Issa's Untidy Hut: You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome: Issa's Sunday Service, #99

Sunday, April 17, 2011

You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome: Issa's Sunday Service, #99

Verlaine & Rimbaud

The count up to #100 is now just one week away and I've been thinking a bit about what that selection might be. But, of course, as usual, I get ahead of myself.

This week's selection comes from the master, who has appeared here a time or three: Bob Dylan. And though one might not think about this particular song when thinking litrock, you just have to love these lyrics:

Situations have ended sad
Relationships have all been bad
Mine’ve been like Verlaine’s and Rimbaud
But there’s no way I can compare
All those scenes to this affair
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go

So the bard drags two other bards into "the scene," only to say there is no way he's going to compare their situation to his.

Harrumph.

That may be the verse that got the song on this list, but you know you truly are in the presence of a master when the pen flashes across the page, rhyming:

I’ll look for you in old Honolulu
San Francisco, Ashtabula
Yer gonna have to leave me now, I know
But I’ll see you in the sky above
In the tall grass, in the ones I love
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go

Honolulu and Ashtabula! I'm sure you don't need me to tell you it doesn't get better than that in a pop song.

Taking a decidedly left turn at Ashtabula, here's Weird Al to set "the record" straight about genius or genius on genius:

Yes, it is easy, so easy to throw around the word genius, but writing a parody pop song composed of rhyming palindromes - and making it sound good - well, I'll just leave it there.

For the nostalgic, rock's first "music video":

Finally, back to my opening ruminations: who to choose for #100 on the Litrock list? Well, it took a bit of a thunk, but I've got my choice, to be revealed next week. Wonder if anyone can guess, not the song, but the particular artist/band?

For those who made it this far through another rambly post, here's a challenge: name the artist that will be featured on #100 of Issa's Sunday Service, and you get a free 15 issue subscription to Lilliput Review (or a 15 issue extension for the terminally faithful). First one who rings in with the right name is the winner.

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Today's selection from the archive is of two very different poems that somehow managed to share a page (with another poem between). The first is a John Harter poem I somehow overlooked when I previously collected some of his Lilliput work in a post. The 2nd is a telling piece by Mark Forrester. They come from Lilliput Review #98, July 1998.

NOR THE WRITER TALKING
OF SELF NOR THE PAINTER
PAINTING OF PAINT
John Harter

White Ash
What is it in the scent of wood
that reminds me of my father?
He was no handyman.
When my brother-in-law's
thick fingers ease
thin sheets of blond wood
over his table saw, the dark
supple blade sheds narrow splinters
of hard bone, pale and odorless.