Dancing about Architecture

“Ring! Ring! It’s 7 AM!
Move yourself to go again.”
—The Clash, “The Magnificent Seven”

When you’ve got 20 years of working behind you, and another 20 to go, and it seems like a “long way to go, a hard row to hoe” (in the words of John Lennon), this is a good song to listen to:

“Now the place is ringed with countless foes,
Some of them may be deaf and dumb,
No man, no woman knows
The hour that sorrow will come.”
—Bob Dylan, “Workingman’s Blues #2”

Right now I’m watching a band called Adverse Reactions play in the Rat. They just started playing a Gen X song “Ready, Steady, Go” so they can’t be all bad. It’s too bad about Billy Idol, though, isn’t it? Tony James is playing with Mick Jones, though, so that’s cool.

This piece was inspired by Theodore Roethke’s poem “The Lost Son”.

Zeitgeist performed “The Lost Son” on February 21, 2006 in St. Paul, Minnesota, at the American Composers Forum Tuesday Salon.  Zeitgeist is Pat O’Keefe on bass clarinet, Shannon Wettstein, on piano, and Heather Barringer, on snare drum, with special guest Jane Garvin, on flute.

• Performance by Zeitgeist

Songs to play when driving around with your friends in your parents’ car on a Friday night:

• Elvis Costello: “Pump It Up”
• Nick Lowe: “Switch Board Susan”
• Squeeze: “Another Nail For My Heart”
• Elvis Costello: “I Can’t Stand Up (For Falling Down)”
• Nick Lowe: “Heart”
• Squeeze: “Pulling Mussels (From The Shell)”
• Elvis Costello: “High Fidelity”
• Nick Lowe: “7 Nights To Rock”
• Squeeze: “Tempted”
• Elvis Costello: “Everyday I Write The Book”
• Nick Lowe: “The Rose Of England”
• Squeeze: “Black Coffee In Bed”

This is my attempt to do something spooky like Steve Reich’s “It’s Gonna Rain”, which is a favorite work of mine. I was also influenced by the possessed girl Regan’s backwards-talking in the book and movie “The Exorcist”. The text is by William Shakespeare and is from “Macbeth”, I think; not that you would be able to recognize that since most of it is backwards or otherwise obscured. Somehow, I think my vocals kind of ended up sounding like John Lydon.

Listen to “‘Tis Time”

My friend Mark V. Shaney found an old notebook of what appear to be song lyrics in the back of a closet in the Chelsea Hotel. He claims that this might be an old notebook of Bob Dylan’s with working versions of song lyrics. I don’t know what to think. Anyway, here they are:

Ten thousand women all dressed in white,
Ten thousand men on a little girl, her name was Will O’ Conley and he laid it all hid
Better jump down a gulf amidst a bloody red rain
And these visions of Johanna, they make pretty good stuff
Plenty of places to see,
Just bein’ next to his eye,
“You fail to understand,” he said,
“Where I have to explode.
In that last hour of my heart

I can’t say I didn’t realize just what am I if I’m lucky.

People tell me that made him fall.
No, you can’t refuse
When you think could resist you?
Sad-eyed lady of the wrist.
What’s a sweetheart like you I’m wondrin’ what’s goin’ on.

Maybe someday you’ll see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row

Now if you got nothing to turn the tide for to fade
Into my own heart’s blood
Come flowin’ down so free?”

5. If you really wanted to go to sleep time is right before the sun sinkin’ like a tool.
He’s taught in his brain.
And he’s hungry, like a ton of lead,
Wiggle – you can cry awhile

I’m walkin’ down the road
Still I don’t live here
Honey, I will be three o’clock,”
She said that way I can do with him.
Through hostile cities and unfriendly towns,
Thirty pieces of silver, no money down.
Maybe someday, you’ll believe me when I needed your help,
You gimme a map and a Panama hat
And a thousand miles from home
But I can’t use it anymore.
It’s gettin’ dark, too dark for you to stay behind.
And since my feet don’t walk so fast
Yes, my temperature rises and my car ain’t actin’ right.
Called home, everybody seemed to pay to get lucky, baby,
Or I’m bound forever, till the broad daylight,
Till he came to a quiet place instead?
Did they speak out against Him, did they believe?
I was so much she made us sick, Uh-huh.

13. “Last night I danced with a black nightingale.
I seen her since January,
She could be seen with you when you gonna wake up
When you were right. It was from her mother and sister, though close did they believe?
He said, “Call me if only you in the skies.
Dark Beauty
Meet me at all.”

Who killed Davey Moore,
Why an’ what’s the reason for?

“Not me,” says the man in Kansas City, wanted man in a land
Where justice is a deathless need
And a thousand years old
And I’m glad to get to heaven before they close the door
Instrumental
Tweedle-dee Dum to Tweedle-dee Dee
They’re throwing knives into the root of forbidden fruits.
It will be alright, girl,
Someone’s watchin’ over you.

I have tried my best to smile.
I turned on my feet,
I have been sold.

“Arise, arise,” he cried so loud,
Crying out that he was a good idea
‘Til greed got in the sky,
Father of whom we most solemnly praise.
Instrumental

I think a lot of people aren’t really familiar with Bob Dylan’s late ’70s and early ’80s songs.  This is one of my favorite periods of his.  I came up with a list of my favorite songs from those years.  Here it is, for anyone who is curious:

* Street Legal (1978)
** “Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)”
** “Where Are You Tonight?”

* Slow Train Coming (1979)
** “Slow Train”

* Shot of Love (1981)
** “Every Grain of Sand”
** “Need a Woman” (outtake (available on The Bootleg Series, Volumes 1—3))

* Infidels (1983)
** “Jokerman”
** “Sweetheart Like You”
** “License to Kill”
** “I and I”
** “Don’t Fall Apart on Me Tonight”
** “Lord Protect My Child” (outtake (available on The Bootleg Series, Volumes 1—3))
** “Blind Willie McTell” (outtake (available on The Bootleg Series, Volumes 1—3))

* Miscellaneous
** “Caribbean Wind” (4/7/81), released on Biograph
** “Someone’s Got a Hold of My Heart” (4/25/83) (available on The Bootleg Series, Volumes 1—3)
** “Gonna Change My Way of Thinking” (performed with Mavis Staples) (available on Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan)
** “I and I” (Reggae Remix) (available on Is It Rolling Bob?: A Reggae Tribute to Bob Dylan)
** “London Calling”.  Written by Joe Strummer and Mick Jones and performed by the Clash on London Calling (1979).  (Actually, this is neither written nor performed by Bob Dylan, but it sounds like a secular version of “Slow Train” to me (and they both came out the same year, which is kind of weird, I think).)

I saw Bob Dylan tonight at Mayo Field here in Rochester. I wish I could say that there was something particularly memorable about tonight’s concert. Something different from the half-dozen other shows I’ve seen from the Never-Ending Tour over the last decade or so. But there wasn’t. If he had done one of the following, I would have been happy: (1) played some songs (or a song, even) from Modern Times (which I think is great), (2) played that rocking version of “The Drifter’s Escape” that he’s played often during the Never-Ending tour, that version where you don’t even recognize what song it is or what words he’s singing until he gets to the “my feet I swear they’re burning” part. But he didn’t play any songs from the new album and he didn’t play “Drifter’s Escape”, either. (The one sort of highlight by omission was that he didn’t play “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” for a change.)

I don’t know why he didn’t play any of the new songs. Maybe he doesn’t trust us to know any of them yet. But that sort of thing never used to bother him.

Anyway, maybe I’ll go see him in St. Paul later this fall and he’ll play some of the new songs then. He plays keyboards through the whole show now (I think—I sat down during a few songs and couldn’t see over the people in front of me and maybe he picked up guitar on some of those, but I don’t think so). Anyway, I like the fact that he’s playing keyboard, not guitar. It’s like when he started out with the Golden Chords (hi, Leroy!) in Hibbing. And he really seems to enjoy playing with this band and just letting them rock out and play long, rocking guitar solos and stuff. Like they’re the sort of band he enjoyed playing in when he was in high school and his ambition was to “join Little Richard”.

So, anyway, I came up with this idea. I think when he plays in St. Paul, he should first play all the songs on Modern Times from start to finish. And then, he should play nothing but Little Richard songs after that. Moreover, he should dump that cheesy, white keyboard thing and play everything on an old Steinway K-52 upright (a pre-CBS sellout model). (Maybe he can see whether Jimmy Yancey’s old piano is on the market.) I suppose he plays that cheesy, white keyboard standing up because the audience can see him better. But, hey, you can’t see anyone in the Xcel (sp?) Center, anyway, so he could just sit behind that big old Steinway upright and pound away. Nothing but Little Richard tunes (and “Workingman Blues #2” from the new album). And then just to throw everyone really off he should do that Ricky Nelson song, “Lonesome Town”, as an encore, like he used to do in the 80s. Now that’s a concert I’d love to see.

Walking in the dark through the North Hibbing graveyard. Listen.

“Rain” was the B-side of “Paperback Writer” (and is maybe a bit obscure). This song has the best rock drumming of all time. (It also has a great bass part.)

“sdaeh rieht edih dna nur yeht semoc nair eth nehw”.