
Go to a parking lot, sit on the ground, and cry.
You’ll never know why.
Start over.
Go to the ocean on a ship.
Wave goodbye to the waves and the frozen shit
that was in your heart.
So long.
Time slows when it goes away.
Go away.
Time Slows.
So long.
Paint a picture using only grey.
Light your pillow. Lay back. Watch the flames.
I’d tell a story but no one would listen that long.
It’s hard to imagine.
Tear into yourself, count days on your arm.
Ah, the beating ticking like a bomb.
After having seen all that they saw,
it’s hard to imagine.
Things were different then.
All is different now.
I tried to explain, somehow.
One hand on this wily comet,
take a drink just to give me some weight.
Some uber-man I’d make;
I’m barely a vapor.
They shone a chlorine light on
a host of individual sins.
Let’s carve my aging face off.
Fetch us a knife,
start with my eyes,
down so the lines
form a grimacing smile.
Close your eyes to corral a virtue–
Is this fooling anyone else?
Never worked so long and hard
to cement a failure.
We can blow on our thumbs and posture,
but the lonely are such delicate things.
The wind from a wasp could blow them
into the sea
with stones on their feet
lost to the light and the loving we need.
Still to come,
the worst part and you know it.
There is a numbness
in your heart and it’s growing.
With burnt sage and a forest of bygones
I click my heels,
get the devils in line.
A list of things I could lay the blame on
might give me a way out.
But with each turn
it’s this front and center,
like a dart stuck square in your eye.
Every post you can hitch your faith on
is a pie in the sky
chock full of lies,
a tool we devise
to make sinking stones fly.
And still to come,
the worst part and you know it.
There is a numbness
in your heart and it’s growing.
My simple slant,
my broken chant,
my human fate,
my revelate.
Are you so far from me this day
that you can’t see my revelate?
My open arms,
my lucky charm
my number eight,
my revelate.
I fucked it up.
I rest my case.
It’s all too grey,
my revelate!
Sometimes I need a revelation!
Sometimes it’s all too hard to take.
Sometimes I need a revelation!
This time I’m making my own now!
Does this mean we’re though?
Does this mean it’s gone?
Spent a day just to ponder the words
that I would write to you this day
but it’s all too great, my revelate.
Sometimes I need a revelation!
Sometimes its all too much to take.
Sometimes I need a revelation!
This time it’s up in arms.
This time I need you, revelation!
Sometimes it’s easy just to hate you!
You cringe, you complain,
you sing, sing, that old refrain:
the roof is falling in,
the roof is falling in.
I’m not kidding–
you can probably feel the wind.
No, no, not again (my darling sleep)
Put your head on my legs (breathe it in)
It’s not time for your untimely end, yet (no sweet release)
No no no no no no no not yet
You’ve got this feeling you’ll live to get what you give.
You’ll be an old man soon.
You wait, you waver,
you think, think, always must consider,
cause every path’s a problem,
every turn is trouble,
and you’ll probably never solve them,
so why not love them?
No no this is not allowed (my darling sleep)
Wrap that busy head in sound (breathe it in)
Rocking gently inside this (the din be peace)
No, no, no, no, no, no, yes! yes! yes!
You’ve got this feeling you’ll live to get what you give.
You’ll be an old man soon.
I’ve got this feeling i’ll be an old man soon
I know it’s messy but you’ll make it right,
you don’t want pity you want pride:
a king, a lion, a god among men
and children who cry when the thunder begins.
Their heads fall to their chests
while you watch from a great height
with your head high
and your eyes on fire…
OK I’m not actually trying to talk any of you into liking Hey Rosetta! anymore, but seriously, I’ve just now fully understood the complete perfection of thier song “Hospital Beds”. It is a kind of perfection that sneaks up on you, both lyrically and musically. Just please, I implore you, at least read the lyrics. Seriously, can you believe this is a modern song, when they could be the words to a classic poem??? Tim Baker is a god, period.
But also, if you’ve got some time (you do) click the YouTube link and give the song a listen. It’s the studio version. What makes the song ballsy, musically, in my opinion, is the fact that it does contain a “build up” or crescendo, but it doesn’t use a super-tempo change or time signature alterations to grab your attention; it basically crescendoes by the musicians playing with immense feeling and emotion, as is befitting such heavy (but not-pretentious) subject matter. I’m not sure when the last time was that I could tell the fucking bassist was in tune with the content of the song. Makes me freaking cry.
So anyway. It would seem I’m not gonna shut up about Hey Rosetta! anytime soon. You might as well get on this train with me! Below is the YouTube video of the song, as well as the lyrics (with my own page layout as Tim’s is not available. I realize I kinda went out on a limb putting the last stanza is parentheses but it seems right).
Hospital Beds lyrics by Tim Baker
When I’m dying,
promise compliance.
And carry my body
up over the fence
and lie me on the moss.
We’ll hide my spirit from the gods
and when they come looking
we’ll be lying in the park.
I don’t want wires.
I know they’re trying to bring me back,
but no more plastic;
I’ve had my piles of all that.
I’ve been swathed in inventions
ever since I ventured to the light,
and I’m leaving empty
with just my sacrifice.
(Cause you sacrifice
all of your life
and when you die,
is that alright?
When you’re bathed in light,
and when your body bursts wide open,
do you start to cry?
Not cause you die, but cause
you die still hoping?)
Those of you who’ve been reading my blog consistently for at least a year will surely recall a time not so long ago that I simply would not shut up about a band called Hey Rosetta! (exclamation point is theirs, not mine). I really, really love this band, but I ended up shutting up about them when I was unable to convince anyone else to like them. But I mean, I REALLY like them. Their songs touch me in ways that no other band has EVER done—yes, even Pearl Jam. Really I’m just waiting for them to have more albums before I crown them my “all time fave band”.
Anyway, they’re Canadian and not at all rich and famous, so they actually spend most of their time in Canada. Since I’ve been a fan, they’ve only played two shows in the US, neither of which I could get to. Well, you guessed it, now they are doing a full tour in August and September (as openers for Hot Hot Heat, a more famous and thankfully not-bad band) and I was able to get off for the weekend that they are playing shows in Baltimore and Philly, and I just bought tickets to both, and I have not been this excited in a looooooooong time. Like, I am going to cry my fucking face off when they take the stage. Tim Baker’s lyrics belong in a textbook. And musically, oh geez, you just don’t get better than these guys (and girl).
And hey, to my friends in California: looking for a cheap, enlightening rock show? They’re playing all around you and tickets are usually between 10-15 bucks! Check out www.heyrosetta.com, I implore you!
Got a few extra minutes? Sure you do. I beg of you to check out at least one of the YouTube videos I’ve posted below. It may just change your life!
OK this first one, I know at first you’ll be like “wtf?”, but I SWEAR TO YOU, if you watch it till the end you’ll be like “OMG”. This is a very unique rendition of the amazing song “There’s an Arc”.
Here’s their one “official video”. It’s badass and this song is so good I almost punch stray dogs when I hear it:
Here is a crappy video presentation of my absolute favorite Hery Rosetta song, “I’ve Been Asleep For a Long, Long Time” (read the astounding lyrics here). Like I said, the video sucks but it also feels like a real rock show:
And here is a really neat acoustic version of “I’ve Been Asleep For a Long, Long Time”:
Are there better lyrics to a song than those to the song “The India Song” by the band Big Star?
I’d like to go to India,
live in a big white house in the forest,
drink gin and tonic and play a grand piano,
read a few books
far from what saddens my heart.
Try to live away from it.
Find a new girl
who says she feels the same,
get to know her after the trip,
bathe in a forest pool,
her life a part of mine
and let no one know until i’m gone.
Note: the following blog is a response to a challenge by my friend Denise to write a blog explaining my interpretation of the lyric “It takes an ocean not to break” from the song “Terrible Love” by the band The National. So I have written the blog. She said she was going to as well but I haven’t read hers yet, so as to not taint my own. Just let me say, this entry may make it sound like I’m depressed, but I promise I’m not. I am happy as a clam in pigshit! (I swear) I have pasted a YouTube clip of the song before the text in case you might want to listen to it while reading it. I’d suggest you do. I may be biased, but when I listen to this song while reading this entry, I cry like a damned fool.
I’ve gotten so fat, he thought. I can’t keep pretending it’s just cause I quit smoking. It’s been nine months. He stood in front of a framed movie poster, nude, rubbing his jutting belly affectionately. The truth was, he liked it. It was simply more of him that had never been there before. Extra him.
He moved through the apartment, listless, fidgety, afraid to be bored. He kept stopping in front of various framed posters, admiring his jawline, his sexy stare. I quite like my hairline, he thought, for the dozenth time that day.
Suddenly he sat Indian-style on the carpet and began frantically paging through the photo album until he came upon a picture of her. Ah…her. Yes, always back to her. It no longer hurt like it used to, but it still hurt. But this hurt was more like a dull memory of an acute pain, and it was somehow mildly pleasing. Like peeling up just the edge of a large scab; as long as you don’t peel it all the way back, you’re fine.
He’d always made a habit out of looking at her pictures, but nowadays it was much less frequent. She’s still breathtaking, he thought. Then aloud to himself: “At least now she’s quiet company.” He chuckled. There was a time not so many years ago when he had hated her.
She had broken him, for a time. Really broken him. But then again, he thought, I’ve been broken in so many ways, so many times. Who could pinpoint the source of a fracture? Or the exact time we mended? I’ve been broken by women, money, gin, friends. He chuckled. Seems the only thing that’s there every time is me. How’s the saying go? “Point the finger right at me” or something like that.
He put a shirt on and walked toward the kitchen, pondering what it meant to be broken, what it meant to be fixed. Seemed maybe the whole of life was a series of being almost broken and finding a way toward fixed; of bending but not breaking. Suddenly he pictured himself as a bendy straw—built to be almost-broken.
He opened his fridge to get some Diet Dr. Pepper. As the interior light flicked on it illuminated the collage frame he had hung on his kitchen wall. Four differently sized frames connected together in a neat shape, so one could display four different pictures of loved ones or dogs or cars or whatever you wanted on your wall. He’d bought it at Wal-Mart for 2 bucks.
There was the picture of his dad, probably taken a decade earlier. The man was wearing sweat pants and a sweat shirt and was making the world’s groggiest face. It made him smile, this picture of his dad, looking at him from five hours and ten years away. This dad who would always love him, no matter what.
And beside it, his mother—that loving, knowing, forgiving grin spread across her face in the parking lot of some Kohl’s department store in New Jersey somewhere. Who’d have ever guessed she’d be there, too, staring into his fridge? And below her, his sister, and beside her his friend Paul, shooting a pool cue and smiling into the camera, as if to say, I’m always going to be here, buddy.
And he turned around and suddenly imagined photographs of all his friends and family spread out across all his kitchen walls. Every inch covered by pictures of people who would and had always stood by him. Even the light switches were covered. Despite his fears of seeming cheesy or—God forbid—sentimental, tears welled up in his eyes as he realized how much love swirled around his life. He did not wipe the tears away, and through the moisture of his eyes it appeared everyone he knew was bobbing around on some four-cornered sea in his kitchen, smiling at him, blowing him kisses, clinging to desperate life rafts. He breathed in deep, said “It takes an ocean not to break.”
You probably feel one of two ways about the Death Cab For Cutie song “The New Year”: you’ve either never heard it, or you think it’s over-played. Regardless, this time every year I naturally think about the song, which I consider to be one of the most poetic, succinct rock songs out there. Whether we are talking about lyrics or poetry or something else entirely, Ben Gibbard’s words for “The New Year” are a shining example of sparsity well used, and the band’s music states the perfect counterpoint to the theme. Here are the words and then some badass YouTube videos (some live versions and the official video):
The New Year
words by Ben Gibbard
So this is the new year,
and I don’t feel any different–
the clanking of crystal,
explosions off in the distance.
So this is the new year
and I have no resolutions.
They’re self assigned penance
for problems with easy solutions.
So everybody put your best suit or dress on,
let’s make believe that we are wealthy for just this once.
Lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn
as thirty dialogues bleed into one.
I wish the world was flat like the old days
and I could travel just by folding a map.
No more airplanes, or speedtrains, or freeways:
there’d be no distance that could hold us back.
Here’s the official music video:
Here’s a clip of a great performance of the song, but the YouTube video quality sucks:
Was driving home from work this morning (I worked the overnight last night), listening to the LIVE song “Rattlesnake” over and over again, amazed by how two verses and a chorus could keep revealing new things to me, and how I kept feeling more and more like I had a very personal connection to the song, and how it was even possible Ed was thinking about the very highway I was on when he wrote the song. Then I realized it was Sunday, and I needed some pictures for my blog. So I kept “Rattlesnake” on repeat and drove around Carlisle and its surrounding areas (as a light drizzle gradually turned into an ice storm) and I took pictures that were “inspired” by the song blasting from my car. I often pulled over to the side of a road and left my door hang open so I could even hear the song as I snapped the photos. I encourage you to play the YouTube video which I have posted before the pictures (it’s just the studio version of the song) as you view the pics. And if you end up loving the song, under the YouTube video there’s a link to an awesome live performance of the song! Without further ado, the pics:
My car became the church and I
the worshiper of silence there.
In a moment peace came over me,
and the one who was beating my heart appeared.
–“The Distance”
I know that I should think about giving,
think about helping out,
think about living,
but I can’t seem to rescue myself.
–“Mirror Song”
We are, by and large, the same.
–“Stage”
I was thirsty for everything
but water wasn’t my style.
–“Voodoo Lady”
And if I don’t know who to love
I love them all.
And if I don’t know who to trust
I trust them all.
And if I don’t know who to kill
I may kill myself instead.
–“Brothers Unaware”
When the brain is dead,
and the mind has taken over–
this is a skill, this is not a game–
where have you been,
are you with us?
Can you hear us?
–“T.B.D.”
Come on baby leave some change behind.
She was a bitch, but I don’t care.
–“Waitress”
It’s a crazy, crazy mixed up town,
but it’s the rattlesnake I fear.
In another place, in another time
I’d be drivin’ trucks, my dear.
I’d be skinnin’ hunted deer.
Let’s go hang out in a bar.
It’s not too far.
We’ll take my car.
We’ll lay flowers at the grave of Jesco White,
the sinner’s saint.
The rack is full and so are we,
of laughing gas and ennui.
–“Rattlesnake”
I have forever always tried
to stay clean and constantly baptized.
I am aware that the river’s banks, they are dry,
and to wait for a flood
is to wait for life.
–“Pain Lies on the Riverside”
Warm bodies, I sense,
are not machines that can only make money.
–“Pillar of Davidson”
“Free love” is a knife through the jugular vein, son!
“Free love”, I can’t afford to add up what you fuckers are made of!
If you only click on one thing in this entry, do yourself a huge favor and watch the YouTube clip of the band playing “Lakini’s Juice” live at the end of the entry.
One of the more painful facts of my existence (which proves I have a pretty easy existence) is the fact that a large majority of my friends gave up liking the band LIVE more than ten years ago. I’m here to tell you you’re wrong, and why you’re wrong. (also, in case you didn’t know, they broke up last week.)
At the outset here, I am going to grant you that there are a myriad of reasons to NOT like the band LIVE (and yes, I always type their name in all caps). I will not, and have never (or, rarely) denied the existence of these negative factors involved with liking LIVE. Once I have admitted the negative factors, I will then show how the positives overpower the negatives, or even how the negatives are a necessary by-product of true rock greatness.
Reasons to dislike LIVE:
1. Ed Kowalczyk’s lyrics are occasionally sappy, unoriginal, overly derivative, obvious, or just plain bad.
2. The last few albums were bad in many ways: generic rock-radio riffs and song structures, lyrics and themes of pseudo-New Age Christian nonsense which continually repeated itself, mixed way too loud so you can’t tell the instruments apart.
3. Way too many uses of water as a symbol for one band’s catalog. I mean, really.
4. The band’s most successful album, Throwing Copper, got severely overplayed in the late ’90s.
Why You Need to Love LIVE
1. Firstly, it is my belief that any serious discussion of LIVE must first discount the last few albums (mainly Birds of Pray and Songs From Black Mountain. and to a lesser extent, V) as albums no longer made by the “band” LIVE–band in the sense of a co-operative–and simply as mouthpieces for a clearly artistically spent Kowalczyk. The “band” LIVE almost certainly only co-operatively made the albums up to and perhaps including V. The following points will refer only to the albums from Mental Jewelry through V.
2. Kowalczyk’s lyrics get ridiculous because he, unlike most rock lyricists, is absolutely shooting for the stars; he is not afraid to take chances, to appear strange or creepy, or even to appear unpopular. When you have a lyricist trying so hard to wring truth out of words, you will sometimes get a lyric like “Our love is like water,/ pinned down and abused for being strange”, which is undeniably absolute nonsense. But most safe bands wouldn’t risk such a transgression. Aerosmith would have nixed that song from the start, and they also would have nixed the song “Lakini’s Juice”, with lyrics like “More wine! Cause I got to have it. / More skin! Cause I’ve got to eat it.” And for my money, “Lakini’s Juice” is one of the major rock triumphs of the ’90s–if not ever.
So, long story short, Kowalczyk is far from a bad lyricist. In fact, he was fairly inspired. But when you’re going yard all the time, some of them will be foul balls.
(note: Ed’s lyrics are not subversive in the actual sense, but only in comparison to other bands shooting for mainstream appeal. But still.)
3. While I’m talking about lyrics, I might as well expound a little bit on that subject. Kowalczyk is the only mainstream rock frontman (frontman=NOT a solo artist) who I can think of who crafted such a well-wrought, thoughtful, complicated COMPREHENSIVE WORLDVIEW over the course of four albums. LIVE songs were NEVER just songs to notch into an album; every entry was one more brick into Ed’s thesis of life. It’s quite impressive.
I could write a doctoral dissertation on the subject, but a really, REALLY brief overview of it goes something like this:
Mental Jewelry: Be spiritual but practical. Enjoy life and help others. Be of use. Stop hating. Together, we can really do this.
Throwing Copper: Be spiritual but practical. Enjoy life and help others. Be of use. Stop hating. Together, we can really do this. And there is going to be dirt amongst the beauty. In some of the dirt, there is beauty. And some of the dirt is just dirt.
Secret Samadhi: Be spiritual but practical. Enjoy life and help others. Be of use. Stop hating. Together, we can really do this. And there is going to be dirt amongst the beauty. In some of the dirt, there is beauty. And some of the dirt is just dirt.It is natural to want to like some of the actual dirt. Do not hate yourself for wanting to be filthy–but the true glory of being a human being is in overcoming your basest urges. As a human, you are destined to live in a constant state of inner conflict.
The Distance to Here: Be spiritual but practical. Enjoy life and help others. Be of use. Stop hating. Together, we can really do this. And there is going to be dirt amongst the beauty. In some of the dirt, there is beauty. And some of the dirt is just dirt.It is natural to want to like some of the actual dirt. Do not hate yourself for wanting to be filthy–but the true glory of being a human being is in overcoming your basest urges. As a human, you are destined to live in a constant state of conflict. And here now we wrap around to the opening thesis: the way to survive this feeling of internal conflict is through a spiritual means–the material world cannot solve your interior problems.
V: Re-iterates all the above, plus going to the club is cool!
I cannot state enough times how much I think Secret Samadhi is one of–if not the–best lyriced rock album ever. I say this emphatically, because most people think it’s “weird”. This is the album where Ed really REALLY goes for it. And while I realize the opening track–“Rattlesnake”–might not hit home for everybody, it seems like it was written for me–a guy raised in huntin’ country, in a valley in Appalachia, who doesn’t enjoy hunting, cars, trucks, guns, or even football. I am distinctly out of place here (though thankfully, lots of us are, no?) Oh, and in case you didn’t know, LIVE is from here…like, literally RIGHT HERE, so it really does seem like they’re singing about me (also, rattlesnakes are all over the place here in central PA)….check out Ed’s lyrics to open the album. Here’s the chorus to “Rattlesnake”:
It’s a crazy, crazy mixed-up town,
but it’s the rattlesnake I fear.
In another place, in another time
I’d be drivin’ trucks my dear.
I’d be skinnin’ hunted deer.
I know, I know…so you identify with it, so what? Those aren’t incredibly written lyrics. I hear you. But look at what I consider to be the genius shocker at the end of the song:
Let’s go hang out in a bar,
it’s not too far,
we’ll take my car.
We’ll lay flowers at the grave of Jesco White–
the sinner’s saint.
The rack is full, and so are we–
of laughing gas and ennui.
Look up what you need to look up and then spend some time pondering the end of that song. In my opinion, Kowalczyk lets the first part of the song draw us in, by allowing us to say, “Yeah, fuck the rest of the world and where I live…I’m not like them! I wanna be more!”, but instead of leaving the song a one-dimensional anti-authoritarian anthem, at the end, he lays the responsibility for our lives at our own feet–and indicts us for being judgmental, as he himself is, as well. Of course, this is very much open to interpretation.
This is just the first song on Samadhi. Seriously, if I was independently wealthy, I think I’d write an entire book on just this album. But you get the point. Oh, I just remembered–I even think Ed reaches so hard, that even at the beginning of “Rattlesnake”–the song whose dick I just sucked–Ed has some flabbergastingly BAD lyrics (“let’s go hang out at a church/ we’ll go find Lurch/ and we’ll haul ass down through the abbey”….huh, Ed?)….but once you get to that blazingly brilliant last stanza, you’ve forgotten the earlier nonsense.
(also as a quick aside, who else would have the balls to put the lyric “I can smell your armpits”…and be totally freakin’ serious about it, in a song, as Ed does in “Century”?)
By the time they reached The Distance to Here, Ed’s spiritual agenda was front and center, but he hadn’t gotten overtly Christian yet (if you’re Christian, that’s fine, but I’m not, so you lose me from your music). Ed’s spiritual lyrics can, of course, be really bad, even on The Distance to Here, but they are also often inspired, as in one of my favorite moments in any LIVE song, from the song “The Distance”:
My car became the church and I
the worshipper of silence there.
In a moment peace came over me
And the one who was beatin’ my heart appeared.
Yeah, I’ve felt that. But I never could have put it that way. You don’t have to subscribe to any organized faith to get that.
4. Musically, LIVE could be described as “middle of the road”. If you’re into more eccentric sounds, like Portishead or Animal Collective, you may find the majority of LIVE’s stuff too straightforward. If you’re into primarily radio-ready modern rock, you may find some of LIVE’s early stuff too wayward (though their later stuff is perfect for you). I can’t absolutely say that everyone can and will enjoy the music of LIVE, but I can say with zero doubt that they are all incredibly talented, and most importantly PATRICK DAHLHEIMER IS ALMOST CERTAINLY THE MOST UNDERRATED BASSIST IN ROCK MUSIC. This is mostly because LIVE arranged most of their songs in ways that did not specifically highlight this trait. The man is capable of some incredibly intricate bass lines that don’t feel forced or unnecessary (oh hi Les Claypool) but instead are integrated into the heart and feeling of the song itself, and still logically propel it rhythmically. Please do yourself a favor and listen to the following songs and pay attention to the bass:
5. I don’t typically give a shit about a band’s official music videos. But for a brief period in the late ’90s, LIVE made me care, because right after they’d made the most daring rock album of the decade–Secret Samadhi–they proceeded to make some of the most daring videos ever to go along with the album. And when I say daring, I don’t just mean risque, but also artful, difficult, and potentially alienating. The best ever is definitely “Lakini’s Juice”. This song serves as the thematic centerpiece to the album–remember all that stuff about internal conflict and base urges–and as such, the video tackles the theme head on, with surprising candor and what was, at the time, shocking images. (I still have trouble watching when Ed washes the woman’s feet and sings beside her on the round bed). It is not an easy video for the viewer; there is layered symbolism, intentional focus problems, and a definite air of the creepy. But “Lakini’s Juice” is no simple or happy song, and it deserved such a video:
At first glance, their follow up video to “Lakini’s Juice”–a video for the song “Freaks”–doesn’t appear as daring. To be sure, the images aren’t as immediately startling. But what. Is. With. ALL. THE. MILK.
Look at the milk everywhere, it is creepy as fuck.
What is the exact plot of the video? How do the plot of the video and the symbol of the milk help to inform and expand upon the lyrical content of the song? And how does all this help to expand upon Ed’s greater thesis of life up to this point (Secret Samadhi)? LIVE doesn’t make it easy for us, and that’s because this is actual art.
6. LIVE is (was) one the absolutely most electrifying live acts out there. When I’d go to see LIVE, I would be rocking out during every moment, even during songs I disliked (most notably, they were always able to make me jump around like a maniac to The Dolphin’s Cry–a truly crappy song). The lion’s share of credit for this goes to, of course, Ed, but also to lead guitarist Chad Taylor, who managed to engage the audience on a personal level more than any guitarist I’ve ever seen. The band had been rocking a long time, and had seen a significant drop in popularity over the years, but they never dialed it in. They went out there every night with the intent of putting on the world’s best rock show. They never did quite do it, because Pearl Jam exists (I gotta keep it real), but they got damn close!
Here is the band playing “Lakini’s Juice”. It’s from earlier this year–2009–so you can see just how much they were still rocking at this point in their career. Notice how involved with the crowd Chad Taylor is, and how totally mobile he is. He really only technically plays from stage left–he’s sometimes more mobile than Ed is! I seriously have trouble watching this without jumping around, and it’s also moving me to near tears to know I’ll never be in that throng again, jumping to this song, which is so amazing live I’ve almost died before when they play it:
7. I am truly stumped about why Ed used so many water images throughout their catalog. Oh, and really, how many songs are you gonna write with “Dream” in the title? The world shall always be mystified.
8. I typed this in one mad dash. If you could point out the typos to me, I’d greatly appreciate it.
The sky is falling like a
sock of cocaine in the
ministry of information.
Subway train’s derailing,
heads decapitating,
catch her reflection and it seems to sing to me,
and i say la-la-la-la.
She’s a warm bodega
high on Noriega
strung out in Brooklyn like it’s 1983!
She wears her legs around her
neck like a piece of ice,
her smile’s a neon marquee. Hipsters eat for free.
And i say la-la-la-la.
I am falling like a
sock of cocaine in the
ministry of information.
I’m a warm bodega
high on Noriega
strung out in Brooklyn cause i fell in love with her!
And I say la-la-la-la.
moon cut moon cuts tiny like eyelash
lonely cat nap whisper lonely cat nap whisper
and I walk around I whisper in her scalp
I whisper on the wind I whisper once again
My good buddy Paul used to–and still does–intentionally do a thing which he knows messes with my mind quite a bit. He will sing very wrong lyrics to songs while in my presence, over and over again, until he cements the wrong version in my mind, to the point that I thereafter have tremendous difficulty singing the correct lyrics. This is on my mind at the moment because on the way home from work tonight, on three different radio stations, three of the “big four” of these songs got played on the radio and I am fuming all over again at Paul’s insistence to mess with my mind like this. I figured I should complain about this in a public forum so that Paul can be bludgeoned and cuckolded whenever anyone encounters him. Here, for a glimpse into Paul’s mind, are the Big Four songs that he has all but ruined for me for the rest of my life:
Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World”:
Real lyric:
“Keep on rockin’ in the free world!”
Paul lyric:
“Keep on rockin’ singin’ Free Bird!”
A simple enough change, I know, but I can’t shake it.
Everlast’s “What It’s Like”:
Real lyric: “God forbid you ever had to walk a mile in his shoes.”
Paul lyric: “God forbid you ever had to walk in my linen shoes.”
This one has probably given me the most trouble over the years.
Seven Mary Three’s “Favorite Dog”:
Real lyric: “I love that rusty water like it was my favorite dog.”
Paul lyric: “I love that Rusty Wallace like he was my favorite dog.”
Once again, a very simple change, but I am now completely unable to sing the song correctly.
And, his masterpiece, his strangest mindfuck ever:
Stone Temple Pilots’ “Dead and Bloated”:
Real lyric: “I am smelling like a rose that somebody gave me on my birthday deathbed.”
Paul lyric: “I am looking like a dog that somebody fucked up in the nose with a toothbrush.”
“This work can occupy my mind, but won’t convince my body that I’ve been satisfied.”
—Where Are You Calling From?
“I’ll ruin you, you ruin me. It’s the best most people do.”
—Steal a Car
“Well I haven’t seen a doctor since I can’t remember when, but she tells me I’ve been a talker since 1976.” –RockCrown
“I awoke in a sinking Manhattan. I’ve played in drunken cathedrals.” –Sleepwalking
“The prisoner in my head scares me to death.” –Sleepwalking
“If you can stand yourself, then sleep tonight. Let them peel you like an orange, taste your shivering insides.” –Peel
“You can drag it for miles, you can make it your style. Never do you much good in the ground!” –Breakdown
“…a carefully cut-out empty space for friends I knew…” –Was a Ghost
“Little towns are the way we’re living. Little white crosses on dangerous curves. Everyone’s just dying to get out. They got skills but forgot the nerve.” –Bark No Bite
“The Golden Age of being amused has turned into the modern life, and times of being confused.” –Where Are You Calling From?
“Liquid used to surround me.” –Honey of Generation
“Heat is an overture of me on the inside.” –Strangely at Home Here
“When I’m home, she says Baby, you’re a lie. You’re not really here, you’ve gone away.” –Gone Away
“She says there’s motivation tucked into the crease between the seats. I look through the box for cigarettes, maps and keys.” –Each Little Mystery
“If mercy was a cattle call, she didn’t hear.”
—My My
“Have I broke all the rules that I made?” –Southwestern State
“There’s no hope in life at all if the oven won’t burn.” –Oven
“I am a tiny machinist. I have the smallest plans. I have a mind television and the gift of idle hands.” –First-Time Believers
“It will take a fancy store for Mom and Dad to forget what they never had.” –Devil’s Holy Joke
“Why am I a stranger in this house, when everything that’s here belongs to me? –Dead Days in the Kitchen
“I’m a page torn from your novel, beneath a magnet on your fridge.” –Hammer & a Stone
“I talked to the cousins of people who knew you. I asked them the questions they expected to hear. Like maybe a killing went down in your town. Maybe it’s the prison, or the birth of barbed wire.” –Joliet
I’m not one to usually post song lyrics on my blog, but occasionally some lyrics come along that not only affect me emotionally, but that are brilliant in such a way that I wish I’d written them as a poem, and I become so all-consumed by said lyrics that I must post them for the world to see. And so it is with the song "I’ve Been Asleep For a Long, Long Time" by the band Hey Rosetta! (exclamation point is part of their name). I literally cannot stop listening to this song, and have even taken to reading the printed version occasionally. So hey, I hope you like it as much as I do. Also, the song plays a key role on my awesome mix disc, A Reasoned Argument For the Inclusion of Violins in Rock Music, a copy of which can be obtained by giving me your address, stopping by my apartment, or asking to hang out with me. Page layout and punctuation are mine, and I’ve taken poetic license with the band’s existing repetition:
I’ve Been Asleep For a Long, Long Time by Tim Baker
I’ve been asleep for a long, long time, blond hair to brown and brown to white. My mom is buried beside my dad, but I was asleep for all of that.
I shut my eyes for a moment’s rest cause I get so tired. But what things transpired while my body slept and beset my mind?
The schools that we went to have all been closed. And all of my teachers are dead I suppose. The songs that we sung have all gone quiet. What happens below as we sleep at night?
The river’s up, the reeds are caught halfway across what never was. The water rose and swept in slow.
I’ve been asleep for a long, long time, blonde hair to brown and brown to white. My mom is buried beside my dad but I was asleep for all of that.
Notes From the Fire 