” I’ll sing you one, O
Green grow the rushes, O
What is your one, O?
One is one and all alone
And evermore shall be so.”
– ‘ Green Grow The Rushes, O ‘ ( trad. English folk song )
Tag: Lyrics
‘Truly Twisted’,Twisted
Yesterday’s post Truly Twisted‘s vine picture gets the gothic makeover.
I have the flu and am struggling in the fizzing positivity stakes, in case you couldn’t guess. Rehashing an image is certainly not beneath me today.
Today’s not so inspiring words to match come from the heavy metal heart of Glen Danzig:
“Got a little twist of Cain, from the god below “
(Danzig, ‘Twist Of Cain’)
Murder, check. Satan, check.
…add them to the list of unpleasant twisty things.
My Back Pages
“Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now “
– Bob Dylan, ‘My Back Pages’
An elderly gentleman sits on a park bench in the Auckland Domain, quietly reading a book and listening to something through his headphones.
He would pause from thumbing the pages and look up from time to time to gaze around at his fellow parkgoers; walkers and people watching the ducks at the adjacent pond.
Reading is a luxury to me in an oft time-cramped existence, but this fellow seemed to have all the time in the world to focus on his book.
Ironic, considering that he has, in all probability, less time left on this planet than me(that is no certainty however!).
I was slightly envious of his ability to immerse himself in his book and music, or whatever he was filling his ears with.
I wondered what he was reading – fiction or non-fiction; thriller, humour or biography?
To read is to be curious about life.
And I bet he had an interesting life story himself.
What might his back pages read like?
Stone Box (Final Destination)
In the previous post Boxed In ,I touched on the boxes that we end up in.
In my recent travels in Scotland, I came across this ancient stone version in a cemetery at St. Andrews. Pretty impressive; nicely ergonomically tapered and contoured to fit the deceased’s head. Top design marks.
I suspect it was for someone of some importance. You wouldn’t go to all that bother for a regular dude or dudess.
Important person or not, as the pop-punk bard Wreckless Eric once said,” there’s only one destination in the final taxi”.
And on that cheery note, I too shall depart…
Streets Of Your Town
“Round and round, up and down
Through the streets of your town
Everyday I make my way
Through the streets of your town”
– The Go-Betweens, ‘Streets Of Your Town’
A marriage of a picture of one of my favourite towns, Edinburgh, with the lyrics from one of my favourite bands, Brisbane’s Go-Betweens, who spent a good deal of time in the UK forging their career, a long way from home.
There is something about the song that captures the displaced feeling of pounding the pavement in a town that will never be your own.
Song here:
Electric Glade II
“If you go down to the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise”
– ‘The Teddy Bears’ Picnic’
(for more flora aflame, see Electric Glade )
Waterloo Sunset
” As long as I gaze on Waterloo Sunset
I am in paradise “
– The Kinks, ‘Waterloo Sunset’
Cloud’s Illusions
Spring in Auckland – a stack of sun, reams of rain – and cumulus clouds like these reflecting both.
Clouds are for dreamers.
You can see what you want in their shapes.
Giant sheep and rabbits; Jesus; your late father’s face; portents of the future or maybe the outline of a Central Asian country…
Anything you like, everything you could imagine.
All illusory, but not necessarily in a bad way.
Queen Joni once sang :
” I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It’s cloud’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all ”
– (Joni Mitchell, ‘Both Sides Now’)
Sunset On Suburbia (Muse Dream)
A quiet midweek evening in the ‘burbs where I live, the terribly ordinary framed by the fantastical colours of sunset , with rain about to fall, and fall heavily.
I tend to think magic is often found in the most mundane things and places.
Or at the very least there is magic trying to break through.
As Irish pop band The Thrills had it:
“The suburbs dream tonight of finding their muse”
(from ‘ The Curse of Comfort ‘)
Hands Of Time
One of those cool multi-faced clocks that tells the time in different places around the world. The clock is in Singapore but this dial gives Vancouver time.
Love the concept of world time zones – while I am posting on my blog you may be asleep, and vice versa!
Or, on the longer time scale – some are living life to the full, while others are about to pass away.
I was driving around town yesterday and a song popped up on my Ipod’ s random play.
“Hands Of Time” by the criminally underrated Canadian singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith . Great, gorgeous and wise song and rendition , but not sure that he actually wrote it.
Some reflective lyrics from it:
” From the moment we are born
We’re in the hands of time
As drunk on life as death is sober
When we say goodbye
Though it hurts to lose a friend
May it help remembering
For every door that closes in
One’ll open to the other side
Opened by the hands of time “
Those words speak deeply to me of time, the ultimate healer and changer.
Okay, time to go…
Sweet Temptation
“Tempted by the fruit of another
tempted but the truth is discovered
what’s been going on
now that you have gone
there’s no other
tempted by the fruit of another
tempted but the truth is discovered”
– Squeeze, ‘Tempted’
Temptation.
It’s been going on since Adam offered Eve off-the -menu fruit in the Garden of Eden.
And like an insect entering the above tropical plant, some forbidden things look alluring, but could lead to a sticky end.
The Squeeze song (still have the 45 single from back in the day!) was in the soundtrack to a movie I watched recently, and was played right at the end in a party scene, where are the characters nicely resolved all their sneaky affairs and tortuous relationships.
But that was a movie.
Tread carefully if tempted – sweet nectar is isn’t always what it appears…
Whistlin’ Past The Graveyard
“I come into town on a night train with an arm full of boxcars
On the wings of a magpie cross a hooligan night
I’m gonna tear me off a rainbow and wear it for a tie
I never told the truth so I can never tell a lie
Whistlin’ past the graveyard, stepping on a crack
Me and mother hubbard Papa one-eyed jack”
– Tom Waits ,‘Whistlin’ Past The Graveyard’ (1978).
One of the greatest songs about the resting place of the dead ever written!
Well, compared to songs about love, it’s a relatively small sample size, granted.
The way the gravel-voiced one growls and rasps his blues braggadocio poetry is pure (black) magic.
Excellent slink-through-the-night creep factor, but damn hard to whistle…
Link to the song below:
All You Need
The writing’s on the wall…all you need is love, love is all you need…
For The Want Of A Nail
“Everything seems to fail
And it was all for the want of a nail”
– Todd Rundgren, “For The Want Of A Nail” (1989)
Genius musician is proved slightly wrong in the form of this stunning traditional wooden Malay house on stilts . Okay, that is a massive lyric/subject non- sequitur,but I just love both the song and the house, and there really aren’t that many songs about nails…
Or houses without nails – not a single one was used in its construction, according to the owners. Mainly interlocked timbers, like a gigantic wood jigsaw puzzle. Amazing.
Right near top of the list of coolest houses I have ever visited.
Hasn’t failed or fallen down yet apparently…
Real Good, For Free
“He was playing real good, for free”
– Joni Mitchell, ‘For Free’.
The busker in the Joni song played the clarinet, and the songwriter expressed her admiration of the player’s skills.
Not just that he played for free, or maybe a few coins thrown into a hat – but that he was truly free to express himself, and not trapped by the machinery of the music business that she was in.
The guy in the photo, playing a community piano in Atlanta a couple of years ago when I was there, was like that. Melodies played for himself, mainly.
I’d seen someone else doing the same thing earlier that day – see Butterfly Piano Man. Never come across the concept of the community piano before, and adored it!
Both gentlemen gave me random, life-affirming moments as they played – real good, for free.
Magic Bus
” Every day you’ll see the dust
as I drive my baby in my Magic Bus
( too much, Magic Bus ).”
– ‘Magic Bus’, The Who (1968)
…these days the dust might be more over this derelict carrier, than from it, but still magic..
Wavelength: Signals And Wires
The old radio station at Musick Point, Auckland sits atop a peninsular clifftop ; its signals guided military ships and planes in the Pacific during WWII . Now, the humming of the wires is generated by an amateur radio ham group that keeps the spirit of the place alive.
Regardless of the messages sent, the symbols of the power of the airwaves always resonate with me.
Stations.
Frequencies.
Transmitters.
Aerials.
Signals.
Wires.
The magic of radio – on the road ,in the dead of the night : words, voices ,music – always the music.
Connection.
“And I can get your station
When I need rejuvenation
Wavelength
Wavelength
You never let me down, no.”
‘Wavelength’, Van Morrison (1978)
Entangled
“Sentenced to drift far away now
nothing is quite what it seems
sometimes entangled
in your own dreams “
– ‘Entangled’,Genesis (1976)
I listened to this old prog rock song for the first time in years in the last week, and took the photograph about the same time.
I am not sure whether the song and its lyrics influenced the shot, but certainly not consciously.Maybe though at some weird unconscious level in the way that music does,evoking a mood or place.
The album the number comes from was one of the first I ever purchased .I drift back in time and see myself as a geeky 14 year old reading the lyrics intently from the beautiful cardboard gatefold cover, while the vinyl record spun on the rudimentary turntable in my bedroom. I played that disc countless times(entranced with ‘Entangled’!)
I was a bit of a dreamer as a teenager and the music took me back in an instant to my younger self.
So too the tangled tree branches in their veined pattern,to some more recent troubled and nightmarish times.
All is dream.
Autumn Almanac
“Breeze blows leaves of a musty-coloured yellow
So I sweep them in my sack
Yes, yes, yes, it’s my autumn almanac
-The Kinks, ‘Autumn Almanac’
Thank you Ray Davies for reminding me that the above leaves ,and hundreds more, burying the back lawn require removal. Too lazy to bother with the sack, will probably deposit them over the fence into the park next door and let them rot there…
The song is an old fave of mine ,which dissects, but not without lowkey affection, a mundane type of English life where nothing ever seems to change. Worth checking out if you haven’t heard it.
ebb then flood 