"run as fast as you can / they're shootin to kill"

this post could also be named: "the devoted were wearing bracelets, to remind them why they came / some concrete motivation, the absract would not do the same"

or: "but i can't say it like i sing it / and i can't sing it like i think it / and i can't think it like i feel it / and i don't feel a thing."

the first is jon's favorite. the second is mine. the third is one of emily's favorites. they are all quotations from lyrics written by Pedro the Lion.

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pedro the lion is beyond doubt the musician who has influenced me the most, ever, to date. dylan and sufjan are coming close, but i think there will always be a part of me that no other band can overtake. pedro the lion will still be the first band listed when someone asks for "favorite bands."

i can't tell you the number of times jon and i had been practicing for the upcoming debut of Huxley's Red (which is still upcoming in a way, and jon, i thought of a decent band name! are we still a band? if you ever record i better damn well be invited to the session, and the same goes for you if i ever record.), and a song would eventually sound so much like a Pedro song that we would feel terribly defeated. most of the time, they would sound like "Rapture" or something else from Control or It's Hard to Find a Friend, my two personal favorites.

i can tell you this w/ a straight face: Pedro helped me get through college. he is one of the reasons my thoughts are still given to christianity, politics, poetry, and music. he has helped me to try and find my own path where those things coexist, albeit not always peacefully, w/ one another.

musically, he has shown me that often times less is more. much of his music is not complicated, but there is no sound made, no chord played, that is unnecessary or left unused. lyrically, he is nothing short of a genius. his words are cutting and insightful. he has the guts to say things that many would steer clear of, and he isn't afraid to use powerful, dirty imagery. dirty in the way that the images, feelings, and senses are felt by the listener, and sometimes dirty in the way you're thinking. (get your head out of the gutter.)

the song "Winners Never Quit" is the only song that has ever affected me so deeply that i have not been able to move for about five minutes after having listened to it.

i leave you w/the lyrics to one of the songs off of Control, called "Penetration."

Have you ever seen and idealist with grey hairs on his head
Or successful men that keep in touch with unsuccessful friends
You only think you did
I could have sworn I saw it too
But as it turns out
It was just a clever ad for cigarettes

'Cause if it isn't making dollars
Then it isn't making sense
If you aren't moving units
Then you're not worth the expense
If you really want to make it
You had best remember this
If it isn't penetration
The it isn't worth the kiss

We're so sorry sir
But you did not quite make the cut this time
And we'd appreciate it if you cleared you stuff on out by five
Don't take it personal
Everyone knows you did your best
If it makes it easier
You should look at it from our perspective

'Cause if it isn't making dollars
Then it isn't making sense
If you aren't moving units
Then you're not worth the expense
If you really want to make it
You had best remember this
If it isn't penetration
Then it isn't worth the kiss

lyric source: http://www.plyrics.com/lyrics/pedrothelion/penetration.html

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also, check out the new song from Pedro's newest album, available at:
http://www.purevolume.com/pedrothelion/music

and his website is always good to check out from time to time.

the great illinoisemaker--sufjan stevens.

the shadow of sufjan has lingered long and heavy on my mind for the past year. my first encounter with his music was the gentle Seven Swans, the sounds of which can assuage the asperity of the most tired soul. this album is comprised of soft folk spirituals, with nods to the Kierkegaardian (to use a word that likely does not exist) existential struggle of Abraham, as well as Flannery O' Connor--an author i'm sad to say i have not had the pleasure of reading. (think Christmas, i say!). it also contains the best song with a block quote of Scripture i have ever heard, "The Transfiguration." actually, this song wins the prize for "best song other than a hymn which uses Scripture, ever."

sufjan is best known for his 50 States project, in which he plans to record an album for every state in the union while searching for "the true america." he's already recorded two, one for michigan and one for illinois. Seven Swans was released between these two. he is gaining in popularity, and often times that would disparage me, as i am a bit of a musical elitist. but with sufjan, i celebrate his recent celebrity with alacrity. it is well deserved.

please note the following GRE study words, which have been used in this blog entry:
alacrity
disparage
assuage
asperity

t.s. eliot.

here is yet another person who has said what i wanted to say far better than i ever could. my proof, from Four Quartets:

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years--
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres
Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to
conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot
hope
To emulate--but there is no competition--
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under
conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

there's far more than this passage written by eliot that makes me want to put down my pen forever, but this is the most recent. his command of language, of line breaks--even when expressing his supposed "incompetence," is amazing. and i am jealous.

more dylan

so this is a quick little post. i just wanted to post the lyrics to one of my favorite dylan songs, one of his longer ones which is achingly beautiful. there may be a little of my own interpretation/adoration to follow the lyrics, but i wanted to post the song in its entirety first.

the song is "Desolation Row" from Highway 61 Revisited:

They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they're restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row

Cinderella, she seems so easy
"It takes one to know one," she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets
Bette Davis style
And in comes Romeo, he's moaning
"You Belong to Me I Believe"
And someone says," You're in the wrong place, my friend
You better leave"
And the only sound that's left
After the ambulances go
Is Cinderella sweeping up
On Desolation Row

Now the moon is almost hidden
The stars are beginning to hide
The fortunetelling lady
Has even taken all her things inside
All except for Cain and Abel
And the hunchback of Notre Dame
Everybody is making love
Or else expecting rain
And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing
He's getting ready for the show
He's going to the carnival tonight
On Desolation Row

Now Ophelia, she's 'neath the window
For her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday
She already is an old maid

To her, death is quite romantic
She wears an iron vest
Her profession's her religion
Her sin is her lifelessness
And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah's great rainbow
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row

Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk
He looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet
Now you would not think to look at him
But he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin
On Desolation Row

Dr. Filth, he keeps his world
Inside of a leather cup
But all his sexless patients
They're trying to blow it up
Now his nurse, some local loser
She's in charge of the cyanide hole
And she also keeps the cards that read
"Have Mercy on His Soul"
They all play on penny whistles
You can hear them blow
If you lean your head out far enough
From Desolation Row

Across the street they've nailed the curtains
They're getting ready for the feast
The Phantom of the Opera
A perfect image of a priest
They're spoonfeeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words

And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls
"Get Outa Here If You Don't Know
Casanova is just being punished for going
To Desolation Row"

Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row

Praise be to Nero's Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody's shouting
"Which Side Are You On?"
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea
Where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row

Yes, I received your letter yesterday
(About the time the door knob broke)
When you asked how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?
All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name
Right now I can't read too good
Don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row

as i said, achingly beautiful. these lyrics are one of the best examples of the power of allusion, when used properly. Dylan drew threads from several different sources and made a wondrous, completely autonomous work of art--Shakespeare stands next to Science, and Fairy Tales are given new life. Nothing is out of place in Desolation Row.

lyric source: http://orad.dent.kyushu-u.ac.jp/dylan/song.html

and if my thought-dreams could be seen / they'd probably put my head in a guillotine

this is the first post of an experimental blog. well, experimental for me. this is the place i will be posting my thoughts on the artists who have influenced me. it's my way of paying tribute to those who've added layers of meaning to my life and the world by their works, as well as a way of expurgating my hero-worship (if only a little), thereby allowing myself to be more free to create w/o the thought of these great figures peering down upon me.

presenting: bob dylan

and i'd like to start w/ bob dylan. the title of this blog entry is from the song "it's all right, ma (i'm only bleeding)." the song is off of Bringin' It All Back Home, the album where Dylan went electric and enraged many of his fans. the album is epic; it starts with "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and also features "Mr. Tambourine Man" and a host of other amazing songs.
personally, i think the fans who didn't like this album can stick it. much of the genius of Dylan is he refused to pander to a specific audience and refusing to take up the mantle of a specific movement. by remaining ambivalent he remained independent and maintained his artistic freedom.

Dylan didn't make the mistake many people do in several walks of life. he didn't take any authority onto himself and would not let it be thrust on him. often when people are given authority, especially in a counter-culture movement, they start out rebelling against the existing order of things. but eventually, almost all of these figures become as dogmatic and unswerving as the leaders or figures they fought against. new rules are written which are as useless as the old ones they now "ignore," even though in essence they have only created a new status quo---new social expectations.

why this lyric?

this single line encompasses much of the feeling i had in college; i made an effort to stand out only enough to prod people at IWU to a healthy skepticism--and i would rarely do even this. i know that for the most part i went unnoticed at college, that the storm i wanted to stir up at times resulted more as a brief, strong and chilly breeze that only a few people felt. and those were the people i showed myself to, who i opened up to and felt comfortable around. IWU was never really a place where i (and others like me, i think) felt i could say precisely what i thought for fear of being seen as un-Christian or (gasp!) liberal. but i think that facet of IWU may be changing now, which is good. it's sad though that that aspect of the academic experience wasn't always present when i was a student there. anyways.