In My Secret Life

I’ve been publicly wishing on here that my favorite poets would sit down and write real books, but then I remind myself to be careful what I wish for. Leonard Cohen is one of the greatest living poets, and his books are boring and incoherent to the point of complete unreadability. How surprising to find that some things are better in small, heady doses of five minutes or less.

“In My Secret Life”

I saw you this morning.
You were moving so fast.
Can’t seem to loosen my grip
On the past.
And I miss you so much.
There’s no one in sight.
And we’re still making love
In My Secret Life.

I smile when I’m angry.
I cheat and I lie.
I do what I have to do
To get by.
But I know what is wrong,
And I know what is right.
And I’d die for the truth
In My Secret Life.

Hold on, hold on, my brother.
My sister, hold on tight.
I finally got my orders.
I’ll be marching through the morning,
Marching through the night,
Moving cross the borders
Of My Secret Life.

Looked through the paper.
Makes you want to cry.
Nobody cares if the people
Live or die.
And the dealer wants you thinking
That it’s either black or white.
Thank G-d it’s not that simple
In My Secret Life.

I bite my lip.
I buy what I’m told:
From the latest hit,
To the wisdom of old.
But I’m always alone.
And my heart is like ice.
And it’s crowded and cold
In My Secret Life.

In My Family

Not enough individual Sparks songs on the net. Nevermind, here’s a whole album. Which you probably already own on the original vinyl, but if you don’t, you’re welcome. As you can easily guess from the image, Sparks have never been about pleasing the lowest common denominator. They’re kind of an acquired taste, most appealing to fans of camp, satire and musical parody. They’re simply too sophisticated and weird for common audiences.

Imagine

There hasn’t been much time for writing in the past couple of days. Luckily, this song needs no introduction.

“Imagine”

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today…

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world…

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

 

Iki Maska

The more you learn about Nina Hagen, the more you realize that she really is as insane as her music suggests. For example, she married a seventeen-year-old when she was 32. Wouldn’t we all like to do that? Or, on a less inspiring note, she believes that UFOs are a real thing and AIDS isn’t. All in all, she’s probably an extremely interesting and fun person, but you wouldn’t trust her to operate heavy machinery or coach Little League.

If You Were Coming In the Fall

Music by Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, lyrics by Emily Dickinson. What more evidence do you need that Carla Bruni is an astounding woman? She’s a supermodel who’s still in demand, she’s a First Lady, she’s the kind of literature nerd who spends her free time setting famous poems to music, and she’s talented enough that people actually want to hear her sing those poems. The very definition of having it all, wouldn’t you say?

If you were coming in the fall,
I’d brush the summer by
With half a smile and half a spum,
As housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year,
I’d wind the months in balls,
And put them each in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed,
I’d count them on my hand,
Subtracting till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemen’s land.

If certain, when this life was out,
That yours and mine should be,
I’d toss it yonder like a rind,
And taste eternity.

But now, all ignorant of the length
Of time’s uncertain wing,
It goads me, like the goblin bee,
That will not state its sting.

If You See Her, Say Hello

From the album that gave you the bile of Idiot Wind comes a very different ode to a woman who’s gone gone. In disclaimer, according to the Dylan himself, Blood on the Tracks was in no way influenced by the little fact that he was in the middle of getting divorced when it was written. We believe you, Bob. All those breakup songs just wafted in on the breeze, then. If you’re gonna be the subject of some poet’s divorce album, this tone of mournful resignation is the preferable way to go. At least he knows he’s at fault. Meditative songs like this one do shed more light on the human condition – and the artist’s condition – than spiteful angry ones.

If you see her, say hello, she might be in Tangier
She left here last early Spring, is livin’ there, I hear
Say for me that I’m all right though things get kind of slow
She might think that I’ve forgotten her, don’t tell her it isn’t so

We had a falling-out, like lovers often will
And to think of how she left that night, it still brings me a chill
And though our separation, it pierced me to the heart
She still lives inside of me, we’ve never been apart

If you get close to her, kiss her once for me
I always have respected her for busting out and gettin’ free
Oh, whatever makes her happy, I won’t stand in the way
Though the bitter taste still lingers on from the night I tried to make her stay

I see a lot of people as I make the rounds
And I hear her name here and there as I go from town to town
And I’ve never gotten used to it, I’ve just learned to turn it off
Either I’m too sensitive or else I’m gettin’ soft

Sundown, yellow moon, I replay the past
I know every scene by heart, they all went by so fast
If she’s passin’ back this way, I’m not that hard to find
Tell her she can look me up if she’s got the time

Read more: http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/if-you-see-her-say-hello#ixzz2S9987n31

If There Is Something

All I can say is, if you haven’t been educated about Roxy Music, I feel sorry for you and if you don’t get it, you probably don’t deserve to. I used to feel a need to make people understand, not just this but everything, me in general. Then I realized that either they do or they don’t and if they don’t there’s nothing I can do for it. I’ve also learned that loving something – whatever thing it is – is terribly lonely because nobody hears or sees things the same way and the way that thing makes me feel can’t be communicated. Even the people who share my tastes with amazing 95% overlap still hear and see and understand things their own way. Which is why you just have to accept that your relationship with your music is essentially a private matter for you to enjoy and not bore other people with. I’ve spoken before about my conviction that the act of listening to music is a communication between yourself and the artist, in which they feed their vision directly into your soul, making for a one directional and lopsided but no less real for it relationship. That’s not a way of looking at it that I’ve heard from anyone but myself, but I suspect I’m not the only one who feels that way, or who’s found that their relations with, say, Bryan Ferry are more enriching than with most of the people who actually exist in real life and we interact with outside of our heads. Bryan Ferry has been a better friend than pretty much most of the people I’ve met, and certainly more important to me than nine out of ten of the men I’ve slept with. And I don’t think that’s in any way abnormal or unhealthy. I think everyone has that place in their heart for role models and imaginary friends, although a lot of people don’t talk about it in quite this way. I also suspect that for many people that special spot is filled with Jesus. If you think about it, who is Jesus but your imaginary rock star idol, and what are rock stars but re-made and re-modeled substitute Christ figures?

If It Be Your Will

Sometimes there’s ambiguity in Leonard Cohen’s lyrics. Sometimes he seems to have the Almighty confused with one of his lovers. Not here. Here there are no loves and nothing profane. This song is about kneeling before God, plain and simple. Some of us have a hard time praying. We don’t like any of the words we learned in Sunday school and we can’t think of any new words to say to God. May we adapt some Leonard Cohen songs into a new modern prayer book for the young modern beautiful losers? And just in case the power of Cohen himself doesn’t reduce you to a quivering mess, check out Antony Hegarty’s version.

If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will
If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well

And draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light
In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night If it be your will

If I Was a Blackbird

How about a Scottish love ballad? I’m sure you must be tired of all these posts on people you already know about.  So therefore, Silly Wizard, a band I myself don’t know much about except that they were part of the British folk music revival of the seventies. While bands like Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention gave their arrangements of old folk songs a modern rock sound with the addition of electric guitar, Silly Wizard played in a more traditional style with more emphasis on banjos and fiddles. Consequently, they were less popular and today remain less well known. I understand that traditional folk music can be hard to get into, even when leavened with guitar solos, and the purity of Silly Wizard’s music may even be alienating to listeners weaned on drum machines. People tend to associate folk music (and especially the Irish variety) with all sorts of cheesy things from Riverdance to Ren Faires to movies starring Daniel Day-Lewis. Also, most of us here in America have trouble distinguishing the particulars of Irish, Scottish and English traditions. Still, it’s very much worth taking the time to explore, for the musicianship, storytelling and culture.

Idje-Idje

Epic. This is one of my favorite songs from Benin’s global music ambassador and all-around good-deed-doer Angelique Kidjo. It’s been a couple of years since she’s made a new album, but she tours all the time (don’t miss any chance you have of seeing her!) and of course stays very busy working for UNICEF, Oxfam, and her own Batonga Foundation, among many other good causes. Kidjo is just one of the ultimate examples of an artist who finds great success and then uses it to do everything in their power to make the world a better place. Makes you go all weepy thinking about it. Kidjo’s dearest cause is empowering girls and women in Africa, which Batonga does through financing and supplying schools and raising money for scholarships. A lot of stars on all levels of fame go through the motions of doing charitable work, but very few truly dedicate themselves to it. Kidjo is one of those whose humanitarian work is at least as big a priority as her day job, and certainly more important than maintaining a glamorous lifestyle or purchasing castles and yachts, or whatever it is rich people do to be conspicuous.