Jungleland: Issa's Sunday Service, #66

Asbury Park

Outside the streets on fire in a real death waltz

Between what's flesh and what's fantasy 

  and the poets down here 

Don't write nothing at all, they just stand back and let it all be.

And in the quick of the night they reach for their moment

And try to make an honest stand but they wind up wounded,

  not even dead,

Tonight in Jungleland.

Something of an epic, part of which was used as an epigraph for Stephen King's monumental post-apocalyptic novel, The Stand (the title of which comes from a line above), in its final verses Bruce Springsteen's Jungleland almost seems to transcend the medium itself.  Something I never noticed before is the tip o' the hat to F. Scott Fitzgerald with a line in the previous verse

Beneath the city two hearts beat,
Soul engines running through a night so tender

Anytime a night is described as tender, the lyrical Fitzgerald is recalled. Without getting too carried away, the debt to Dylan is fairly obvious.  What might be less obvious is what I perceive as a Yeats feel.  Maybe it's just me; still, the naming of the characters in this narrative certainly recalls Yeats's Crazy Jane, who was directly referenced in Springsteen's earlier minor epic, Spirit in the Night.  

Then there are these lines from Jungleland:

Man there's an opera out on the turnpike,
There's a ballet being fought out in the alley

For this edition of the Sunday Service, I'll leave it with this great live performance of Jungleland from a 2009 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame show.

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Featured from the archive this week is a poem I believe may have appeared on Facebook and the Twitter feed but not here.  A monostitch in 7 mere words, it opens up worlds:

     childhood:        train track leading into the forest

        M. Kettner

completing
the green mountain
a pheasant cries

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don


PS  Get two free issues           Get two more free issues

PPS Don't miss a transcendent performance by Skip James over at Miss Late July.  I'm thinking Nick Cave should cover this one. 

Poor Little Rich Boy: Issa's Sunday Service, #42

This week's Issa's Sunday Service feature is "Poor Little Rich Boy" by Regina Spektor. She references both Hemingway and Fitzgerald in this catchy little number and manages to give us a bit of a break from all the old school that's been happening around here lately.

There have been other songs with this delightful title, from songwriters as diverse as Randy Newman and George Jones. In fact, the poor little rich boy seems to be something of a stereotype across the cultural spectrum. But, for the purposes of this post, let's just say this one's for F. Scott and poor little rich boys everywhere.

And just in case you were thinking that maybe this little tune doesn't rock enough, this live performance should tip the scales:





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It is a bittersweet irony that this week's feature poem comes from Lilliput Review #66, an Albert Huffstickler broadside entitled Circles Within Circles. Ironic because of its deep red color and the inclusion of the following poem on this day of days:

Valentine

A stone-shaped
heart.
A heart-shaped
stone:
Choose one

Albert Huffstickler

And a little valentine for us all from Issa, one which I believe Huff would have loved:

traveling geese--
the human heart, too
soars

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don


PS And in case you'd like to read a review of a book I recently read and loved, head over to Eleventh Stack for "Hermann Hesse: The Fairytales."

Also, you will notice in the sidebar that I reconfigured "Issa's LitRock Jukebox" of all 42 songs so that the most recent songs play first and work their way back in time. The separate standalone page for the Jukebox is also the same.