The Funeral

I sometimes wonder at the meaning of lyrics.  For instance Band of Horses' song The Funeral.

I'm coming up only to hold you under
And coming up only to show you're wrong
And to know you is hard; we wonder
To know you all wrong; we warn

One website says this song is about heroin.  And that makes a kind of sense.  But it also seems to articulate the human condition, which is also related to heroin use.  The sense of being "under" the strata everyone else exists at.  The effort to show everyone that indeed you can exist at their level.  The problem of ever truly knowing anyone or even yourself.

Then the chorus, "At every occasion I'll be ready for the funeral".  Does it mean that someone is unafraid of death?  Does it mean they are living on the edge?

And so it goes.
 

Help out Steve Kilbey

It's highly depressing that one of my favorite songwriters and singers is having trouble paying the rent or just getting by.  If you have some money to spare or contribute, please go here and help the man out:

HELP OUT STEVE KILBEY

Art

Where there is no art, there is no humanity.  Where there is no respect for art, there is no spirit.

Mr. Apollinax - T.S. Eliot

WHEN Mr. Apollinax visited the United States
His laughter tinkled among the teacups.
I thought of Fragilion, that shy figure among the birch-trees,
And of Priapus in the shrubbery
Gaping at the lady in the swing.
In the palace of Mrs. Phlaccus, at Professor Channing-Cheetah’s
He laughed like an irresponsible foetus.
His laughter was submarine and profound
Like the old man of the sea’s
Hidden under coral islands
Where worried bodies of drowned men drift down in the green silence,
Dropping from fingers of surf.
I looked for the head of Mr. Apollinax rolling under a chair

Or grinning over a screen
With seaweed in its hair.
I heard the beat of centaur’s hoofs over the hard turf
As his dry and passionate talk devoured the afternoon.
“He is a charming man”—“But after all what did he mean?”—
“His pointed ears... He must be unbalanced,”—
“There was something he said that I might have challenged.”
Of dowager Mrs. Phlaccus, and Professor and Mrs. Cheetah
I remember a slice of lemon, and a bitten macaroon.

2017

Underappreciated Albums

1.  The Church - Starfish
2.  Blind Faith - s/t
3.  Elbow - Asleep in the Back
4.  Milennium - s/t
5.  King Crimson - Islands
6.  Willie Nelson - Teatro
7.  Jorge Ben - A Tabua de Esmeralda
8.  David Bowie - Heathen
9.  The Replacements - Don't Tell a Soul
10.  Van Morrison - Verdon Fleece

Ian Hunter

I'm sitting here - in boring-land - listening a bit to Ian Hunter's late 70's stuff, and damned if he wasn't one of the best literate rockers ever.  It helped to have Mick Ronson as your guitar player -that Mick Ronson that used to be in David Bowie's Spiders From Mars.  I think 'the times' passed him by since he was doing a kind of Glam Rock / Dylan thing and by the late 70's - well we were on our way to New Wave and the Big 80's electronic overproduced stuff.  Too bad, since most of what Hunter was doing was top notch.  Recommended:  Ian Hunter - You're Never Alone With A Schizophrenic (1979).