Tin Man: Issa's Sunday Service, #178

 America

In case of wonky widget, click here

An AOR hit of the 70s for the band America, the lyrics to The Tin Man have a smoky befuddlement of earlier times which, though less complicated technologically, were every bit as forbidding emotionally. 

Though the allusion to L. Frank Baum is readily apparent and the song has an easy-breezy arrangement (a specialty of America), the words themselves are a bit puzzling in their arrangement on the page, for which, of course, they were never intended.

Still it's not hard to sigh and tap your foot a time or two to the trippy confluence of color and image and sound and, yes, a touch of nostalgia, not necessarily for those times, but for some unnamed, unreal other time ... that never existed at all. 


America - Tin Man

Sometimes late when things are real
And people share the gift of gab between themselves
Some are quick to take the bait
And catch the perfect prize that waits among the shelves

But Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man
That he didn't, didn't already have
And Cause never was the reason for the evening
Or the tropic of Sir Galahad.

So please believe in me
When I say I'm spinning round, round, round, round
Smoke glass stain bright color
Image going down, down, down, down
Soapsuds green like bubbles

Oh, Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man
That he didn't, didn't already have
And Cause never was the reason for the evening
Or the tropic of Sir Galahad

So please believe in me
When I say I'm spinning round, round, round, round
Smoke glass stain bright color
Image going down, down, down, down
Soapsuds green like bubbles

No, Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man
That he didn't, didn't already have
And Cause never was the reason for the evening
Or the tropic of Sir Galahad

So please believe in me 

~~~~~~~

I recently saw the new Disney release, The Great and Powerful Oz, which was nowhere near as bad as folks made out. It prompted me to go back to Oz, the cinematic classic, and then to another Disney amalgam, the foreboding Return to Oz, a film much closer in its presentation to the Baum novels than the Garland musical version. 

Baum's fetish for detachable heads alone is something to contemplate when walking on the darker side of the street. 
 
                And here is the 1910 silent version:      

--------- 

Cover of the first editon of The Scarecrow of Oz

a katydid
in the scarecrow's gut
singing

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 178 songs