philosophy in song

I’m gonna learn ya my philosophy. - STP

Leonard Cohen’s “The Partisan”

[b]When they poured across the border
I was cautioned to surrender,
this I could not do;
I took my gun and vanished.
I have changed my name so often,
I’ve lost my wife and children
but I have many friends,
and some of them are with me.

An old woman gave us shelter,
kept us hidden in the garret,
then the soldiers came;
she died without a whisper.

There were three of us this morning
I’m the only one this evening
but I must go on;
the frontiers are my prison.

Oh, the wind, the wind is blowing,
through the graves the wind is blowing,
freedom soon will come;
then we’ll come from the shadows.

Les Allemands e’taient chez moi, (The Germans were at my home)
ils me dirent, “Signe toi,” (They said, “Sign yourself,”)
mais je n’ai pas peur; (But I am not afraid)
j’ai repris mon arme. (I have retaken my weapon.)

J’ai change’ cent fois de nom, (I have changed names a hundred times)
j’ai perdu femme et enfants (I have lost wife and children)
mais j’ai tant d’amis; (But I have so many friends)
j’ai la France entie`re. (I have all of France)

Un vieil homme dans un grenier (An old man, in an attic)
pour la nuit nous a cache’, (Hid us for the night)
les Allemands l’ont pris; (The Germans captured him)
il est mort sans surprise. (He died without surprise.)

Oh, the wind, the wind is blowing,
through the graves the wind is blowing,
freedom soon will come;
then we’ll come from the shadows.[/b]

youtube.com/watch?v=GpgRpENyt4c

John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero”

[b]As soon as you’re born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you’re clever and they despise a fool
Till you’re so fucking crazy you can’t follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be

When they’ve tortured and scared you for twenty-odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can’t really function you’re so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you’re so clever and classless and free
But you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be

There’s room at the top they’re telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill

A working class hero is something to be
If you want to be a hero well just follow me[/b]

youtube.com/watch?v=njG7p6CSbCU

youtube.com/watch?v=Wlnl3CGG56M

Leonard Cohen’s “Dress Rehearsal Rag”

[b]Four o’clock in the afternoon
And I didn’t feel like very much.
I said to myself, “Where are you golden boy,
Where is your famous golden touch?”
I thought you knew where
All of the elephants lie down,
I thought you were the crown prince
Of all the wheels in Ivory Town.

Just take a look at your body now,
There’s nothing much to save
And a bitter voice in the mirror cries,
“Hey, Prince, you need a shave.”

Now if you can manage to get
Your trembling fingers to behave,
Why don’t you try unwrapping
A stainless steel razor blade?

That’s right, it’s come to this,
Yes it’s come to this,
And wasn’t it a long way down,
Wasn’t it a strange way down?

There’s no hot water
And the cold is running thin.
Well, what do you expect from
The kind of places you’ve been living in?

Don’t drink from that cup,
It’s all caked and cracked along the rim.
That’s not the electric light, my friend,
That is your vision growing dim.

Cover up your face with soap, there,
Now you’re Santa Claus.
And you’ve got a gift for anyone
Who will give you his applause.

I thought you were a racing man,
Ah, but you couldn’t take the pace.
That’s a funeral in the mirror
And it’s stopping at your face.

That’s right, it’s come to this,
Yes it’s come to this,
And wasn’t it a long way down,
Ah wasn’t it a strange way down?

Once there was a path
And a girl with chestnut hair,
And you passed the summers
Picking all of the berries that grew there
There were times she was a woman,
Oh, there were times she was just a child,
And you held her in the shadows
Where the raspberries grow wild.

And you climbed the twilight mountains
And you sang about the view,
And everywhere that you wandered
Love seemed to go along with you.
That’s a hard one to remember,
Yes it makes you clench your fist.

And then the veins stand out like highways,
All along your wrist.
And yes it’s come to this,
It’s come to this,
And wasn’t it a long way down,
Wasn’t it a strange way down?

You can still find a job,
Go out and talk to a friend.
On the back of every magazine
There are those coupons you can send.
Why don’t you join the Rosicrucians,
They can give you back your hope,
You can find your love with diagrams
On a plain brown envelope.

But you’ve used up all your coupons
Except the one that seems
To be written on your wrist
Along with several thousand dreams.

Now Santa Claus comes forward,
That’s a razor in his mit
And he puts on his dark glasses
And he shows you where to hit
And then the cameras pan,
The stand in stunt man,
Dress rehearsal rag,
It’s just the dress rehearsal rag,
You know this dress rehearsal rag,
It’s just a dress rehearsal rag.[/b]

youtube.com/watch?v=Er-8lG6wYdk

Bruce Cockburn’s “Silver Wheels”

[b]High speed drift on a prairie road
Hot tires sing like a string being bowed
Sudden town rears up then explodes
Fragments resolve into white line code
Whirl on silver wheels

Black earth energy receptor fields
Undulate under a grey cloud shield
We outrun a river colour brick red mud
That cleaves apart hills soil rich as blood

Highway squeeze in construction steam
Stop caution hard hat yellow insect machines
Silver steel towers stalk rolling land
Toward distant stacks that shout “Feed on demand”

100 miles later the sky has changed
Urban anticipation – we get 4 lanes
Red orange furnace sphere notches down
Throws up silhouette skyline in brown

Sundogs flare on windshield glass
Sudden swoop skyward iron horse overpass
Pass a man walking like the man in the moon
Walking like his head’s full of irish fiddle tunes

The skin around every city looks the same
Miles of flat neon spelling well-known names
USED TRUCKS DIRTY DONUTS YOU YOU’RE THE ONE
Fat wheeled cars squeal into the sun

Radio speakers gargle top 40 trash
Muzak soundtrack to slow collapse
Planet engines pulsate in sidereal time
If you listen close you can hear the whine[/b]

youtube.com/watch?v=z-avqJQwOoo

“Mad World” from Donnie Darko

[b]All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for the daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere

Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I wanna drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow

And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles its a very, very
Mad world, mad world

Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy birthday, happy birthday
And I feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen

Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me, what’s my lesson?
Look right through me, look right through me

And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles its a very, very
Mad world, mad world, enlarging your world
Mad world[/b]

youtube.com/watch?v=T1_4e7gFBDw&t=5s

And the next step is to…

Dump the philosophy, poetry and lyrics, and enjoy the music.

What can Mick Jagger sing that can compete with a Keith Richards guitar lick?

Well, let’s just say the music you hear and the music I hear is the music embedded in dasein.

I can imagine listening to, say, “Wild Horses” with or without Mick’s lyrics:

[b]Childhood living is easy to do
The things you wanted, I bought them for you
Graceless lady, you know who I am
You know I can’t let you slide through my hands

Wild horses couldn’t drag me away
Wild, wild horses, couldn’t drag me away

I watched you suffer a dull aching pain
Now you decided to show me the same
No sweeping exits or offstage lines
Could make me feel bitter or treat you unkind

Wild horses couldn’t drag me away
Wild, wild horses, couldn’t drag me away

I know I’ve dreamed you, a sin and a lie
I have my freedom but I don’t have much time
Faith has been broken, tears must be cried
Let’s do some living, after we die

Wild horses couldn’t drag me away
Wild, wild horses, we’ll ride them some day
Wild horses couldn’t drag me away
Wild, wild horses, we’ll ride them some day[/b]

youtube.com/watch?v=QhwwCWkmYoc

But it’s not the same “message” being conveyed. When the words and the music “fit” the experience [for me] is considerably more satisfying.

Joan Baez “Diamonds and Rust”
[to bob dylan]

[b]Well I’ll be damned
Here comes your ghost again
But that’s not unusual
It’s just that the moon is full
And you happened to call
And here I sit
Hand on the telephone
Hearing a voice I’d known
A couple of light years ago
Heading straight for a fall

As I remember your eyes
Were bluer than robin’s eggs
My poetry was lousy you said
Where are you calling from?
A booth in the midwest
Ten years ago
I bought you some cufflinks
You brought me something
We both know what memories can bring
They bring diamonds and rust

Well you burst on the scene
Already a legend
The unwashed phenomenon
The original vagabond
You strayed into my arms
And there you stayed
Temporarily lost at sea
The Madonna was yours for free
Yes the girl on the half-shell
Would keep you unharmed

Now I see you standing
With brown leaves falling around
And snow in your hair
Now you’re smiling out the window
Of that crummy hotel
Over Washington Square
Our breath comes out white clouds
Mingles and hangs in the air
Speaking strictly for me
We both could have died then and there

Now you’re telling me
You’re not nostalgic
Then give me another word for it
You who are so good with words
And at keeping things vague
Because I need some of that vagueness now
It’s all come back too clearly
Yes I loved you dearly
And if you’re offering me diamonds and rust
I’ve already paid[/b]

youtube.com/watch?v=bpD5_c2j1OM

My college girlfriend recently stumbled upon my utterly pathetic Facebook page and contacted me via email. We’ve been reviewing our year together from a distance of 40 years since passed. A strangely wonderful experience, which I can only compare to reviewing one’s life from beyond the grave.

Joan Baez speaks of “a couple of light years ago” by which she probably was referring to only a decade or so. I remember that song coming out very well, and she just wasn’t that old. Hopefully by now the rust has finally faded, and it’s all just diamonds between her and Bob.

A great song, and a great example of tentative’s stated love of the dance between music and lyrics.

Ok, just watched the video. Damn, that really is a good song. I’d forgotten how good. And yes, I have to agree, the lyrics are indispensable. Thanks Tent! Perfect timing for me as well…

PS: The YouTube button in the post control panel will put the vids right in the post, if that’s desired.

I suspect both of them spend a lot of time thinking about what they’d be willing to trade to go back a few decades now.

Dylan from “Highlands”:

I see people in the park forgettin’ their troubles and woes
They’re drinkin’ and dancin’, wearin’ bright colored clothes
All the young men, with the young women lookin’ so good
Well, I’d trade places with any of 'em in a minute, if I could.

After the rust comes the dust, right?

Well, if you’ll review the Dylan quote…

You’ll see he’s not actually offering to trade anything to go back. That seems honest and accurate.

The way it works is, you want to take everything you’ve learned, and go back and do it over again, but different this time, better. That is, you want to leave out the ignorance, the very thing that made it fun in the first place. It’s an utterly incoherent emotion, but it makes for good art, or a rainy day reminiscence.

Your first lover. What made it so special? Ignorance.

And what makes the rainy day reminiscence so fun? Ignorance, a willful forgetting of what a pain in the ass ignorance really was.

He is not offering anything because he knows he can’t: “if I could”.

If he could, what would he give up? What would I give up? What would you?

They say youth is wasted on the young. But occasionally you come upon someone and that is not true at all. What would you give up then?

I think: fuck everything I’ve learned. I’ll give that up too. And so, I suspect, would Bob.

Ok, good point.

Well, these are excellent questions, though I apologize I have no song lyrics to illuminate them. Hmm…

Speaking as a village elder, age 60, it seems I’m first required to admit and agree there is a psychological pull of nostalgia, a vague yearning to go back. Oh, I have a movie reference at least, Peggy Sue Got Married, perhaps the best movie ever on this subject?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peggy_Sue_Got_Married

But there’s a lot of rose colored glasses involved, at least in my case. Of the 6 decades I’ve lived, my twenties were the worse. Not that there weren’t many great things, but overall on balance, the least fun decade. Lots of confusion about career and love etc, the usual stuff. If like Bob Dylan I’d been at the peak of a glamorous career at age 22, well perhaps that’s different.

Emotionally I vote for indulging the nostalgia in casual non-serious way. It can be fun, why not?

But when the buzz from that second glass of wine passes and reality returns, I vote for embracing the rust, welcoming the coming dust, and trusting the system as it is. I’m not trading that in on another round of muddled confusion, thanks anyway.

In a pathetic pitch for my virtual reality thread, what if we could go back for just a bit, like in Peggy Sue Got Married? What if I could pop a program in to my Holodeck, and spend another day age 20 with my college girlfriend? Would I run that program at least once? Yes, I believe I would.

And that would probably kill off the sweet nostalgia. Oops…

I don’t see nostalgia figuring in here at all. Bob wants to go back because he is getting closer and closer to oblivion. Youth takes you farther and farther away from that. There are things worse than death of course but I suspect Bob is more than willing to take his chances—“if he could”. And I suspect he would trade places with those young folks even if all that he was then becomes all that they are now.

But, of course, he can’t.

youtube.com/watch?v=Y93lEsrYwro

Gregg Allman “Queen of Hearts”

[b]Once I was glad,
Always happy never sad,
And every day
Felt like Sunday
And although things were slow
Never seemed to have no dough
Somehow, I never once got lonely
Ya’ see the fact is more or less
You’re gamblin’ with your own happiness
And most all your would be friends
Turn out so phoney

Oh but times they change
And Im through the rains
And Im seein the Queen of Hearts
Dont know where to start
Or how to stop

And after things have come and gone
Left me feelin’
That I’ve done so wrong
Oh, I’ve wasted so much time
Feelin’ guilty
And as I watch you sit across the room
Beautiful as the flowers bloom
Living it just one day
Oh brother youre gonna come back
To find me gone

I love you queen of Hearts
Tell me not to stop
Just tell me where
To start
Where now baby
Tell me where to start

And after all that weve been through
I find that when I think of you
A warm soft wind runs
through and through
And in my heart
theres only you
And I will always keep on trying
To gather this strange piece of mind
Without it thered be
Lonely me and
Oh darlin lonely you

I love you Queen of Hearts
Dont tell me when to stop
Tell me when to start

I love you queen of Hearts
Tell me not to stop
Just tell me where
To start[/b]

youtube.com/watch?v=iyrFpR59_vQ

The Clash “Lose This Skin”

[b]Come with me. I won’t hide
We’re going on a ride
We meet each day, use time to see
While we’re young and almost free

I’ve got to lose this skin I’m imprisoned in
Got to lose this skin I’m imprisoned in

Do not turn or hate to see
All the things you think we’ve got
Do not turn or hate to see
What happened to the wife of Lot

We’re alone or so they say
We’re not on our own in that way
When we’re alone it’s real tough going
We TEND TO take a part in someone else’s play

Come with me, I thought he said
But that’s not him anymore, he’s dead
What’s it like to be so free
So free it looks like lost to me[/b]

youtube.com/watch?v=CtWdVX6LS8w

Bob wants to go back because he has no idea WTF he’s getting closer to? Bob doesn’t trust the system, and assumes he can do a better job of managing things? Yea, that sounds like Bob I guess.

And now you’re on to Gregg Allman. Damn, you got me nailed dude.

Not at all sure what you mean. Why? Just lucky I guess. :wink: