Song to the Siren: Issa's Sunday Service, #185

This week's selection is Tim Buckley's Song to the Siren, with its feet firmly embedded in the stuff of mythology (& Homer's Odyssey) and its head in the lyrical clouds. There is no groovshark app today, just the youtube video.

So it goes with technology. Enjoy - lyrics follow.
 

The Siren Song - Tim Buckley

Long afloat on shipless oceans
I did all my best to smile
'Til your singing eyes and fingers
Drew me loving to your isle
And you sang
Sail to me, sail to me
Let me enfold you
Here I am, here I am
Waiting to hold you
Did I dream you dreamed about me ?
Were you hare when I was fox ?
Now my foolish boat is leaning
Broken lovelorn on your rocks
For you sing
'Touch me not, touch me not
Come back tomorrow
Oh my heart, oh my heart
Shies from the sorrow'
I am puzzled as the oyster
I am troubled as the tide
Should I stand amid your breakers ?
Or should I lie with death my bride ?
Hear me sing
'Swim to me, swim to me
Let me enfold you
Here I am, here I am
Waiting to hold you.

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

Moon Rabbit by Yoshitoshi Tsukioka 

are you the harvest moon's
representative?
white rabbit

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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

Lillie poem archive

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

  Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 185 songs

Issa's Sunday Service, #7

This week's LitRock tune on Issa's Sunday Service goes all the way back to the early days of the renowned Greek bard, Homer. Notably, this was a song not replicated in Cream's recent dinosaur reunion. Here's Wikipedia's take on the song's inception:

The lyrics were written by Martin Sharp on the back of a beer mat, which he gave to Eric Clapton after a chance meeting. These lyrics were put to a melody inspired by Judy Collins' version of Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" and chords inspired by The Lovin' Spoonful's "Summer in the City".

This is all news to me and I will let a sharper ear than mine ferret out the veracity or lack thereof here. I had always assumed the lyrics were by Peter Brown who, along with Keith Reid and Robert Hunter (who co-wrote all but one of the songs on the new Dylan album, Together Through Life, which I'm listening to as I type), are among rock's premier, if relatively unrecognized, classic lyricists. Sharp, who was Clapton's artist flatmate at the time, also designed the renowned cover for the album, Disraeli Gears, on which "Tales of Brave Ulysses" appeared.

The featured poem this week, as we count up from issue #1, is from Lilliput Review #10, in February 1990. Who knew a toad and a bucket of salt was so limiting? Enjoy.

Mercy?
Do you ask for mercy?

You will be given a toad
and a bucket of salt,
and nothing more.

Do not ask for more.
There is none.

David Castleman

evening cool--
the toad who comes out
I call "Lucky"

Issa
translated by David Lanoue

best,
Don