So many beloved songs, so many poetic moments, so many lines that emblazon themselves on the brain. I'm in the mood to catalogue some of them. Let's start with this verse by Will Sheff from the song, "The Velocity of Saul at the Time of His Conversion":
Loosen the wire, your time has expired The only word left is "goodbye." In my new dream the light's shining on me, Little needles of sodium unstitch the seams of the sky.
I will never as long as I write come up with an image as beautiful as little needles of sodium unstitch the seams of the sky. It makes me want to lie down in a field in the dark of night and watch it all unfold, preferably with a friend. Whole stories come to mind.
I like covers, don't get me wrong. Some of my best friends are covers. If it's a song I love, I'm eager to hear it done all kinds of ways by all kinds of people.
This morning, while out walking, my iPod offered up a favorite Dylan cover -- Jimi Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower." I'm grooving along, as always, until we get to that one line where Jimi improvises because he doesn't know the words. He does a phonetic approximation of "none of them along the line know what any of it is worth." Only for Jimi, it comes out something like "none will ever on their mind, nobody of it is worth." This always cracks me up, because it makes no sense, obviously. It reminds me of my months as a foreign exchange student in South America back in the 60's. There were Friday talent shows at the school I attended, where lip-synching to American records was considered a "talent." Often, the kids didn't know the English words, but they did their best to move their lips according to the sounds. It was hilarious and touching. Just like Jimi.
In the Isle of Wight live performance video, Jimi doesn't even take a stab at the line, but in this studio version, he at least puts some syllables together.
Here's another Dylan cover I went crazy for recently: Wilco and Fleet Foxes doing "I Shall Be Released." Who better to cover this anthemic song? And with Tweedy going into his falsetto? You gotta love it.
Who doesn't love falling in love? It's the greatest feeling in the world. Fortunately for me, I fall in love several times a week -- with a newly discovered artist, band, or song. I'm like a shark trolling the waters, constantly on the hunt for that new experience that's going to remind me that I'm alive and present and a part of that great web of creativity that stirs our hearts and connects us to one another. And lest you think me fickle, I never stop loving those I've already fallen for, which only enlarges the trove of pleasures from which I am able to draw.
I have fallen so crazy in love with so many bands over the last five years, I can't imagine my life without them. Okkervil River and every song Will Sheff has ever written. My Morning Jacket with their otherworldly reverb. Handsome Furs. The National. The Constantines. There are more. And when they come through town and I catch them live, it only makes me love them more.
Often I fall in love after the fact, with a group that's been around a while, but that I missed the first time around. The Pixies come to mind. This morning I was out walking with my iPod, as I am wont to do, and heard a Replacements song from 1985, "Swingin' Party," that was new to me and that I really liked. Ah, to begin the day smitten. What a lovely thing.
Here's a cover version that's really sweet by Jon Auer of The Posies.
Someone give me Justin Vernon’s birth date. I have to know if my theory is correct, to wit: all the singer-songwriters I really like are water signs, like myself. I have a friend who’s an air sign. She and I have no musical tastes in common. She likes Jack Johnson; I like Ryan Adams. You get the distinction. Air signs like whatever blows across the surface of things without making a disturbance. They like to stay dry. Water signs like whatever plunges to the emotional and psychological depths. They don’t mind getting wet. I’m a double water sign, which in my case means music = tears. Doesn’t matter how many times I’ve heard something. If it makes me cry once, it’ll get me every time.
Today I watched Bon Iver on Blogotheque again. (Love their quiet little Take Away Shows. So digitally clear and so moving.) I’ve seen #93.4 a bazillion times. Made me cry anyway. Justin’s sitting there with his made-to-order bandmates, looking like nothing so much as a French Canadian woodsman. A friendly, hulking presence in the tidy apartment in Montmartre, his small audience already familiar with his songs. He starts singing “Flume” in that clear falsetto that would seem to belong to someone else and immediately I feel a catch in my throat. Then comes --
Only love is all maroon Gluey feathers on a flume Sky is womb and she’s the moon
-- which I take to be in praise of the female anatomy, but that’s just me. Then the band pauses mid-song as each musician goes at his instrument as if trying to unleash every last drop of emotion. The containment has been unbearable; there must be release. They beat and strum until there is release, then gently the song resumes and finishes. And, alas, Queen Bea is spent. But not too spent to watch it again.
When I saw that Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson -- henceforth referred to as MBAR, because not only do I decline to write that 28-letter name again, I ain’t even cutting and pasting it -- described his sound on MySpace as “that song your mom really likes," I had to laugh. You nailed me, MBAR. You totally nailed me. Queen Bea is a mom, and Queen Bea really likes your sound.
I’ve heard the Dylan references and I am a Dylan fan, but that’s not what speaks to me. (Anyway, one Dylan is enough.) What I heard was that shattering rawness, that on-the-verge-of-coming-apart-at-the-seams quality that characterized Chris Bell’s first (and regrettably, last) solo effort. MBAR is not as overtly revealing as Chris Bell -- Bell concealed nothing, not an ounce of the pain, not an ounce of the absurdity. He was one of those people who did not get how the rest of us were doing this thing called life. It was beyond him, until at some point he ran his car into a tree. And then he was beyond it.
MBAR’s “The Debtor” has a lot less innocence and a lot more complexity than Bell’s “I am the Cosmos.” And that is a good thing.
Here's Chris Bell, if you haven't had the pleasure of hearing this founding member of Big Star minus the band.
