At first I didn't quite know what I would do with the book, other than read it over and over again. My distrust of history then was still strong, and I wanted to concentrate on the story for its own sake, rather than on the manuscript's scientific, cultural, anthropological, or 'historical' value. I was drawn to the author himself.
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Music
I've had a pretty complex relationship with music over the years... ought to write about that sometime. Anyways: I listen to a lot of it, in genres like "rock" and "pop" and "folk", and play some of it, primarily in the genres "old-time" and "classical".
I'm finding it kind of interesting that the man who eludes death (after she has gone back to work) in Death with Interruptions, is a cellist. Not sure exactly how yet. Here are two pieces of music mentioned in the novel:
J.S. Bach's Suite #6, opus 1012, is the music that death sees on the cellist's stand when she visits him; he later has the music with him at orchestra rehearsal, although he is "merely a cellist in the orchestra... not one of those famous concert artistes who travel the world... he's lucky that he occasionally gets a few bars to play solo." Here it is performed by Mstistlav Rostropovitch:
Chopin's Etude #9 in G♭, from opus 25: a short, jumpy piano tune which the cellist tells his colleagues is the only piece of music in which he can really see himself. Here it is performed by Son Yeol-Eum:
So I'm pretty mystified by this Lightnin' Hopkins lyric. Leaving aside the obsession with women who wear wigs, what's up with the rats? Am I hearing this wrong?
(I am definitely hearing at least some of it wrong -- "ain't her own line", "all over mine", "I went to swing out" are all approximations.)
Update: I found a more authoritative version of the lyrics at the African-American Registry. "Rats" is correct. (The verse starting "I woke up this morning" is not present in the recording I've been listening to, from Hello Central.)
Update: Aha! Just figured it out! Thanks, unknown browser who came to this site by searching for "are wigs made of rat hair?" -- This is obviously what Hopkins meant by "rats": "wigs (putatively) made from rat hair."
Update III: Another idea comes by way of Martha M. -- "rats" are the structures used to support outlandish early-20th-C hairdos. The OED says,
5. Something resembling a rat in shape.
a. U.S. A hair-pad with tapering ends.
1869 Mrs. WhitneyWe Girls v. (1874) 98 She can't buy coils and braids and two-dollar rats. 1888Century Mag. 769 The crescent shaped pillows on which it [hair] was put up, the startling names of which were 'rats' and 'mice'.
I don't want no woman
If her hair ain't longer'n mine
I don't want no woman
If her hair ain't no longer'n mine
Yes you know she ain't good for nothing but trouble
She'll keep you buying wigs all the time
Yes, you know I carried my woman to the hair dresser
And this is what the hair dresser said
I stuck that straightener in, and
Wig fell off her head
I told her no!
Boy, if her hair ain't no longer'n mine
Yes, you know she ain't good for nothing but trouble
She'll keep you buying rats all the time
(Wigs and rats 'll get you killed)
Yes, you know I woke up this morning, peoples, poor Sam
'Bout the break of day
You know I even found a rat
On the pillow where she used to lay
You know I don't want no woman
If her hair ain't no longer'n mine
Yes, you know she ain't good for nothing but trouble
She'll keep you buying rats all the time
You know I went to get on the good side of my woman
Said Come and let's go and have some fun
You know I went to make a swing out when a rat fell from her head
Like one from a burning barn
But I just told her, I don't want no woman
if her hair ain't no longer'n mine
yes, you know she ain't good for nothing but trouble
she'll keep you buying rats all the time.....
Cut the rats out, rat, caught you buyin' wigs now, play it a long time.
↻...done
posted afternoon of September 9th, 2008: 2 responses ➳ More posts about The Blues
I worked up a fiddle part for "Rollin' in my Sweet Baby's Arms" to play at the jam tonight, and I must say it was pretty successful. I kept it fairly simple, everybody stayed with the beat and it sounded nice -- and my singing was as good as it ever gets. A couple of people complimented me on it later on.
The jam leader tonight was Barbara Lamb -- it was really great to get a chance to hear her music. She did some far out stuff like setting up rhythm tracks by overdubbing lots of different clapping patterns and rattles just before she started playing, and playing duets with herself through a delay box. She's playing a house concert in Rockaway on Saturday, I hope we can make it out there.
posted evening of September 4th, 2008: Respond ➳ More posts about Fiddling
One of the best things about the Luminous Groove box set is this track, on disk 1 of "Bad Case of History." It is a previously unreleased demo recording (recorded in Yarmouth in 1992), which means The Asking Tree has never heard of it.
This song just seems like a very pure, beautiful melody to me. I'm not sure what else to say about it -- I find the descending run on the fourth and eight lines of the verse rivetting. I lean back and forth between thinking the lyrics are lovely poetry, and thinking they are tritely emotional. The best thing about the lyrics is definitely the ways that the eighth line of each verse leads into the refrain. Possibly what I want to say about this song is, it combines perfectly the style of Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians with the style of Robyn Hitchcock's solo work from later in the '90s -- this is what you might get if you crossed "Raymond Chandler Evening" with "Heliotrope."
The fabulous whisper;
Can anyone hear but me?
The ivy surrounds you
Infinitesimally.
Does anyone love you?
Baby just me.
You're caught in the darkness,
The only place you can be alone
Alone
Alone.
A series of strangers,
Shall we say "absent friends,"
Parading before you;
Into your life she bends.
So hollow and lonely,
It's making you see,
You'll only get better
When you've learned how to be alone
Alone
Alone.
(instrumental)
What does it matter?
You're seeking the eyes long shade.
I brought you some onions;
Cry now, don't be afraid.
They're walking towards you,
The angels from everywhere;
The ghost of your body
Is bringing you back to her alone
Alone
Alone
Alone
Alone
Alone.
↻...done
In comments to NickS's covers post, Matthew links to a fantastic version of "Strawberry Fields Forever", by Los Fabulosos Cadillacs. Lovely! And it gives me a chance to remember Ellen's brief memoir "1996", published in In My Life: Encounters with The Beatles, about playing Anthology 2 for her fourth-grade class in East Harlem.
"Draw me what you hear in the music," I say.
They show me giant strawberries growing next to an apartment building, the sun's rays as streams of musical notes, the word music in big colorful letters, a strawberry tree identified with phonetic spelling swter breey fealds.
It was Ellen's first full-time teaching job (after many years of adjuncting), and she had a good time with the class, and her students had a good time learning to read and write.
"So were you a Beatlemaniac?" Yazmine asks.
"Oh, sure, of course," I answer in all seriousness. "I always will be."
Over at Before You Listen, NickS is asking, "What makes a good cover?" Well -- I've been thinking about it some and the more I reflect, the more it seems like I'm a really easy target for cover versions in general. This came to me today when I was listening to WFUV's Sunday Breakfast, and Alison Kraus came on the radio singing Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" -- this is just fantastic! and what is it about cover versions that gets me so reliably interested?
I think it's pretty simple really: When I listen to a cover of a song I like, I've got the version I know playing in my head and the version I'm listening to playing harmony. Lots of opportunities for interplay between the variations, a psychic duet between the two singers. Fun! Even better, when I get to know multiple versions and have them all playing together. (Take a look at this list of covers of "Summertime Blues" -- some great stuff in there. I guess The Who's version and Eddie Cochran's are the two most familiar to me; Blue Cheer's, which I heard for the first time yesterday, is totally worth while. Plus T. Rex! Richie Valens! Bruce! James Taylor! and many more. A couple of versions below the fold.)
(Note: Doing a clumsy post like this makes me grateful for the existence of bloggers like NickS who can write meaningful, articulate takes on what is happening in the music they're listening to.)
Via the magic of Google, I just found out that a band I never heard of, Elysian Fields, has a song (without lyrics) called "Dog of Tears." I guess there's no way it could be anything other than a reference to Blindness. Busy, busy, busy! I will listen to it later on.
Two things I like very much from the re-issue of Fegmania!: the final track "Lady Obvious," which appears never to have been released before (and which I spent a few minutes wishing could be called "Lady Octopus"); and the live version of "Heaven." I transcribed the lyrics to the former, and the intro to latter. If anybody knows the provenance of this recording of "Heaven," please let me know. (According to Miles Goosens, it is likely from the 1992 Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians tour.)
I haunted you once
You haunt me still
On a hill, I sighed, I cried...
You wanted me once
I want you still
I'm so ill, I wail, I flail...
Come down, Lady Obvious, come down
Come down, Lady Obvious, come down
I touched you once
You touch me now
And how, I feel, you there...
You loved me once
You love me now
And how, I care....
Come down, Lady Obvious, come down
Come down, Lady Obvious, come down
You loved me once
I turned away
But love and pity never mix
I'll see you when you're 36
Come down, Lady Obvious, come down
Come down, Lady Obvious, come down
Patter before "Heaven"
This here: this is a floating, a floating cathedral prayer song, used to be sung by the old prospectors when they were waiting for the cathedral to arrive. Back in the 20's, when the Bechtel corporation used to take cheap labor out into the desert to complete its massive projects, big dams and so forth. The men weren't paid very much, and they couldn't get any liquor, so they used to sit outside in groups, in circles, and they'd wait for the cathedral to come by. Big floating, transparent glass cathedral, lit by columns of light from underneath. When it came by, they'd all stiffen and howl. You've got heaven...
↻...done
I've been been listening to Fegmania! a lot over the past week (in its reissue in the Luminous Groove box set), and finding some things I really like about this record, which I had previously considered one of Robyn's weakest efforts. Today I've been getting very interested in the song "The Bells of Rhymney," which I'm embarrassed not to have already known is a classic of the 60's folk revival, written by Pete Seeger and performed variously by The Byrds, Judy Collins, The Alarm, and others.
I think Pete Seeger's is my favorite performance that I've heard so far:
(I think, but not quite sure, that this recording is from the Newport Folk Festival of 1959.)
And The Byrds are lovely and silly, standing gaily on the beach singing about mining disasters. I believe it is their version that Robyn is covering, as he sounds very similar to this:
The song is based on a poem from the book Gwalia Deserta, by miner-turned-teacher and poet Idris Davies, which Seeger found in a book of Welsh poetry compiled by Dylan Thomas. The poem (as near as I can understand) deals with the failure of a mine-workers' strike in 1926. Two other of Davies' poems can be seen in manuscript form at Welsh cultural history site Gathering the Jewels: "Rhymney", and "Rhymney Hill". David Librik gives more detail about the origins of the poem at this link (midway down), including this tantalizing couplet from Gwalia Deserta:
O what is man that coal should be so unmindful of him?
And what is coal that it should have so much blood on it?
Oh what will you give me?
Say the sad bells of Rhymney.
Is there hope for the future?
Cry the brown bells of Merthyr.
Who made the mine owner?
Say the black bells of Rhondda.
And who robbed the miner?
Cry the grim bells of Blaina.
They will plunder will-nilly,
Cry the bells of Caerphilly.
They have fangs, they have teeth,
Shout the loud bells of Neath.
Even God is uneasy,
Say the moist bells of Swansea.
And what will you give me?
Say the sad bells of Rhymney.
Throw the vandals in court,
Say the bells of Newport.
All will be well if, if, if, if
Cry the green bells of Cardiff.
Why so worried, sisters why?
Sing the silver bells of Wye.
And what will you give me?
Say the sad bells of Rhymney.
Note: I found (at The Mudcat Café) some updated lyrics to this, composed by Mr. Steve Suffet, with help from Pete Seeger.
Bells of Kabul
"We've had twenty years of Hell!"
Cry the sad bells of Kabul.
"Oppression and war!"
Scream the bells of Kanduhar.
"Did we win? Did we lose?"
Ask the broken bells of Kanduz.
"Will God grant us peace?"
Pray the bells of Mazar-i-Shareef.
↻...done
Take 2! This one is, I dare say, up to tempo and generally in time. I figured out a neat riff to start it out with; but got a little bit lost at the end. Still, I manage to keep straight when I'm playing the A or the B part, and have the correct number of repeats. Not bad!
Note: to hear a real fiddler performing this (with fretless banjo!), check out Twelvefret's recording of it at fiddlehangout.com.
posted evening of August 22nd, 2008: Respond ➳ More posts about Songs
Meredith Woerner of io9 posts trailers for Blindness. She sounds pretty enthusiastic about the film, which has been re-edited since the negative review I read a few months ago.
about playing Anthology 2 for her fourth-grade class in East Harlem.
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