Lariat: Issa's Sunday Service, #191 (& a parenthetical 192)

From one of the best, if not the best, albums of the year (Wig Out at Jagbags), Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks song, Lariat.

It's not everyday Tennyson gets a nod in a rock song (although there is this Hold Steady exception to prove the rule (#192)). Here's a dynamite live performance, followed by the lyrics.

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks


    Lariat

Only a chariot could carry it
Across this void

I wouldn’t jerry rig or candy coat your Latin kisses

You’re not what you aren’t
You aren’t what you’re not
You got what you want/You want what you got
People look great when they shave
Don’t they?

We lived on Tennyson and venison and The Grateful Dead
It was Mudhoney summer, Torch of Mystics, Double Bummer

You’re not what you aren’t
You aren’t what you’re not
You got what you want
You want what you got
Feels so great in the shade

A love like oxygen, so foxy then so terrific now
On a jape I’m returning
Bobby spinnin’ out
I was so messed up
You were drunk and high
Just a ramblin’ wreck
Comin’ off the breaks to see what was shaking

We grew up listening to the music from the best decade ever
Talkin’ about the A-D-Ds
We grew up listening to the music from the best decade ever

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

As my morning reading of Middle Eastern ghazals - Hafiz and Ghalib -, William Stafford, W. S. Merwin, the new Buson, and Haiku in English continues, this Robert Bly poems keep rising to the fore.

Here's a beautiful moment, indeed:

My Father at Forty

I loved him so much. I've said

That before, so don't be surprised.

It was a first love. Go ahead, open

Your hand. Do scissors beat

Paper? Does rock beat scissors?

It's just love and can't be

Explained. Probably it

Happened early. You're looking

At it. The way I found

Of opening a poem I took

From the way he walked into a field  

                                                               Robert Bly

Artwork by Utagawa Kuniyosh

though wrapped in
tissue paper...
a firefly's light

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku.
PPS  Long live Pavement

Issa's Sunday Service, #190: Sufjan Stevens, O'Connor, Springsteen, and Robert Bly

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There have been any number of songs with the title "A Good Man is Hard to Find," many that have no association with the writer, Flannery O'Connor.

Sufjan Stevens's version is definitely not one of them:
  

A Good Man is Hard to Find

Once in the backyard
She was once like me, she was once like me
Twice when I killed them
They were once at peace, 
they were once like me

Hold to your gun, man 
and put off all your peace
Put off all the beast
Paid a full of these, I wait for it, 
but someone's once like me
She was once like me

I once was better
I put off all my grief, I put off all my grief
And so I go to hell, I wait for it
But someone's left me creased 
and someone's left me creased

Bruce Springsteen has also expressed great admiration for the writer Flannery O'Connor, who was just last week referenced in a William Stafford poem. For all the details of the Springsteen connection, check out this article at Dappled Things entitled "Naming Sin: Flannery O'Connor's Mark on Bruce Springsteen." 

Here's the Boss with a live rendition of "A Good Man is Hard to Find," performed right here in Pittsburgh


A Good Man Is Hard to Find  (Pittsburgh)

It's cloudy out in Pittsburgh, it's raining in Saigon
Snow's fallin' all across the Michigan line
Well she sits by the lights of her Christmas tree
With the radio softly on
Thinkin' how a good man is so hard to find

Well once she had a fella
Once she was somebody's girl
And she gave all she had that one last time
Now there's a little girl asleep in the back room
She's gonna have to tell about the meanness in this world
And how a good man is so hard to find

Well there's pictures on the table by her bed
Him in his dress greens and her in her wedding white
She remembers how the world was the day he left
And now how that world is dead
And a good man is so hard to find

She ain't got no time now for Casanovas
Yeah those days are gone
She don't want that anymore, she's made up her mind
Just somebody to hold her as the night gets on
When a good man is so hard to find

Well she shuts off the TV and without a word
And into bed she climbs
Well she thinks how it was all so wasted
And how expendable their dreams all were
When a good man was so hard to find

Well it's cloudy out in Pittsburgh


As you may have noticed, the song has a sub or alternate title: "Pittsburgh." It seems that, beyond the title and its appearance as a line in the song, there is little here that relates to O'Connor except perhaps tone. At a Springsteen lyrics site (Lebanese!), Bruce is quoted about the song and he mentions the first time he met Ron Kovic, the author of "Born on the Fourth of July." 

If you haven't read the original, it's here - for how long, who knows.

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

I ran across this Robert Bly poem this morning in his collection Talking into the Ear of a Donkey - this is my 3rd or 4th time reading the book over the last 3 years or so and it just gets better and better. 

At first there didn't seem to be a connection to the above song, then I started to think more closely about the original story and it seems my mind is, as usual, making connections that on surface I'm not immediately aware.

It's life and life only:

Keeping Quiet

A friend of mine says that every war
Is some violence in childhood coming closer.
Those whoppings in the shed weren't a joke.
On the whole, it didn't turn out well.

This has been going on for thousands
Of years! It doesn't change.  Something
Happened to me, and I can't tell
Anyone, so it will happen to you.

Robert Bly

Photo by Danny Hammontree via fotor

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

swatting a fly
but hitting
the Buddha

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku.

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.

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

 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. 

Nickel Street: Issa's Sunday Service, #188

 
This week's selection is by one of those groups I've spent time avoiding on the Sunday Service - another is Van Wassisname - due to a less than open approach to social media (I hesitate to even use the c word). In any case, here you are, complete with lyrics.

In Penny Lane there is a barber showing photographs
Of every head he's had the pleasure to know
And all the people that come and go
Stop and say hello

On the corner is a banker with a motorcar
The little children laugh at him behind his back
And the banker never wears a mack
In the pouring rain, very strange

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
There beneath the blue suburban skies
I sit, and meanwhile back

In Penny Lane there is a fireman with an hourglass
And in his pocket is a portrait of the queen
He likes to keep his fire engine clean
It's a clean machine

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
A four of fish and finger pies
In summer, meanwhile back

Behind the shelter in the middle of a roundabout
The pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray
And though she feels as if she's in a play
She is anyway

In Penny Lane the barber shaves another customer
We see the banker sitting waiting for a trim
And then the fireman rushes in
From the pouring rain, very strange

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
There beneath the blue suburban skies
I sit, and meanwhile back

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
There beneath the blue suburban skies
Penny Lane

Beautiful as it is, the "four of fish and finger pies" line has all the fame, or should I say infamy, of Hamlet's Act 3 Scene 2 lines to Ophelia "Do you think I meant country matters?"

On the other side of the aisle, the reason the song ends up on the Sunday Service is the little postmodern touch of "And though she feels as if she's in a play / She is anyway."

What follows here is as fine and moving a rendition of a song I would have thought totally uncoverable as I've ever heard: 


Finally, Macca Himself ... certainly not nearly my favorite of the fabs, yet one of the most talented songsmith's of the last 50 years. That either says a lot about my lack of taste or even more about how talented and self-aware his mates really were/are.

   

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

Issa Self-Caricature

single file on the road--
one horsefly
one me

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

PS  Click to learn how to contribute to Wednesday Haiku.

 

Madam Medusa: Issa's Sunday Service, #186

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This week's selection, Madam Medusa by UB40, is a Sunday morning/afternoon stretch out your legs, space out your mind, little adventure in relax-to-the-max. Greek mythology gives us the lit connection for the week.
For those of a certain age, who got their Greek myth from Harryhausen before Hamilton, here's a little something to dust off a memory. For those raised in the digital age, here's some old school schooling:

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

the great demoness flits and flutters... paper fan

Issa translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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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

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Sir Patrick Spens: Issa's Sunday Service, #184

Photo by Kim Traynor art by Charles Cameron Baillie 

If widget is wonky, click here   One of the great ballads of English literature, "Sir Patrick Spens" tells a tale of a sailor, the sea and tragedy, the stuff of legend. It has been covered many times by folk musicians through the years, such as Buffy St. Marie, the great Robin Williamson, and a true legend himself, Ewan MacColl. I've chosen a version by Fairport Convention, since they lean more to folk-rock and, well, because I like it very much.

One can hardly ignore the Sandy Denny version, with Fairport Convention, so here is that for those prefer her dulcet tones:

And for those who prefer their ballads on the page, you can find it here since it's a little long to include in a post.

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

Wikicommons

cursing like sailors
in the plum tree...
crows

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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Empty Pages: Issa's Sunday Service, #183

Photo by Cohdra

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Traffic was one of the great rock bands with jazz inclinations of the late 60s and early 70s. A multi-talented assemblage of musicians, the band was composed of founding members Stevie Winwood, Dave Mason, Jim Capaldi, and the great Chris Wood. 

Today's choice is self-explanatory: the title says it all. A light, airy almost pop piece, with an eerie undercutting of something a bit unsettling. The artist here seems to be balancing life and work, perhaps not too successfully.

So it goes.

 
Empty Pages 

Found someone who can comfort me
But there are always exceptions
And she's good at appearing sane
But I just want you to know

She's the one makes me feel so good
When everything is against me
Picks me up when I'm feeling down
So I've got something to show

Staring at empty pages
Centered 'round the same old plot
Staring at empty pages
Flowing along the ages

Often lost and forgotten
The vagueness and the mud
I've been thinking I'm working too hard
But I've got something to show

Staring at empty pages
Centered 'round the same old plot
Staring at empty pages
Flowing along the ages

Staring at empty pages
Centered 'round the same old plot
Staring at empty pages
Flowing along the ages

Often lost and forgotten
The vagueness and the mud
I've been thinking I'm working too hard
But I've got something to show, you know

Found someone who can comfort me
But there are always exceptions
And she's good at appearing sane
But I just want you to know

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here is a live performance by the band, from early 1972, featuring Stevie Winwood's oft overlooked, formidable guitar chops and some fine flute work by the equally multi-talented Chris Wood, particularly after the first go round. Around the third verse, Winwood is joined by Jim Capaldi for some fine vocal harmonizing. This traditional British folk song, John Barleycorn, dates from the 17th century and is given due respect by this versatile rock band: 
 
       

Malted Barley by Finley McWalters

     

ripened barley--
walking through the field
a little sake vendor

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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Cloudy: Issa's Sunday Service, #182

Photo by Piccolo Namek

   

Autumn - that time of the year when this classic song by Paul Simon, performed by Simon and Garfunkel, comes to mind. Slight breezes and strong winds, beautiful clouds flying by. 

For the composer, thoughts echo and swell, from Tolstoy to Tinker Bell ... which gives Cloudy it's litrock cred and beautiful resonance. 

Cloudy

Cloudy
The sky is gray and white and cloudy,
Sometimes I think it's hanging down on me.
And it's a hitchhike a hundred miles.
I'm a rag-a-muffin child.
Pointed finger-painted smile.
I left my shadow waiting down the road for me a while.

Cloudy
My thoughts are scattered and they're cloudy,
They have no borders, no boundaries.
They echo and they swell
From Tolstoy to Tinker Bell.
Down from Berkeley to Carmel.
Got some pictures in my pocket and a lot of time to kill.

Hey sunshine
I haven't seen you in a long time.
Why don't you show your face and bend my mind?
These clouds stick to the sky
Like floating questions, why?
And they linger there to die.
They don't know where they are going, and, my friend, neither do I.

Cloudy,
Cloudy.

And where there is autumn, can winter be far behind. Here's another Paul Simon number, performed live by the scintillating band, The Bangles. Though it doesn't make the list of litrock songs, it sure makes a fine, rocking companion piece:

 

   

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Photo by Davenbelle

blossoms become clouds--
people become
smoke

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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Dust in the Wind: Issa's Sunday Service, #181

Photo by Dorothea Lange

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This week's song, Dust in the Wind by Kansas, has an interesting back story and curious connection to literature. Here is a studio interview with Kansas' composer and guitarist  Kerry Livgren on the composition of Dust in the Wind, courtesy of the
Wayback Machine Archive:

"More people seemed to identify with what I said in that song - and that really surprised me.  Cause in a way, that's kind of a dismal song, you know?  I was reading a book on American Indian poetry one day, and I came across that line - this American Indian said "for all we are is dust in the wind."  And I thought, well, you know,that's really true. Here I got all this success - I've got material possessions - I've got a goal in my life that had been accomplished at that point, but I'm going back into the ground - and what does this really mean in light of that? And that's really kind of the message of that song, but the amazing thing was that so many people identified with that." -  Kerry Livgren, Kansas guitarist.

You've got to wonder just what book of Native American poetry Livgren is referring to. The year of the song is 1977.  Perhaps it was a well-known Native American anthology of tje time, Shaking the Pumpkin, edited by Jerome Rothenberg, which came out in 1972 and has been since reissued. There were certainly many others but this was both influential and, speaking from experience, you seemed to see it  everywhere, at least if you roamed the poetry sections in bookstores of the day.

The following, from a Wikipedia article on the song, references some other possible inspirations for the song, whether or not they were foremost in the composer's mind.

"Dust in the Wind" was one of Kansas' first acoustic tracks; its slow melancholy melody and philosophical lyrics differ from their other hits such as "Carry On Wayward Son" and "Point of Know Return". A meditation on mortality and the inevitability of death, the lyrical theme bears a striking resemblance to the well-known biblical passage Genesis 3:19 ("...for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."), as well as to the famous opening lines of the Japanese war epic The Tale of the Heike ("...the mighty fall at last, and they are as dust before the wind."), but the actual inspiration was from a book of Native American poetry, which includes the line "for all we are is dust in the wind."[2] Also, the 1973 song Karn Evil 9 (3rd Impression) by Emerson, Lake & Palmer has repeated 'dust' and 'wind' themes, and uses exactly the same phrase "dust in the wind".  Wikipedia.

Whatever its origins, the song seems to strike a deep, universal chord with audiences across genre lines.

~~~~~~~~~~

Japanese Woodblock - Artist Unknown

butterfly flitting--
I too am made
of dust

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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Richard Cory: Issa's Sunday Service, #180

E. A. Robinson

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If it lacks the subtlety of Paul Simon's own later work, "Richard Cory," by Simon and Garfunkel, has some of the power of the original Edwin Arlington Robinson lyric. Still, it is remarkable how little of that original is retained: more the idea of the poem than the actual words themselves. Like a screenplay for a popular novel, the song itself is, if anything, a translation, a rendition of the poem. 

First comes Arlington's poem, than Simon's song. Comparing them is a real lesson in process.


Richard Cory By Edwin Arlington Robinson

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich—yes, richer than a king—
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.  


Richard Cory (song) - Paul Simon

They say that Richard Cory 
owns one half of this whole town,
With political connections
to spread his wealth around.
Born into society, 
a banker’s only child,
He had everything a man could want: 
power, grace, and style.

But I work in his factory
And I curse the life I’m living
And I curse my poverty
And I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be
Richard Cory.

The papers print his picture 
almost everywhere he goes:
Richard Cory at the opera, 
Richard Cory at a show.
And the rumor of his parties 
and the orgies on his yacht!
Oh, he surely must be happy 
with everything he’s got.

But I work in his factory
And I curse the life I’m living
And I curse my poverty
And I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be
Richard Cory.

He freely gave to charity, 
he had the common touch,
And they were grateful for his patronage
and thanked him very much,
So my mind was filled with wonder 
when the evening headlines read:
Richard Cory went home last night 
and put a bullet through his head.

But I work in his factory
And I curse the life I’m living
And I curse my poverty
And I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be
Richard Cory 

About Robinson's poem, Ellsworth Barnard cuts to the chase:

We need not crush this little piece under a massive analysis; a few more or less obvious comments will suffice to show how carefully the poem is put together. The first two lines suggest Richard Cory's distinction, his separation from ordinary folk. The second two tell what it is in his natural appearance that sets him off. The next two mention the habitual demeanor that elevates him still more in men's regard: his apparent lack of vanity, his rejection of the eminence that his fellows would accord him. At the beginning of the third stanza, "rich" might seem to be an anticlimax—but not in the eyes of ordinary Americans; though, as the second line indicates, they would not like to have it thought that in their eyes wealth is everything. The last two lines of the stanza record a total impression of a life that perfectly realizes the dream that most men have of an ideal existence; while the first two lines of the last stanza bring us back with bitter emphasis to the poem's beginning, and the impassable gulf, for most people—but not, they think, for Richard Cory—between dream and fact. Thus the first fourteen lines are a painstaking preparation for the last two, with their stunning overturn of the popular belief.  

I do love Barnard's caution that we need not crush the poem.

Simon is arguably the finest popular songwriter of his generation, a success that stands up remarkably well over the years. In "Richard Cory (the song)," the listener realizes right away one of the central points that Barnard makes: the distinction between Cory and regular folk. In fact, Simon brilliantly telescopes this into a first person narrator in the chorus. In so doing, he simultaneously captures the essence of the poem, pulls the reader in, and retains the big shoe drop ending.

Thanks so much for the reader suggestion of this song.

~~~~~~~ 

Woodblock by Yoshitoshi Tsukioka

nightingale--
for the emperor too
the same song

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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