I love that Bowie is an artist that accompanies a person across many ages, experiences, and tastes. The first Bowie album I fell in love with was Hunky Dory ("She's a queen, such a queen!"), traveled alongside Young Americans to Low and Heroes, and I'm currently into Lodger in a big way; yet more albums await thorough obsession!
It was a sweet experience, in my History of Rock class last year, to realize that Bowie is still shocking. His androgyny remains threatening in its liberation, and unlike artists who these days contrive to shock, David Bowie always had soul; his music endures because it has emotional range.
So much music I love, Punk and New Wave, just wouldn't have happened without this guy....everybody since owes him.
Without further ado, some of my favorites:
"Sound and Vision" from Low
This song makes me dance and sing every time I hear it...I even do vocal keyboard imitations.
I love the joyfulness of the song, and the declaration of artistic intent.
"Weeping Wall" from Low side 2
This song knocks me out- haunting, filled with yearning.
"Red Sails" from Lodger
I love the feeling of barely controlled chaos in this song, and that it feels like a sonic ocean journey. My favorite part is this lyric near the end:
The hinterland, the hinterland
We're gonna sail to the hinterland
And it's far far, far far far, far far far away
Its a far far, far far far fa da da da-da da
"John, I'm Only Dancing"
Apparently this one was too racy for US markets. Love the dissonance of the chorus.
Bowie looks great in this video! It also includes spectacularly weird dancer/alien/people/? things.
"Be My Wife" from Low
Did I mention Low is my favorite Bowie album?
Sometimes you get so lonely
Sometimes you get nowhere
Yes, so the solution is getting married!! ;)
But on a more serious note, it's really cool that Bowie is exploring the loneliness that probably led to his drug use. He had just gotten clean before he made this album, and I think that's one of the reasons it IS such a GREAT album.
"Andy Warhol" from Hunky Dory
Yo, Adrienne, this one's for you! :) <3
"Queen B****" from Hunky Dory
To quote Ryan, "Not just anyone can rock a blue guitar!"
And finally, in one of his most pleasingly desperate vocals, and a fantastic video:
Kate Bush is on my mind due to the exciting news that several of her albums are being remastered (The Sensual World and The Red Shoes), and she is revisiting songs from those albums to create what she's calling The Director's Cut.
The other thing on my mind tonight is the United States military engagement in Libya. Yes, I want the people of Libya to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi...but I can't find it in me to feel optimistic about the US getting involved, especially in the midst of the education/public services funding crisis happening in the United States. I'm flashing back to 2003 when the US bombed Iraq...(eight years ago!!)...
Kate Bush, as it happens, is fairly prolific in her anti-war songwriting. I pulled the three most relevant of those songs to share with you. They are fantastic, affecting songs.
The first of those three is "Army Dreamers," and since it was a single, you might be familiar with it. It's a quiet song sung from a mother's perspective as the body of her son is returned home to England. There are so many things her son could've done, but never got the chance. It seems that the army may have been the only viable option for him.
...He never even made it to his twenties
What a waste --
Army dreamers
The song is in waltz time, which is interesting, and beneath the guitar-plucks and clicking (of a camera?) you can hear a man yelling what sound like orders. There are also male voices layered beneath Kate's vocal.
Within the context of the video, I think Kate might be portraying the mother imagining herself in her son's shoes, or at least with him in the battlefield.
This song...whew...this song is as good as anything anyone's ever done. You'll want to check out the lyrics for yourself (if you follow the link embedded in the song title above, you'll see a great piece of analysis below the lyrics by Theresa_Gionoffrio).
Essentially, this is a Vietnam War song sung from the perspective of a Viet Cong male.
The part of the song that effects me most, that has often brought tears to my eyes, is in the chorus.
Just one thing in it,
Me or him and I love life
I love life
I love life
You know it's bad, when loving life means you're willing to destroy the life of someone else. Her vocal...says it ALL.
"Breathing" (from Never for Ever) This song was also a single.
"Breathing" references nuclear bombing, and a lot of people think it's about a child's reaction to that reality from within the womb. In fact, the womb is a metaphor for the bigger picture of our relationship with the earth, our dependence on it, and our interconnectedness with each other. When something terrible is carried out somewhere in the world, everyone is affected.
After the blast,
Chips of Plutonium are twinkling in every lung.
I love my beloved,
All and everywhere
And there's no escape from what others do to this world, to us, because we all have to keep breathing.
Only the fools blew it,
You and me knew life itself is Breathing.
Finally, I'd like to leave you with one of my favorite poems of all time.
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
by Randall Jarrell
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from the dream of life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
My jaw is hanging open right now....this is Webster's definition of a B-side:
B-side
noun
the less important side of a pop single record.
Uh, to quote Depeche Mode, WRONG ! Every single lovin' kid since Elvis' cover of "Hound Dog" knows that the "b" stands for buried treasure!
I've got two fistfuls of b-sides here for your listening enjoyment.
These are songs I've listened to obsessively because they are every bit as good as an A-side. ¡No te preocupes! I've limited myself to one per artist, so this isn't just a page full of PJ Harvey, Tori Amos, and Smiths b-sides, although it rightfully could be. In no particular order...
"Orpheus," Grant Lee Buffalo single Mockingbirds, from the album Mighty Joe Moon
This is an incredible song, musically and lyrically. There's a melancholy and menace here that has something to do with starlight and the American plains...this is an American band...more so than any other I've heard.
"Carry Us All," the Oasis single Sunday Morning Call, from the album Standing on the Shoulder of Giants
One of the wonderful things about being a Yankee that loves British music (should I say EngRock?) is that I don't have to take sides in the Blur/Oasis love match (to the death!). I can quite jump in on the intense Noel worshiping. And though Liam is hilarious, and a great stand-up comic who plays a mean dumb-arse, Noel is ultimately the better, more heartfelt singer. I also relate to Noel's working-class idealism, and find his faith in humanity touching.
Be forewarned, there are more pictures of Noel in this video than you ever wanted to see.
"Take to the Sky," Tori Amos single Winter, from the album Little Earthquakes
This song was really good to me and became one of my anthems when I was first realizing the position the world puts women in. If life was a musical, I'd hope for a rousing, pint-raising, stool-spinning rendition of this song in the local pub. This song is simply meant to be sung along to.
"Love in a Void," Siouxsie and the Banshees single Mittageisen.
One of Sioux's earliest lyrics. I find this absolutely irresistible. I love Siouxsie's voice, every growl, rumble, and shriek. She's a great and underrated singer. The version below is a Peel session recording from 11/29/77.
"Sands of Time," the Cut Copy single Far Away, from the album In Ghost Colours
This is the only new track released as a b-side from this album; the rest of the b-sides are remixes.
One of the great things about this album are the lows that provide the foundation for the dance-tastic-ness that ensues. Give this song a minute to get your feet moving.
Also, the sand/art process here is pretty interesting.
"Piss Factory," Patti Smith's single, Hey Joe
You want punk? Patti DIY'd this in 1974. It doesn't get more punk than this.
Warning: explicit content...not for the faint of heart, or the sensitive of ear.
"Pencils in the Wind," Flight of the Conchords. Another Record Store Day vinyl-only release of AWESOME!
I love that amidst their silliness, FOTC really are aficionados of music, and do the soul style with zeal and skill. Also, teachers, this is a great way to teach similes and metaphors!
"Memphis," PJ Harvey's single Good Fortune, from the album Stories From the City, Stories from the Sea.
You may have already read my entry about Jeff Buckley and his album, Grace...this song is about him.
All of PJ's singles are great (and the gal's got a lot of them), but this one hits me like a knockout punch when I hear it. I know I use religious terms to describe my most intense musical liaisons, and this one's right in the mix. When I hear this song, I feel the spirit and hear the voice of Jeff Buckley in there. He is palpably present. Exquisite.
"Luminous Times (Hold on to Love)," from U2's single With or Without, from the album The Joshua Tree
Bono does a great job of landing on lyrics by just singing along to a melody. Hear here an unfinished song from the studio. Brian Eno, shame on you for not finding time to finish this gem!
"Hold on to love
Hold on to love
Love won't let you go
Hold on to love
Hold on to love
She the sunlight in her song
See the sunlight in her soul"
"Wonderful Woman," The Smiths' single This Charming Man, from the album Hatful of Hollow (and later the American release of the debut album)
There's not much to say (about this song) that hasn't already been said...so I'll say nothing at all...
It's almost enough to convert the hardest of hearts.
April 15, 2001. Easter Sunday. MY FIRST ROCK CONCERT! My first trip on the MAX. What a great night. PJ Harvey opened for U2. Bono sang "I Remember You," dedicated to Joey Ramone, who had just passed away earlier in the day.
* * *
PJ Harvey, glorious music goddess. If I had to narrow it down to one artist/band to love and listen to for the rest of my life, it would be her. But I've got to set the stage for my completest obsession and total admiration for this artist.
One of the great things that I've discovered about getting older, is my increasing ability to ask questions. Sometimes those questions are "why?" or "why not?" (Thanks, Yoko! Check out these two fantastic Plastic Ono Band songs if you like Experimental/Punk music!). Questions that began to plague me during my freshman year in college:
Why don't I have any female musicians I can fully identify with?
I'm just not a big pop/folk fan. These genres contain the most easily accessible female artists in our culture. I hear tell there's some sexism in the music industry...and I'm not going to spend time talking about it, because the person who can't see it is missing their eyeballs.
Asking this question helped me see sexism for what it is-- not just in music, but everywhere.
Where can I find out about female musicians?
DIY at its best. Headed my little lonesome down to Powell's on Burnside, of course. I owe these two gems for giving me history and leads. I owe Napster for letting me sample before spending my dough.
I LOVE this book cover.
O'Brien is an awesome writer.
Who is speaking for me about my experience as a woman in this world?
A man sure can't. This question sent me running on my marathon of musical discovery. I'm still going! I'm still discovering!
So where does PJ enter into things?
Maybe I will bring an imaginary child into this story. I will name her "imaginary daughter", or Id. ;)
My daughter, Id, when young girls become young women, they find that there is a fire that burns within them. For many, they turn the fire against themselves, and burn all the things that the world does not like. If this were so, you might see a woman who has strong feelings become a woman who tears down other women that have strong feelings. A woman who will fawn and preen in order to impress, and never ask herself what she feels or thinks in her hidden heart. She will burn herself forever, like a lump of coal in hell. For other girls, they turn the fire outward, they are filled with anger that the world does not like who they are. Sometimes the currents of the world turn the fire back on its owner, and she must let the fire roar even larger to make a space within her for the new growth of her person-hood.
Your mother was a violent young woman; she was meek and quiet, and had her nose stuck in a book most of the time, but when she was on the basketball court, even the 6'4" girls had a tough time making a lay-up.
Your mother's anger made room for her to learn to speak with the voice she lost when she was a teenager.
I hope she will nod sagaciously.
My corps of discovery grew as I explored. Jeff Buckley walked me to a parking meter where I met Patti Smith, Nico sat with me in a smoky den (she did not offer me drugs!), Tori held my hand, Bjork invited me to belt out songs with her, and many other women told me their stories. PJ Harvey awaited me ahead.
I met her at the Rose Garden Arena, my first real rock concert. After a day on Burnside, a hitch on the MAX from 2nd Street and over the river, I was vibrating in anticipation of seeing U2. My friend and I handed our tickets to the dark-haired ticket dude, and wandered into the coliseum where we could hear the opening band already playing. After gawking at the U2 paraphernalia (some "after" pics can be seen on my FB) we wandered up to the nosebleed section where our seats were located. I could practically reach up and touch the ceiling.
A song has finished, and another is beginning. I look to the stage.
There she is, in her glittering miniskirt, her shiny stiletto boots, an iridescent v-neck top, and a guitar that might be bigger than her. Her voice sinks me into my seat. She owns my attention while people all around me chatter as though the ground has not moved from under us, as though she is not throwing sonic arrows deep into our hearts. I remember thinking, "What is wrong with these people? How can we do anything but listen?" And for the first time someone is speaking to me on a primal level that totally connects, that brings forth the visceral feelings of violence, passion, desperation, tenderness into one cohesive force that fills me to brim over.
This is the song I heard. (This live version is from later in 2001, and she's wearing the same boots/skirt from when I saw her.)
I remember her voice, the songs she sang even though I'd never heard them before. I was beguiled by her high notes, her growls, her ferocious intensity. And yet, she had the power to be vulnerable, too, and emotionally honest.
PJ doesn't play the audience on sex appeal-- her appeal is a by-product of her confidence, of her musical conviction. She is PJ Harvey on no one else's terms. She does not waste time addressing her songs to the male gaze, as most female pop-stars do. Her songs and videos on this album really capture her gaze.
I bought the promo video for "This is Love" on ebay and watched it more times than I can count. This is a woman who is totally comfortable with herself and performing and singing on her own terms. I can't get enough. (I regret to inform you that the following video is cut off at the end, which reduces its awesomeness, but it's the best I could find on the web.)
One of the many appeals of PJ Harvey is that she is a woman who dares you to look her in the eyes. She doesn't blink.
I love her for this.
I love that her music cuts to the bone, that it can be menacing in it's naked honesty, that it can express joy and the exhilarating feeling of what it means to be alive or in love.
Her music helps me connect to what it means to be me in all shades of expression and experience, without judgment.
PJ Harvey changed my life.
* * *
Finally, here is a song-- from the year I fell in love with Ryan-- that means a lot to me.
Another picture of my favorite woman, from the fateful night of April 15, 2001.
I've programmed my stereo to turn on an hour before my first class; it'll begin playing-- with a fade-in-- whatever CD is in the the player. I've recently purchased Adore, by the Smashing Pumpkins, but never listened to it.
"To Sheila" snakes through my subconscious before I'm even aware I'm waking up. I've never felt so alert in my life. Every particle of my being is leaning into the song, and I'm laying flat on my back with my covers pulled up to my chin.
The moment feels holy, consecrated. Every nuance of this song is perfect, from the delicate piano strokes, the sound of the drum machine, to the glorious banjo.
Go ahead, close your eyes. Listen.
(PS couldn't find the song w/out this visual)
(Complete lyrics at bottom of page)
There's a lot going on in this song...and heads-up, I'm about to go all English-majory on you.
While reading through the lyrics on songmeanings.net, I saw that a lot of folks think "To Sheila" is about losing faith, or giving up on someone. After my first encounter with the song, I find that impossible to believe. I think the real heart of this song is about the nature of being human, having to let go of a sense of control, let go of someone loved. It is also about finding grace and freedom in acknowledging our inability to stand alone and our need for connection with others, with the divine.
The sounds of the instruments on this song (including Corgan's voice) remind me of the the first few lines of the song, what the sunset feels like after a long, scorching day.
"Twilight fades
Through blistered Avalon
The sky's cruel torch
On aching autobahn"
The music speaks with a gentleness that seems to contrast the difficult and disconcerting images presented in the lyrics. When the physical is tied to the eternal, "blistered Avalon", the machine contrasted and connected with the body, it is in images of pain or degradation.
"Sheila rides on crashing nightingale
Intake eyes leave passing vapor trails
With blushing brilliance alive"
(In this context it seems fitting to combine real instruments with "fake" ones, like the drum machine that enters the song during this stanza.) The singer is conscious of a link between eternity while trapped in a physical experience. The desire to step into the mysterious, the holy, and a fear of what we are without our bodies, our "selves", becomes apparent.
"Into the uncertain divine
We scream into the last divide"
But there is a turn in the song that hinges on the words "faith" and "grace", that takes the listener to a different destination than death. It allows the uncertain, the scream, to become a light, a journey home.
The first stanza of the song:
"Twilight fades
Through blistered Avalon
The sky's cruel torch
On aching autobahn"
The first stanza transformed:
"A summer storm graces all of me
Highway warm sing silent poetry
I could bring you the light
And take you home into the night"
How does that happen? How does the "aching autobahn" begin to "sing silent poetry"? This stanza stands between the two.
"Lately I just can't seem to believe
Discard my friends to change the scenery
It meant the world to hold a bruising faith
But now it's just a matter of grace"
Faith is generated by a human; in this case it's "bruising," a faith that would cause the singer to break friendships, sacrifice the world, fear death. When this faith is relinquished in favor of grace ("the free and unmerited favor of God"- thank you, Webster's), the singer is free to experience a summer storm as gracing in contrast to viewing twilight after a hot day as an "aching", a negative. There is a light shining into the uncertain, the divide is no longer scary, the divide is a destination, a home.
"You make me real
You make me real
Strong as I feel
You make me real"
It takes an outside force, it takes grace, to experience life truly and fully, to be "real". It takes letting go.
The final guitar chord rings on past the careful plucking of the banjo, past the gentle brushes of the drum machine, the other instruments fade, and the singer is like the final notes, unresolved, moving forward into eternity.
* * *
To Sheila
Twilight fades
Through blistered Avalon
The sky's cruel torch
On aching autobahn
Into the uncertain divine
We scream into the last divide
You make me real
You make me real
Strong as I feel
You make me real
Sheila rides on crashing nightingale
Intake eyes leave passing vapor trails
With blushing brilliance alive
Because it's time to arrive
You make me real
You make me real
Strong as I feel
You make me real
Lately I just can't seem to believe
Discard my friends to change the scenery
It meant the world to hold a bruising faith
But now it's just a matter of grace
A summer storm graces all of me
Highway warm sing silent poetry
I could bring you the light
And take you home into the night
You make me real
Lately I just can't seem to believe
You make me real
Discard my friends to change the scenery
Strong as I feel
It meant the world to hold a bruising faith
You make me real
But now it's just a matter of grace
I've spent a lot of time in the last few weeks thinking about when I was younger. Music has been my pathway to writing about times I haven't allowed myself to visit much because there's pain inherent in craning my neck to look backwards. I finally got out all my old pictures (as you can see on Facebook!) and looked at them with smiles, and not absolute sadness. I find myself owing The Joshua Tree and Grace all over again (and a few other things that I think I'll finally be able to write about after this post).
I'm a fairly reflective person, but the reality is that when I look at the past I focus on my mistakes, so my desire is to look ahead, plan how to avoid future errors when I should be examining the things in my past that were good and right.
"You said the past won’t rest
Until we jump the fence and leave it behind"
I find that I've lost people along the way to the present, lost their names, lost their faces, lost my connection like a fuzzy radio signal. Looking at these pictures, I think, "why didn't I spend more time getting to know these beautiful people?" I discover that I've dug a big old hole in the back yard of my heart and buried the bones of memories, but now they're more present, more welcome than ever.
What footsteps did I take in the dark that I can finally look my memories in the eyes again?
"They keep erasing all the streets we grew up in."
"Suburban War" has been traveling with me, recalling to me things I felt when I returned home from Lewis & Clark after my freshman year. Things I feel now.
"With my old friends I can remember when
You cut your hair, I never saw you again
Now the cities we live in could be distant stars
And I search for you in every passing car"
Today I remembered an (unfinished) poem from 2001 that parallels aspects of "Suburban War".
Living in Two Places
I guess the weirdest thing
Is always seeing faces
From the city I’m not in
On the bodies of strangers,
Phantoms of relation.
Location is a trench
Dug right through the middle of me;
Shadows of shapes pour down my concave skin
Like rainwater gathering in a pool of reflection
Slick-bottomed, still,
In the heart of me.
I was thinking that maybe this feeling is regret for things left undone, but it isn't so. This feeling is not regret, it is love, it is space and time separating us from each other. Do you feel it, too?
"All my old friends they don’t know me now
All my old friends are staring through me now
All my old friends they don’t know me now
All my old friends they don’t know me now
They don’t know me now
All my old friends, wait…"
Maybe we all just want to say, "Friend, I miss you.
I love you.
I'm looking for you everywhere I go. Will I have the courage to reach out to you when I see you again?"
