When You Awake: Issa's Sunday Service, #164

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This is the Band's 3rd appearance on the Sunday Service and I've been waiting for this one. Not the most famous of songs from arguably the best rock album ever made by an Amercian band (their 2nd, simply titled "The Band), "When You Awake" is stunning in its narrative, its execution and, well, its simple musicality, for lack of a more technical term. 

The reason it arrives on the Service is found in the last two lines, which are on a very deliberate fade out, to the point that many folks don't hear them at all:

And if I thought it would do any good
I'd stand on the rock where Moses stood.

This song is followed by another stunner, "Up on Cripple Creek", which opens with the lines 

When I get off of this mountain
You know where I want to go

A little something to keep you on your toes ... here's the lyric to "When You Awake":

When You Awake

Ollie told me I'm a fool
So I walked on down the road a mile
Went to the house that brings a smile
Sat upon my grandpa's knee
And what do you think he said to me?

When you awake you will remember ev'rything
You will be hangin' on a string from your
When you believe
You will relieve the only soul
That you were born with to grow old and never know

Ollie showed me the fork in the road
You can take to the left or go straight to the right
Use your days and save your nights
Be careful where you step, and watch wha-cha eat
Sleep with the light on and you got it beat

When you awake you will remember ev'rything
You will be hangin' on a string from your
When you believe
You will relieve the only soul
That you were born with to grow old and never know

Ollie warned me it's a mean old world

The street don't greet ya, yes, it's true
But what am I supposed to do
Read the writing on the wall
I heard it when I was very small

When you awake you will remember ev'rything
You will be hangin' on a string from your
When you believe
You will relieve the only soul
That you were born with to grow old and never know

Wash my hand in lye water
I got a date with the captains daughter
You can go and tell your brother
We sure gonna love one another, oh
You may be right and ya might be wrong
I ain't gonna worry all day long

Snow's gonna come and the frost gonna bite
My old car froze up last night
Ain't no reason to hang your head
I could wake up in the mornin' dead, oh
And if I thought it would do any good
I'd stand on the rock where Moses stood


And here is "Up on Cripple Creek" given the deluxe treatment: 

     

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 Photo by Wolfpix

a pretty kite soars
a beggar's shack
below

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

 
best,

Don   

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Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 164 songs

The Weight: Issa's Sunday Service, #57

This week's tune is "The Weight" by The Band, their second appearance on Issa's Sunday Service. The reason it is included here is the line "Go Down, Miss Moses" is an allusion to the old African American spiritual, "Go Down Moses," and was appropriated by William Faulkner for the title of his book of the same name. Though in some ways, "The Weight" seems something of a modern retelling of the Nativity scene from the Bible, the following details from the Wikipedia article on "The Weight" are very interesting, indeed:

According to songwriter Robertson, "The Weight" was inspired by the films of Luis Buñuel, about which Robertson once said:

(Buñuel) did so many films on the impossibility of sainthood. People trying to be good in Viridiana and Nazarin, people trying to do their thing. In ‘The Weight’ it’s the same thing. People like Buñuel would make films that had these religious connotations to them but it wasn’t necessarily a religious meaning. In Buñuel there were these people trying to be good and it’s impossible to be good. In "The Weight" it was this very simple thing. Someone says, "Listen, would you do me this favour? When you get there will you say 'hello' to somebody or will you give somebody this or will you pick up one of these for me? Oh? You’re going to Nazareth, that’s where the Martin guitar factory is. Do me a favour when you’re there." This is what it’s all about. So the guy goes and one thing leads to another and it’s like "Holy Shit, what’s this turned into? I’ve only come here to say 'hello' for somebody and I’ve got myself in this incredible predicament." It was very Buñuelish to me at the time. ....

In Levon Helm's autobiography, This Wheel's on Fire, Helm explains that the people mentioned in the song were based on real people The Band knew. The "Miss Anna Lee" mentioned in the lyric is Helm's longtime friend Anna Lee Amsden

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This week's poem from the Lilliput archive is a piece of artwork from issue #87 by the always amazing Albert Huffstickler. It speaks for itself.

Artwork by Huff

timing his death
extremely well...
the Buddha

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Issa's Sunday Service, #13

Arguably the last fine song by America's premiere popular music group of 60's, The Band, Ophelia hits all the stops: fine arrangement, tongue-in-cheek lyrics, and still another outstanding vocal performance by yesterday's birthday boy, Levon Helm.

Finest line: "The ghost is clear."

As a bonus, here's the old man proving he's still got it in 2008, performing today's Sunday Service selection with the Levon Helm Band.




This week's archive poem comes from issue #25, Sept. 1991. A little something for mid-summer to remind us exactly (exactly) where we are.




an echo

The grassy grassy grassy
--plain
reaches out across across the road
--the road
cutting man's lifeline line in two two
trying trying to reclaim for mother
--nature nature
what is by all rights
hers and hers and hers

Michael Estabrook

is the wind
on summer vacation?
grassy field

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

For more LitRock songs, see the Issa's Sunday Service homepage.

1st Annual Bashô Haiku Challenge Chapbook

Yesterday, I mentioned that the Bashô Haiku Challenge chapbook is out and available for purchase. It is pictured above. It contains 25 poems by 19 poets in 13 comfortably laid out pages. I thought perhaps I'd gave you a taste with a couple of poems to see if I could pique your interest enough to shell out 3 of your hard earned dollars for a pocket full of poetry. That's right, just $3.00 postpaid.

in and out
of the lovers' quarrel
fireflies

-------Roberta Beary

wordless sparrows mend our speech

-------ed markowski

Already sad
crows divide
my sorrow

-------Bart Solarczyk

Yesterday was also the anniversary of the birth of James Merrill, a formal poet I have always had a weak spot for. Merrill's The Changing Light of Sandover, a book length poem composed with the help of his partner, David Jackson, utilizing a Ouija board as lyrical medium, will be the volume scholars puzzle over for decades to come. It is an epic and it is magnificent. Here is one of his uncharacteristically short poems:

Between Us

A . . . face? There
It lies on the pillow by
Your turned head's tangled graying hair:
Another–like a shrunken head, too small!
My eyes in dread
Shut. Open. It is there,

Waxen, inhuman. Small
The taut crease of the mouth shifts. It
Seems to smile,
Chin up in the wan light. Elsewhere
I have known what it was, this thing, known
The blind eye-slit

And knuckle-sharp cheekbone–
Ah. And again do.
Not a face. A hand, seen queerly. Mine.
Deliver me, I breathe
Watching it unclench with a soft moan
And reach for you.

-------James Merrill

Finally, yesterday (yesterday was such a busy day, it spilled over quite a bit) was the anniversary of the death of Richard Manuel, composer, piano player, and extraordinary vocalist, whose anguished singing truly evoked his own haunted soul. Though I'm not much for the static photo montage style of video presentation, this is something of an exception, particularly since the lyrics are captioned and the sheer beauty of the song takes your breath away. How truly great this song is, lost amidst the staggering oeuvre of an American band whose uniqueness was unprecedented and never replicated: The Band.

In joy.

best,
Don

Brautigan, Dylan, and Ginsberg (Twice)

A couple of quick notes to start the week:

Here's a marvelous appreciation of Richard Brautigan by Justin Taylor at Lost Magazine.

Take a look at Allen Ginsberg's annotated copy of Eliot's The Waste Land.




Take a listen to two mp3's (at the bottom of the post): one of Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg performing "Vomit Blues" and Dylan and the Band performing "See You Later, Allen Ginsberg" from Sweetheart of the Radio.

Happy Monday.


best,
Don