Issa's Sunday Service, #52: "Cassidy"

It's week 52, a full year's worth of music with direct literary influences (LitRock) from Issa's Sunday Service. What better way to celebrate than with the Grateful Dead and their wonderful live cut, "Cassidy"?

The story behind "Cassidy" and it's odd spelling may be found here: Cassidy's Tale. Besides Neal Cassady, there is another Cassidy to which the song refers.

There you go.

It's hard to believe this is the first appearance by the Dead on the Sunday Service (though it isn't Neal Cassady's) - a few weeks back they did some backup up for the Reverend Gary Davis, but this is the first time as a headliner. The reason it seems appropriate to celebrate with a Dead song is their generosity over the years with their fans. Music as a shared, communal experience speaks volumes.

It's been an interesting year. Most of the 52 songs, with the exception of a few, can be heard on the Jukebox on the sidebar or at the Issa's Sunday Service homepage. The full list as they originally appeared may be found here. I had an interesting experience with one song; if you'd like to know the details, I'll be happy to supply them. Though you can hear it here, anytime. All I'll say is it's a good thing that the work of William Butler Yeats is out of copyright in the U.S. so this artist no longer will be accused of stealing and profiting, by violating copyright, as happened in the past (page down for details beginning with the 6th paragraph, especially the juicy bit about how said artist brags that his lyrics are better than Yeats).

I'm just saying.

To accompany the above tune, here's another live version of "Cassidy" from the Dead.

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This week's feature poem comes from issue#78, March 1996 and is by Deloris Selinsky. Other poems from this issue were featured in two past posts.

make-up
heavily applied...
disguise on disguise

Deloris Selinsky

a face
like everyone else's...
the snail

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Issa's Sunday Service, #11: Bertolt Brecht & Jim Morrison

It is just incredible to think that Jim Morrison died on July 3, 1971, 38 years ago at the age of 27. Though this is the first appearance of The Doors at Issa's Sunday Service, it certainly won't be the last, because The Doors were the consummate LitRock band; unlike some, the balance between the rock and lit was never skewed in either direction. Nor will this be the last time that the work of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill will be featured, a pair of favorites among art rock bands. Of course, The Doors could bring the grit and did; "Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)," like many a Brecht composition, actually has some of its darker undercurrents toned down in execution. Still, a classic, if ever there was one. Enjoy.

This week's feature poem comes from Lilliput Review#20, March 1990. Here's looking at ya ...

don't blame the Third World
for pissing on your grave.
you've got no rhyme
left
in your body.

Charlie Mehrhoff

the smell of piss
wafting too...
chrysanthemums

Issa
translated by David Lanoue

best,
Don


Click LitRock @ from Issa's Sunday Service for full list of songs and postings.

Bullet the Blue Sky: Issa's Sunday Service, #46

I noticed earlier this week that Saturday was Adam Clayton's birthday, Adam of U2 fame that is, and I thought, well, I'll check the list of potential LitRock songs and grab one of it in his honor.

Imagine my surprise when I found I had nothing.

So, I dug in and took a poke around and I was surprised again when I found a whole site devoted to just the topic: U2Literary. Don't know if it is still an active site but the archive is up and its got quite an impressive list of allusions. Not all fit the criteria for Issa's Sunday Service - a song must contain a direct allusion, either in the lyrics or title etc., to something literary - and so many are Biblical in nature, but no matter. I've got some future numbers to share from the best band from the 80's.

Today's selection is one of their best: "Bullet the Blue Sky."

In the locust wind
Comes a rattle and hum.
Jacob wrestled the angel
And the angel was overcome.

For those who've never had the opportunity to see U2 live, here is an extraordinary performance of "Bullet the Blue Sky," from Paris, 1987.






Last week, I mentioned that anyone with suggestions for future "Issa's Sunday Service" posts that were accepted would receive the current two issues of Lilliput Review free. Two folks took me up on it and they already have received their issues. The offer stands, so if you have any suggestions for LitRock songs (songs with direct reference to something literary: an author, title, quote, genre etc.) send 'em along and I'll send you some poetry that rocks.


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This week's poem comes from Lilliput Review, #71, from August 1995. 5 poems, plus the cover, from #71 were featured in this previous post.

salt in good
black earth of
carthage sherman
to the sea ghost
towns of chernobyl
fiddleheads unrolling
under pineshade turned
to find my footsteps

darkening

-----------------------------------------------John Perlman

And last word to the guy who sweeps up around here, Master Issa:

a mountain where
no foot has stepped...
cherry blossoms

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don




PS A complete list of all 45 songs is available on the stand alone LitRock website, along with a jukebox to listen to songs separately or altogether. Of course, the Jukebox is also available on the sidebar of this page.

1984: Issa's Sunday Service, #37 (Plus Best 2 Out of 3: Vidal vs. Mailer)

January 8th was the birthday of LitRock prince, David Bowie, and what better way to celebrate than with the retro-future tune 1984, this week's selection for Issa's Sunday Service?

And here is a stylized, very mannered live performance of the same, on the Dick Cavett Show; what it loses in studio perfection it more than compensates for by seriously rocking out.





Of course, when I think of Dick Cavett I think of one of the most amazing pieces of live television I've ever seen in my life, an excerpt from which follows:





What didn't come out until the very end of the show, was that in a review by Vidal in the New York Review of Books of Mailer's book, Prisoner of Sex, Vidal had lumped Mailer in with Henry Miller and Charles Manson (whom he referred to as the 3M's throughout the balance of the article); Mailer took the Manson mention to be a reference to Mailer's stabbing of his wife and this was what he took umbrage to and was unable to articulate until the end, when he got up in a threatening manner, from which Vidal recoiled. It seemed they both behaved rather despicably, Vidal all refinement and venom and Mailer all, well, repugnant, crass, and loaded; of everyone, Janet Flanner came off best, closely followed by Cavett, with his gallant attempt to defend his guests and himself.

That, folks, is reality TV.

Here's Cavett's 2007 remembrance of that show.



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This week's feature poem comes from Lilliput Review #57, June 1994, several poems of which were highlighted in a previous post. This one seems to dovetail perfectly with the early 70's bit of footage, noted above:

Child of the 70's

I was
a bad

news
bear

Keith Higginbotham

Our friend, Issa, seems to see through us all:

boars and bears
are my neighbors...
winter seclusion

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don


PS For all 37 Litrock selections, check out the webpage Litrock at Issa's Sunday Service. Please note if you subscribe by email or a reader you may not see the grooveshark player or occasional youtube video, so just click through to hear and see what's up.

Jim Carroll on Reading Raymond Chandler: Issa's Sunday Service, #21

Sadly, today's edition of Issa's Sunday Service caps off a week of tribute posts for Jim Carroll. Happily, we still have his work, as long as we're alive, to turn to for solace, instruction, and enjoyment. This week's LitRock song is by the Jim Carroll Band: "Three Sisters:"

But she just wants to lay in bed all night
Reading Raymond Chandler.

I've been thinking about another of the song's featured on the blog this week, "It's Too Late." I remember Jim and the band appearing live on one of the nationally syndicated late night television shows, possibly Saturday Night Live, and performing it. He performed an alternative version of these opening lines:

It's too late
To fall in love with Sharon Tate
But it's too soon
To ask me for the words I want carved on my tomb

It's probably hard to imagine today that the reference to Sharon Tate, one the victims slaughtered by the Manson family, was powerful and shocking, but, indeed, it was, particularly in a "pop" song, one being performed before millions of people on television. Here is the alternate opening as I remember it:

It's too late
To fall in love with Sharon Tate
But it's too soon
To trace the path of the bullet in the brain of Reverend Moon

I say "as I remember it" because I can't find any reference to it anywhere. There are some live performance videos of the song from a show called Fridays, but it doesn't have the alternate reading. I wonder if anybody out there remembers that performance because those alternate lines about Reverend Moon dealt in poetic prophecy, not realized, and were every bit as shocking, if not more so, in the context of the place and time than the Tate lines.

This week's featured poem is from Lilliput Review #29, February 1992. As elegy's go, it's a fit way to close:

last will and testament

make a wind chime
from my bones,

hang it
where the poets speak.

let me be a part
of the conversation,
life.

Charlie Mehrhoff

Sumiyoshi's lamps
die out again...
autumn wind

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

PS: ✔ out 21 weeks of LitRock songs @ LitRock From Issa's Sunday Service.

Issa's Sunday Service

Welcome to Issa's Sunday Service, a little experiment from Issa's Untidy Hut in music and poetry.

Above, you will find one of my favorite songs, Van Morrison's Summertime in England from the album Common One. Hope you enjoy it. Though the album itself was not much of a success, it remains my favorite.

Along with a literary-themed piece of music on Sunday, there will also be a poem. Those of you who follow The Hut regularly know that for going on two years now I've been posting once a week, in countdown form, some sample poems from back issues of Lilliput Review. Recently I added another feature, a Monday through Friday posting of one poem from Lillie on Twitter. Poems there are limited to 140 characters, including spaces, so that service really highlights the short poem. Again, I started with the latest issues and am currently posting a poem a day in countdown form (right now I'm in the early 150's).

With these Sunday posts, I'm going to feature one poem from each issue of Lilliput Review, this time counting up from #1, which was a limited "test run" issue (initially 10 copies, later expanded out to 20) to see if the concept of a tiny mag was practical and doable for someone who'd never attempted it before. As such, it contained 7 short poems and the issue is from March 1989.

Future Sunday posts will simply feature a song and a poem, with little or no commentary. Since this was the first of a series, I thought some explanation was appropriate. From issue #1 of Lilliput Review:

When Religion Invents Man

trees shimmer, leaves curl
up, in, tiny balls into tight
buds, bud through branches,
into thick trunks, down &
down, the earth opening,
thin crust, unsplitting,
fine white threads, a
single hard kernal &
this new beginning.

best,
Don

Issa's LitRock Jukebox

Introducing Issa's Lit Rock Jukebox, an outgrowth of the special weekly music/literature feature, Issa's Sunday Service. The Sunday postings highlight rock songs that have some direct reference or allusion to literature - litrock, for short. To date, there have been 40 songs featured on Sunday postings; a list, with links back to the music and original posts, may be found on this standalone website. In addition, the Jukebox itself also has its own page.

You can listen to the songs featured on Issa's Sunday Service, either individually or in sequence, via the grooveshark widget above or on the separate page. Simply use the slidebar on the side of the juke to select particular songs from the current list. I've embedded the Jukebox on the sidebar on the right a bit of the ways down, after the listing of Issa sites around the web, for listening after this post is history. I will update the Jukebox weekly with the new Sunday posts.

And, as always, if you have a song suggestion for the Litrock Sunday series that passes muster, in appreciation I will be happy to send you the two current issues (or extend your current subscription by two issues) of Lilliput Review, free of charge.

the insect's song
on the paper door
lingers

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Issa's Sunday Service, #22: "There She Goes, My Beautiful World"

Last week, it was mourning the death of a great poet/rocker, Jim Carroll. It's fitting then that this week we celebrate the birth of another great rocker/poet, Nick Cave. This is Cave's (& the Bad Seeds) second appearance on Issa's Sunday Service and, though I promised myself to keep the repeats to a minimum, at least to start out, my extremely biased opinions are showing.


There She Goes, My Beautiful World

The wintergreen, the juniper
The cornflower and the chicory
All the words you said to me
Still vibrating in the air
The elm, the ash and the linden tree
The dark and deep, enchanted sea
The trembling moon and the stars unfurled
There she goes, my beautiful world

There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes again

John Wilmot penned his poetry
riddled with the pox
Nabokov wrote on index cards,
at a lectern, in his socks
St. John of the Cross did his best stuff
imprisoned in a box
And Johnny Thunders was half alive
when he wrote Chinese Rocks

Well, me, I'm lying here, with nothing in my ears
Me, I'm lying here, with nothing in my ears
Me, I'm lying here, for what seems years
I'm just lying on my bed with nothing in my head

Send that stuff on down to me
Send that stuff on down to me
Send that stuff on down to me
Send that stuff on down to me

There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes again

Karl Marx squeezed his carbuncles
while writing Das Kapital
And Gaugin, he buggered off, man,
and went all tropical
While Philip Larkin stuck it out
in a library in Hull
And Dylan Thomas died drunk in
St. Vincent's hospital

I will kneel at your feet
I will lie at your door
I will rock you to sleep
I will roll on the floor
And I'll ask for nothing
Nothing in this life
I'll ask for nothing
Give me ever-lasting life

I just want to move the world
I just want to move the world
I just want to move the world
I just want to move

There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes again

So if you got a trumpet, get on your feet,
brother, and blow it
If you've got a field, that don't yield,
well get up and hoe it
I look at you and you look at me and
deep in our hearts know it
That you weren't much of a muse,
but then I weren't much of a poet

I will be your slave
I will peel you grapes
Up on your pedestal
With your ivory and apes
With your book of ideas
With your alchemy
O Come on
Send that stuff on down to me

Send that stuff on down to me
Send that stuff on down to me
Send that stuff on down to me
Send that stuff on down to me
Send it all around the world
Cause here she comes, my beautiful girl

There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes again

Anybody who name checks Wilmot (and he's not referring to the talented and generous Eddie Anderson of Jack Benny fame), St. John of the Cross, and Philip Larkin, beside numerous others, is an instant inductee into the LitRock Hall of Fame as far as I'm concerned. Here's a video of the song performed during the Abattoir Blues tour.





This week's poem is from Lilliput Review #31, April 1992, to commemorate the passing of blues composer, arranger, consciousness objector, and bass player extraordinaire Willie Dixon, arguably the prime mover of urban blues. Unbelievably, these are just a few of the songs he wrote: Back Door Man, Bring It On Home, Diddy Wah Diddy, Down in the Bottom, Evil, Hoochie Coochie Man, I Ain't Superstitious, I Can't Quit You Baby, I Just Want to Make Love to You, Little Red Rooster, Mellow Down Easy, Pain in My Heart, Seventh Son, The Same Thing, Tollin' Bells, Wang Dang Doodle, You Can't Judge a Book By Its Cover (which has already made an appearance on Issa's Sunday Service), and You Shook Me.

The Death of Willie Dixon

Late January, a handful of
leaves on a single tree -
the wind.

K. Shabee

a corrupt world
in its latter days...
but cherry blossoms!

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.

Neal Cassady: Issa's Sunday Service, #108

This is at least the fourth time Neal Cassady has made an appearance on Issa's Sunday Service (previously here, here, and here) and that says boatloads about lots of things (he also got a mention on the Sunday Service here, though the song wasn't about him).

For the second week in a row, I'm featuring a song by a group I hadn't known 10 days before. Weather Underground I somehow stumbled on, possibly on youtube, but how I couldn't say. They are obscure enough to not even have a bio on allmusic, just some cursory info on their self-released discs, When I Was a Soldier and Psalms & Shanties, the last being where "Neal Cassady" comes from.

I particularly like the pacing of this song. Which got me to thinking about the musical approach of each of the bands to their enigmatic subject - is their any relation between Aztec Two-Step, King Crimson, the Grateful Dead, and The Weather Underground, musically, in how they portray Mr. C.?

Here they are all together:

And, because serendipity is the grease that works the wheel of magic, after putting this together, I stumbled across this article in The Guardian about a famous photo which I was familiar with but had no idea was of Cassady.

Photo by Lawrence Schiller

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This week's featured poem comes from Lilliput Review #83, November 1996. Dream on.

for Melanie
   I called to confirm the calling dream,
   the dream, the dream, the calling dream.

            Kyle Christopher

(While typing this poem, this song came on the random mix of, oh, 14,000 or so songs.  Never get in the way of a runaway train ...)












calling down--
from deep in the well
an answer

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

- Don

PS  Get 2 free issues    Get 2 more free issues     Lillie poem archive

Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature.  Here's how.

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 107 songs

Subscribe to Lilliput Review

Pretty Good Year: Issa's Sunday Service, #119

Today's selection on the Sunday Service is a Tori Amos song, "Pretty Good Year," that was suggested by a reader for which he got two free issues of Lilliput Review. The Amos song lifts a phrase - "the eternal Footman" - from T. S. Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," the line in question being "And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker".

"Prufrock" also provided a line for this previous Sunday Service song. There are lots more in allusions to Eliot in popular music and, no doubt, they will provide future songs for the Sunday Service. For the moment, how's about we settle in and listen to the poet take a turn himself:





If you'd like your Eliot ready with animation rather than stagnant pictures, here you are:





Perhaps your version would have shoeboxes for hats ... I know mine does. Shoeboxes and mighty plosives and a, um, broader interpretation.






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This week's featured poem from the archive of Lilliput Review comes from #69, June 1995, by the master poet, Patrick Sweeney. Enjoy.

An 'anybody home?' afternoon silence

Patrick Sweeney

quite a feat--
in utter silence
the plum tree blooms

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

PS Get 2 free issues. Get 2 more free issues

Lillie poem archive

Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature. Here's how.

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 119 songs

Subscribe to Lilliput Review

The Dangling Conversation: Issa's Sunday Service, #142

   

In case of wonky widget, click here to listen

When I thought about this song the other day, I was sure that it had appeared on a previous edition of the Sunday Service. Still, it nagged me, so I decided to check the Litrock from Issa's Sunday Service website, only to find out I was wrong.

How could I have missed this one? "Your Emily Dickinson," "my Robert Frost," hmn. Asleep at the switch again.



The Dangling Conversation

It's a still life water color,
Of a now late afternoon,
As the sun shines through the curtained lace
And shadows wash the room.
And we sit and drink our coffee
Couched in our indifference,
Like shells upon the shore
You can hear the ocean roar
In the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs,
The borders of our lives.
 
And you read your Emily Dickinson,
And I my Robert Frost,
And we note our place with book markers
That measure what we've lost.
Like a poem poorly written
We are verses out of rhythm,
Couplets out of rhyme,
In syncopated time
Lost in the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs,
Are the borders of our lives.

Yes, we speak of things that matter,
With words that must be said,
"Can analysis be worthwhile?"
"Is the theater really dead?"
And how the room is softly faded
And I only kiss your shadow,
I cannot feel your hand,
You're a stranger now unto me
Lost in the dangling conversation.
And the superficial sighs,
In the borders of our lives.



So, here's my Emily Dickinson and my Robert Frost. How's about you?  



Never Again Would the Birds’ Song Be the Same - Robert Frost

He would declare and could himself believe
That the birds there in all the garden round
From having heard the daylong voice of Eve
Had added to their own an oversound,
Her tone of meaning but without the words.
Admittedly an eloquence so soft
Could only have an influence on birds
When call or laughter carried it aloft.
Be that as may be, she was in their song.
Moreover her voice upon their voices crossed
Had now persisted in the woods so long
That probably it never would be lost.
Never again would birds' song be the same.
And to do that to birds was why she came. 


#320

There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –
We can find no scar,
But internal difference –
Where the Meanings, are –

None may teach it – Any –
'Tis the seal Despair –
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air –

When it comes, the Landscape listens –
Shadows – hold their breath –
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death –  



Here's a song that will never make the litrock list but, hey, while we're here (and is that really Pat Metheny taking the solo, and Duck Dunn on the bottom?):
 

     

---------------

the ducks have gone--
peace and quiet
of the willow

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

In memory: Donald "Duck" Dunn

best,
Don 

PS. Get 2 free issues. Get 2 more free issues

Lillie poem archive

Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature. Here's how.

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 142 songs

Pride of Man: Issa's Sunday Service, #39

John Cipollina of Quicksilver Messenger Service






Trimmer, non-ugly version


This week's Issa's Sunday Service selection is from one of my favorite bands from the 60's, for which I took a lot of riding from my friends: Quicksilver Messenger Service. The song is the opening cut of their debut album and was written by musician/actor Hamilton Camp. It's another LitRock song that takes its storyline from the Bible; it's lead guitar line, by the late John Cipollina, comes directly from heaven, no intermediary necessary, thank you very much.

The lyrics are simple yet powerful. Quicksilver's take matches that power; as a folk tune, it has a different kind of power. Still, it works just fine both ways. Here's Gordon Lightfoot's version for comparison. And here are those lyrics:



Pride of Man

Turn around, go back down, back the way you came
Can't you see that flash of fire ten times brighter than the day
And behold the mighty city broken in the dust again
Oh God, the pride of man, broken in the dust again

Turn around, go back down, back the way you came
Babylon is laid to waste, Egypt's buried in her shame
Their mighty men are beaten down, their kings have fallen in the ways
Oh God, the pride of man, broken in the dust again

Turn around, go back down, back the way you came
Terror is on every side, though the leaders are dismayed
Those who put their faith in fire, in fire their faith shall be repaid
Oh God, the pride of man, broken in the dust again

Turn around, go back down, back the way you came
Shout a warning to the nations that the sword of god is raised
On Babylon that mighty city, rich in treasure, wide in fame
It shall cause thy tower to fall and make it be a pyre of flame
Oh God, the pride of man, broken in the dust again

Oh thou that dwell on many waters, rich in treasure, wide in fame
Bow unto a god of gold, thy pride of might shall be thy shame
Oh God, the pride of man, broken in the dust again

And only God can lead the people back into the earth again
Thy holy mountain be restored, thy mercy on thy people Lord



For a taste of what the band was like at its peak, here they are covering Bo Diddley's Mona with a two guitar attack and lots of groovy dancing!





You will notice that the Grooveshark widget, above, has gotten decidedly ugly. There doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it at the moment; perhaps I'm just caught between changes or the GS people are just looking for some more real estate. All I can say is that you should have seen it before I edited it down. However, working with the old lemonade from lemons theory, I am going to try the reverse and whip up a giant widget covering all the songs featured to date. Stay tuned. (*** The decidedly less ugly version became available, so I've posted it side-by-side above ***)


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This week's selection comes from Lilliput Review #61. While looking through this issue, I was struck by the presentation of art and poems over these two pages so thought, for a change, I'd scan them in for perusal. The poems are "How She Slumbers" by Albert Huffstickler and "After Sex" by John Grey. On the left, the artwork is Huff again and Guy Beining on the right.


Click the image to read poems & see artwork close-up




And the final words to Master Issa:

wind blows--
the wild boar's sleeping face
so innocent

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Sweet Jane: Issa's Sunday Service, #44

Patti Smith & Lou Reed

It's time for a shout-out to all the poets (who "studied rules of verse") out there and, for the Sunday Service, I can't think of better way than Lou Reed and Sweet Jane.

This live acoustic version from Spanish TV is worth a look-see, especially for the chord thieves amongst us:





Lou is a god in NY, but, aside from this little number and "Walk on the Wild Side," a future LitRock selection, I'm not sure this is the case everywhere else (well, of course, there is always France and, it would seem, Spain). I'm a huge Lou and Velvet Underground fan, so there is no objectivity here. This Sunday Service is all about the worship.


-----------------------------------


This week's feature poem is from issue #68 of Lilliput Review, April 1995. In a previous post, 6 poems were highlighted from this issue. scarecrow's poem is about the ultimate transcendence, which all attain, no matter religion, race, or sex.

¶dreamed that my face was large
-composed of sifted red clay dirt,
-yucca,
-snakeweed,
-mesquite,

-hoofprints abounding.

scarecrow

in cuffs dragging
through the dirt...
plum blossoms

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don


PS To listen to all 44 selections so far (or to pick and choose individually), see the Issa's LitRock Jukebox on the sidebar. Or visit the spin off page here. Background info on all the songs and links back to the original posts can be found here.

As always, I'm offering the two current issues of Lilliput Review free (or have 2 copies added to your current subscription) for any litrock selections that I use in a future post. Just email me at: lilliput review at gmail dot com.

Issa's Sunday Service, #16

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Well, after lots of wonderful summer weather here in Western Pennsylvania, the heat's finally settled in. Big-time. So it only seems appropriate to blow things out here at Issa's Sunday Service with a ranting screed just this side of hellfire. Here's a little 14 plus minute litrock number by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds entitled Babe, I'm on Fire. There is so much that is so good about this song, I don't know where to start, so I barely will. I just have to say that when someone rhymes "Picasso's Guernica" with "my wife with her furniture" and means it in a most resonant way, I'm backing up and checking out the exits. On the other hand, it's rather sweet that Garcia Lorca (making his 2nd appearance in 2 weeks) and Whitman are reunited here, however briefly.
Since very recently the regular weekly countdown of issues passed the count up of issues on the Sunday postings, here's a little something from issue #20 that wasn't in the post that featured that issue.

Dementia

drought wind
hoarse howling
a clarinet
fashioned from
a dried human
trachea
pine resin
and locust
wings

Daryl Rogers

flying locusts--
the willow tree too
grows old

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

To see and link to and or all 16 songs featured on these Sunday postings, see the Litrock website.

best,
Don

Not So Sweet Lorraine: Issa's Sunday Service, #40

The album Electric Music for the Mind and Body by Country Joe and the Fish is probably one of the 10 best albums of genuine 60's West Coast psychedelic rock. And we are talking some pretty heavy company: Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Love, Moby Grape, The Doors, The Byrds, Steppenwolf and on and on. "Not So Sweet Lorraine", this week's featured track at Issa's Sunday Service, is probably one the strangest and more salient pieces of spot-on satiric psych rock of that era. One might trace the history of songs about goth girls from the moment of this song's inception. For those who think that the 60's was all flowers and light, think again:

The joy of life she dresses in black
With celestial secrets engraved in her back
And her face keeps flashing that she's got the knack,
But you know when you look into her eyes
All she's learned she's had to memorize
And the only way you'll ever get her high
Is to let her do her thing and then watch you die,
Sweet Lorraine, ah, sweet Lorraine.

The joy of life, indeed. But if you want to really find joy, as in "Now I've just found joy", look no further than Nat King Cole, Ray Brown, Oscar Peterson, Ray Ellis, and the incomparable Coleman Hawkins for the one and only original "Sweet Lorraine."





And, ya know, sometimes it just all comes together, as in this issue of Nick Fury, Agent of Shield, with CJ & the Fish singing the verse from "Not So Sweet Lorraine" that got it LitRock status, with its reference to one of the greatest books of any culture, The I Ching:


Nick, uh, didn't like 'em so much. Nuff said.


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This week's feature, two poems from Lilliput Review, #64, December 1994. Enjoy.

Who Is To Be Master

Time to let
the husky words you wrestle
pin you down.

Tom Riley

Calculated Risk

Some poems never get written:
living them through was enough.

Kate Stewart

And, in the same spirit, a gentle reminder from Issa:

words
are a waste of time...
poppies

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Prodigal Son: Issa's Sunday Service, #189

Prodigal Son - Rolling Stones & Rev. Robert Wilkins
 
   

Hard to believe that I've managed 188 some sessions of the Sunday Service and the Rolling Stones "Prodigal Son" hasn't appeared. 

Those who are old enough, or who are music aficionados, remember "the confusion" when the band failed to credit the composer, Rev. Robert Wilkins, back in 1969, when it appeared on Beggars' Banquet. The original cover pictured, front and back, was a graffiti covered bathroom, with credits to Wilkins for Prodigal. Somehow, the replacement cover dropped the credit to Wilkins (you can see it here) and simply credited Jagger/Richards in the usual fashion. Here are the two covers side by side:

Be these things as they may, here is the Rev. Wilkins himself, bringing Sunday to the Sunday Service. As you will note, the arrangement, as well as the words, are largely as the Stones would use.

Why wreck perfection?

For those needing a Bible refresher, here's the original.

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 Photo by Sunfrog1

the lost child
clutches them tightly...
cherry blossoms

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku.