Showing posts with label lyrics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lyrics. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Indiscipline


Are there any song lyrics that really resonate with you? That almost seem like they were written for you, or even BY you?

In 1981, the experimental rock group King Crimson released an album with a new, but still very creative sound. Interlocking guitar parts in odd meters, Indonesian percussion, and several spoken poetry parts were part of the new Crimson.

The album was called Discipline, and had both a title track and an anti-title track, Indiscipline. It's in the latter piece we find lyrics that were based on a letter written to Adrian Belew by his then-wife Margaret, concerning a sculpture that she had made. The first half goes like this:

"I do remember one thing.
It took hours and hours but..
By the time I was done with it
I was so involved
I didn't know what to think.
I carried it around with me for days and days..
Playing little games
Like not looking at it for a whole day
And then.. looking at it.
To see if I still liked it...

I did!"

Yep. That's me! When I do a painting I play LOTS of little games. Squinting one eye, blocking a portion of it with my hand, looking at it in the mirror, turning it upside down, or standing way, way back. I can't always answer "I do" about whether I still like it or not. In fact, sometimes during the process I hate the piece from being so involved. But it's these little games that help me see a piece in a new light.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Frownland

Lyrics often work so much better in the context of a song than on paper. That's the case with those that follow, but they work better if you imagine them being sung in a bluesy, gritty tone. This is from the opening track to Captain Beefheart's bizarre and amazing work "Trout Mask Replica":

My smile is stuck
I cannot go back t' yer Frownland
My spirit's
made up of the ocean
And the sky 'n the sun 'n the moon
'n all my eye can see
I cannot go back to yer land of gloom
Where black jagged shadows
Remind me of the comin' of yer doom
I want my own land
Take my hand 'n come with me
It's not too late for you
It's not too late for me
To find my homeland
Where uh man can stand by another man
Without an ego flyin'
With no man lyin'
'n no one dyin' by an earthly hand
Let the devils burn 'n the beggar learn
'n the little girls that live in those old worlds
Take my kind hand
My smile is stuck
I cannot go back t' yer Frownland
I cannot go back t' yer Frownland

Always manages to take me out of a frownland.