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. 

Walking the Dog: Issa's Sunday Service, #128

Being of a certain age and musical persuasion, the first version I heard and fell in love with of this song was by the Rolling Stones. Rufus Thomas, however, wrote it, sang it, and had a top ten hit with it and it is his song all the way. So, for purists everywhere, here's the original:





The literary connection in this one is the nursery rhyme "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary," the lyrics of which he beautifully inserted wholesale into his song.

Mary Mack dressed in black
Silver buttons all down her back
I know, 'cause I love her so
She broke her needle now she can't sew

Walkin' the dog
Walkin' the dog
Now if you don't know how to do it
I'll show you how to walk the dog

Ask my mama for fifty cents
To see the elephant jump the fence
It jumped so high it hit the sky
Never got back 'til the fourth July

Walkin' the dog
Walkin' the dog
Lord, if you don't know how to do it
I'll show you how to walk the dog

Mary, Mary quite contrary
How does your garden grow
You got silver bells and little white shells
Pretty maids all in a row

Walkin' the dog
Walkin' the dog
Well if you don't know how to do it
I'll show you how to walk the dog

Ask my mama for fifty cents
To see the elephant jump the fence
It jumped so high it hit the sky
Never got back 'til the fourth July

Walkin' the dog
Walkin' the dog
Well if you don't know how to do it
I'll show you how to walk the dog

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.

Historically there are lots of explanations for the rhyme; Wikipedia puts forth a parcel. In any case, it makes it into the LitRock pantheon by virtue of the rhyme, whatever the "true" story behind it.

The last line "and pretty maids all in a row" was used to continue a violent interpretation of the rhyme in a Roger Vadim film concerning a serial killer called "Pretty Maids All in a Row."

The first two verses, "Mary Mack" and "Ask my mama" also originate somewhere else - a song used in a clapping game, which, according to Wikipedia, has many variations. The clapping game also was used as a jump rope song.

Which brings us to the chorus (and title): though I've seen a lot about the song here and there on the net, including some scurrilous interpretations of the title, the fact is that this song was one of many popular songs named after or coining a term for a particular type of dance popular in the music of the time.

The one obvious fact I've seen nowhere on the net is how Thomas came up with the idea to use lyrics from a nursery rhyme and a song that originated in a children's clapping game. But when you think about it, it's common sense.

What would a songwriter out walking his dog be most likely to see (and hear) in the early 60s on the streets of America - children playing jump rope, for which they used a wide variety of old nursery rhymes and clapping games passed down from generation to generation.

Now, where is that jump rope app when I need it most (when I typed this words, I was being facetious - guess I should have known better)?

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a long day--
the dog and the crow
quarreling

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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Undercover of the Night: Issa's Sunday Service, #41

Patti Smith & William S. Burroughs

Yesterday was the birthday of the Godfather of Outlaw Literature, William S. Burroughs. This week's feature on Issa's Sunday Service is a most unlikely song by The Rolling Stones: "Undercover of the Night." It seems especially unlikely to me in its ties to Burroughs. The Stones really shouldn't surprise in a career that spans so many years; the breadth of material they have composed is truly amazing. Though it seems inevitable, just in terms of sheer volume, that some songs would be LitRock (and this is their second appearance on ISS), I never imagined any reference to Uncle Bill. Jagger has been widely quoted as to the song's meaning and here's what he had to say:


"I'm not saying I nicked it, but this song was heavily influenced by William Burroughs' Cities Of The Red Night, a free-wheeling novel about political and sexual repression. It combines a number of different references to what was going down in Argentina and Chile. I think it's really good but it wasn't particularly successful at the time because songs that deal overtly with politics never are that successful, for some reason."(quote from Songfacts)


I guess it's honest to admit that I never imagined that I'd ever hear Jagger use the phrase "a free-wheeling novel about political and sexual repression." But, there you go. Cute and lots of brains, too. The lyrics follow:




Undercover of the Night

Hear the screams of Center 42
Loud enough to bust your brains out
The opposition's tongue is cut in two
Keep off the street 'cause you're in danger

One hundred thousand disparus
Lost in the jails in South America
Curl up baby
Curl up tight
Curl up baby
Keep it all out of sight
Undercover
Keep it all out of sight
Undercover of the night

The sex police are out there on the streets
Make sure the pass laws are not broken
The race militia has got itchy fingers
All the way from New York back to Africa

Cuddle up baby
Keep it all out of sight
Cuddle up baby
Sleep with all out of sight
Cuddle up baby
Keep it all out of sight
Undercover
Undercover
Undercover
Keep it all out of sight
Undercover of the night

All the young men they've been rounded up
And sent to camps back in the jungle
And people whisper people double-talk
And once proud fathers act so humble
All the young girls they have got the blues
They're heading on back to Center 42

undercover
all out of sight
undercover
all out of sight
Undercover
all out of sight
Undercover
all out of sight
Undercover of the night

Down in the bars the girls are painted blue
Done up in lace, done up in rubber
The John's are jerky little G.I. Joe's
On R&R from Cuba and Russia
The smell of sex, the smell of suicide
All these things I can't keep inside

Undercover
all out of sight
Undercover of the night

Undercover of the night
Undercover of the night

Undercover
Undercover
Undercover of the night

In further remembrance of Mr. B., what follows is an excerpt of an interview with him from the film The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg in which he recounts his relationship with Ginsberg and Kerouac and the flowering of his own career.





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This week's poem comes from Lilliput Review #65 (February 1995). 6 other poems from this issue were featured in a previous post.

Procession

There is a
line of them
pecking at crumbs
that fall from
the hands of a
child who grows
old in their
eyes even as
they eat

Alan Catlin

And a poem from that lover of sparrows, Issa:





fledgling faces
peek out the nest...
sparrows

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Sympathy for the Devil: Issa's Sunday Service, #34

Friday, December 18th, was the birthday of Keith Richards and so, running perhaps a little counter to seasonal sentiment, this week's selection is "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones. The list of historical events is obvious, but what's the lit connection, you might ask? Jagger has claimed that the song was influenced by French writing, particularly Baudelaire, but isn't really exactly sure. Folks have pointed out a lot of parallels to Mikhail Bulgakov's classic novel, The Master and Margarita, and though this connection may be tenuous I'll take it, coupled with Jagger's account, and call it a LitRock sizzler. Though originally attacked by fringe groups as promoting Satanism, the songs strong moral underpinnings are rather obvious to anyone who bothers to listen. That the singer takes the persona of The Devil certainly has its model in religious sources, in the West starting with the Bible itself (which, of course, is a 3rd lit reference).

As a bonus, here's a live performance by the Stones, arguably at their creative peak from their film, "Rock and Roll Circus."

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Though I've featured most of the poems from the double sized issue, #53, from February 1994, in two previous posts, I've managed to dig out one more little gem that I somehow overlooked. So, this week's feature poem by Hugh Hennedy:

After Graduation Day

Like isolated notes
Blackbirds stand on the wires
In the fog off the ocean, and the music
Sounds slow and quiet,
Mostly strings down low

Hugh Hennedy

And one from Issa:





wisteria in bloom--
voices of pilgrims
voices of birds

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don


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