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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Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 182 songs

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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The Dangling Conversation: Issa's Sunday Service, #142

   

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When I thought about this song the other day, I was sure that it had appeared on a previous edition of the Sunday Service. Still, it nagged me, so I decided to check the Litrock from Issa's Sunday Service website, only to find out I was wrong.

How could I have missed this one? "Your Emily Dickinson," "my Robert Frost," hmn. Asleep at the switch again.



The Dangling Conversation

It's a still life water color,
Of a now late afternoon,
As the sun shines through the curtained lace
And shadows wash the room.
And we sit and drink our coffee
Couched in our indifference,
Like shells upon the shore
You can hear the ocean roar
In the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs,
The borders of our lives.
 
And you read your Emily Dickinson,
And I my Robert Frost,
And we note our place with book markers
That measure what we've lost.
Like a poem poorly written
We are verses out of rhythm,
Couplets out of rhyme,
In syncopated time
Lost in the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs,
Are the borders of our lives.

Yes, we speak of things that matter,
With words that must be said,
"Can analysis be worthwhile?"
"Is the theater really dead?"
And how the room is softly faded
And I only kiss your shadow,
I cannot feel your hand,
You're a stranger now unto me
Lost in the dangling conversation.
And the superficial sighs,
In the borders of our lives.



So, here's my Emily Dickinson and my Robert Frost. How's about you?  



Never Again Would the Birds’ Song Be the Same - Robert Frost

He would declare and could himself believe
That the birds there in all the garden round
From having heard the daylong voice of Eve
Had added to their own an oversound,
Her tone of meaning but without the words.
Admittedly an eloquence so soft
Could only have an influence on birds
When call or laughter carried it aloft.
Be that as may be, she was in their song.
Moreover her voice upon their voices crossed
Had now persisted in the woods so long
That probably it never would be lost.
Never again would birds' song be the same.
And to do that to birds was why she came. 


#320

There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –
We can find no scar,
But internal difference –
Where the Meanings, are –

None may teach it – Any –
'Tis the seal Despair –
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air –

When it comes, the Landscape listens –
Shadows – hold their breath –
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death –  



Here's a song that will never make the litrock list but, hey, while we're here (and is that really Pat Metheny taking the solo, and Duck Dunn on the bottom?):
 

     

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

the ducks have gone--
peace and quiet
of the willow

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

In memory: Donald "Duck" Dunn

best,
Don 

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Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 142 songs