Blue at 50

My piece over at LitReactor on Joni Mitchell's BLUE album is a bit eclectic—thoughts ramble on because I had so much to say about an album that has saved my soul on more than one occasion.

Writing to Music

I write to music, as I suspect many others do, too, and perhaps not just writers but anybody at an office, garage, warehouse, etc. where the drudgery of the day needs a little relief. Recently classical music has taken over for my standard go-to jazz or rock categories. In particular, my charmer introduced me to Erik Satie's "Gnossienne no. 1" which is a moody, gorgeous composition. This particular piece plays as the soundtrack in my mind when I think of the gothic poem "The Long Return" that I wrote about a missing person.

What is your preferred musical inspiration while the job is getting done?

Johnny Cash: Love, God, Murder

Johnny Cash (1932-2003) was one of the voices surrounding my cradle. In a small home in Varna, New York, would have been my dad, mom, and sister, and a baritone voice from an 8-track tape player singing about heady topics which I would learn to understand in the years to come. My musical interests expanded beyond country to rock, classical, and my go to favorite jazz. But even today, that deep voice and those songs still capture my attention, and before he died, Johnny Cash gifted us with a compilation titled Love, God, Murder (2000) with liner notes by Bono, Quentin Tarantino, and Johnny's lovely wife, June Carter Cash.

The "Murder" collection of songs has been playing on my Bose nonstop for weeks, whether I'm tinkering with a poem, editing a crime story for the BEAT to a PULP webzine, or riding the killing trail with Cash Laramie, who, yes, I partly named after Johnny. Inspirations abound. Take a song like "Don't Take Your Guns to Town," about a young man named Billy Joe who wants to be respected and rides into town with his guns hanging at his side. Hear that song just once and a movie begins playing out inside your head that could have been directed by John Ford. You see his mom crying over him and that dusty cowpoke laughing him down at the bar. It's not just a song but a narrative that gets into your ear and under your skin, and no matter how much you don't want Billy to make that fatal mistake to draw his pistols, he will again and again.

Another classic, "Delia's Gone," is about an unfaithful wife who's killed by the narrator. Unlike "Don't Take Your Guns to Town," there is no sympathetic protagonist, rather a jealous husband who appears to gleefully enjoy the path he takes—Cash was never afraid to go there in what Tarantino calls hillbilly thug life. I especially relish this particular compilation for the various points of view, whether from people witnessing a president's assassination in "Mister Garfield," a prisoner fantasizing about breaking out of Folsom prison, a man admitting to a murder to protect his best friend's wife from the shame of their affair, or an honest policeman allowing his criminal brother to get away "'cause a man who turns his back on his family ain't no good." That song, "Highway Patrolman," was written by Bruce Springsteen, and it has always impressed me how Cash could interpret other people's songs, slipping them into his own music book for a seamless listen. He's covered songs from a wide range of artists, from Hank Snow to Trent Reznor, with the ability to make them his own. How does he do it? I believe it's because his voice speaks with an authority that seems from The Almighty himself.

Any other Cash aficionados? What's your favorite song or album?

Rain on the leaves...

At 2 a.m. the little goose couldn't sleep and wanted to watch a show on the Kindle Fire. Once she was happily contented with M. Mouse—and with any luck our lesson is finally learned that there should be no chocolate consumed before bed—and my Charmer was back to sleep, I began working on an Errol Flynn article devoted to his Hollywood Westerns. I watched part of Sante Fe Trail (1940) and this leads to watching the documentary Tasmanian Devil: The Fast and Furious Life of Errol Flynn.

And that’s a long way around to saying it reminded me of “Sean Flynn” by The Clash from 1982’s Combat Rock. Errol’s son Sean, a freelance photojournalist for Time and United Press International, disappeared on April 6, 1970. His body was never found and it is believed he was held captive for over a year before being murdered by the Khmer Rouge.

For Ron Scheer

The Next Day

I was cleaning out my word documents and found this 'review' I wrote  last May and never posted. I played The Next Day again and stand by that its a solid piece of music. Here's my belated (fairly rough draft/no polish) take:

 

Review: THE NEXT DAY by David Bowie

I’ve learned to not review music because since I can’t carry a tune I will end up giving tribute like “this album (hell I’m not even sure what to put there) is really, really good” or “it sucks” or something equally inane. But Mr. Bowie’s latest helped me quite a bit over a long Memorial Day weekend and if I begin by saying this isn’t a musical review but a post for like-minded fans who may not have picked up his latest assortment of songs—then that would be ok, right? So with that aside, and since I can’t see you nodding, here we go:

My first two CDs I bought was Rewind by the Rolling Stones and ChangesBowie. I was working at Ames Department stores and this had to be 1989/1990 or thereabouts. I had been a fan of David Bowie, like everyone else of my generation with the Let’s Dance (1983) LP. And yes, that was bought as an album. (But CDs were the new rage and, let’s digress even farther, I remember they came in these long cardboard cases that were eventually declared a waste of tree and eventually shrink wrapped in nothing but plastic. So I purchased them with my pathetic pay check and once I got off the swing shift and headed home around 9:30 and played “Changes,” “Suffragette City,” and “Heroes” to… well not death because this was a CD after all the new music form was billed as indestructible. )

Out of all the phases of Mr. Bowie’s career it was that late 70’s period referred to as the Berlin era that cut the deepest with this fan. Though I appreciated the earlier glam and later 80’s pop it was the 1976-’79 era that I related to the most. I just checked Wikipedia to find this sentence, “Like Low, "Heroes" evinced the zeitgeist of the Cold War, symbolized by the divided city of Berlin.” Yeah, that and I thought the songs were really, really damn good. Since ChangesBowie I have bought every release hoping to find an album that returned to that style but Bowie, like Dylan, doesn’t retread and instead created new landscapes with Heathen, Hours, Reality, and now The Next Day.

I played his latest (bought on the Kindle Fire) in an endless loop for three days. Days of long, long deliberations on my part and where Mr. Bowie’s vision of the now came through on a wave of pulsating positive rhythmic beats.* My favorite is “The Stars (Are Out Tonight” with the heavens bustling with activity: "We will never be rid of these stars,” Bowie sings “But I hope they live forever."

What keeps David Bowie relevant to me is he continues to write adult lyrics that doesn't resort to entertaining the teen set or fall in the overly wrought sugar sentiment of the adult radio scene.  Bowie writes for the over forty set who still appreciate the guitars and drums of our youth. With the release of his latest his website stated “David is the kind of artist who writes and performs what he wants when he wants ... when he has something to say as opposed to something to sell.” Working on this not a review I see that Tony Visconti who produced those Berlin era LPs worked on The Next Day. Well there you go. No wonder it hits the mark so well.

The New York Times called the album "Bowie's twilight masterpiece". Well he’s only 66 and I’m hoping he’s productive for another forty years. So were halfway there.

 

*no clue where I was going there.

And So This Was Christmas

Going into this holiday season, I wasn’t sure how my family would cope, being our first Christmas without Kyle. But—I don’t know how to put this in words—it was good, and I think it’s because we chose to remember him rather than mourn him. We pulled together and had sweatshirts made that feature his Pluvial Gardens book cover on the front and text from the poem on the back with his name and life years. We all put our shirts on and then went outside for a photo in the snow. I’ve worn it each day since. Maybe, I’ll give it a rest tomorrow—maybe.

My sister surprised her husband with this ornament—the photo below was taken by my brother-in-law, Bob—a symbol of a father and son's shared passion for music, and he got her a sapphire necklace, the stone for Kyle's birth month September. Very touching. Christmas 2013 for us was about a family that lost a very special member, about how we got knocked down but not out, how we took as much of the sting out of our pain as we could, how we’re stronger now because he’s still with us in his words and in spirit. Always will be.

I hope all of you find some peace this season. From my family to yours, we wish you the best of New Years.

In Dreams

In dreams...I talk to you

Sacred

This is my daughter Ava Elyse turning the pages of her cousin Kyle Knapp’s posthumous collection of poetry, Celebrations in the Ossuary. She got first look at the proof copy that arrived this week.

Kyle would play his guitar, and Ava would dance to the music he played. Her fascination with guitars started when she was just months old, watching for a still shot of an acoustic guitar pop up on the screen of the cable TV Jazz channel. We bought a mini acoustic guitar for her, and since neither her mom nor I can carry a tune let alone play a musical instrument, she was transfixed when Kyle played. We left Ava’s guitar there with him the last time that we saw him.

One time, my sister went to move the guitar out of the living room, but Kyle brought it back and placed it next to his. He told his mom it was “sacred” and the instrument needed to stay put—next to where he wrote, played music, and worked on his poetry.

There was a message on his twitter account from December 13, 2012, that read “learned to play all of Franz Ferdinand’s ‘Walk Away’ on baby Ava’s guitar this morning. lol couldn’t sleep.”

Thank you, Kyle, for loving my daughter, writing a poem for her we consider sacred. I should have Ossuary out, as promised, by your birthday.

Tranquilize

For Mates and Cole Montegue.

Until It Sleeps

Revolving blue petals/Dim the soft silent rotting rooms. --K. Knapp

Raymond Chandler Evening

I'm Not Like Everybody Else

Or at least I like to think so. What about you?

You Look Like Rain

Great music recommended by Chris Holm.

Old Habits

Harder than November rain

I'm younger than that now

Bob Dylan at 70: Still alive.

Katy Too

At BEAT to a PULP this weekend is Alec Cizak with "Katy Too."

Country Song

Thanks to Jodi for sending this along. Amusing video and I'm a new convert to their music. Anyone else?

The Stranger Song

I watched McCabe & Mrs. Miller again last night and this soundtrack gets me every time with those poignant lyrics.

Veronica

As a young man, I liked the song but the emotional impact for Veronica wasn't there. Fast forward twenty-two years, and now it is. For Sheila Kathleen.