Song #96. Nine Is The Lucky Number (for Jeff and Emi on their wedding day)

Five hundred years after the war

(The one Thucydides retold)

Or about a hundred since

Julius C. had remade  

What Lucius M. had so well razed

A letter penned in Ephesus

Sailed across a wine-dark sea

180 miles west

To Corinth on the Peloponnese

It’s subject, immorality

And faith and hope and charity

The greatest being charity

But when we stow our children’s things

(Translations by an English King)

Charity is replaced by love

(Very much a marriage thing)

Horns of jealousy are veiled

Women’s teeth are painted black

One thousand and one paper cranes

Sail gold across pacific seas.

From another Island Nation-State

To an Eastern sea-board town

Two families fuse their two

Southwest mile high desert kin

Three times three (san-san-kudo)

Stand with your greatest human flaws

Hate and pride and ignorance

Behind a 14 welders lens

And you can look straight at the sun

And reread Paul’s 1C13

-June 2010

The notes were made on 3/4/2012.  Jeff asked me if I would like to write a song for their wedding.  I gathered ideas slowly and is often the case in these matters I didn’t complete the thing until the morning before the wedding.  In the research about weddings in Japan, I learned that certain traditions were incorporated from the west, particularly Paul’s First Corinthians 13, which is included in so many western weddings as well.  Since this wedding was also a melding of these traditions, Emi from Japan and Jeff from not Japan, this seemed worth exploring. And the references within 1C13 gave access to historical and image references to play on in the song...the reference to the welder's glass compared "through the glass, darkly".

In the photo above Jefff and Emi are perfroming the San-San-Kudo ceremony.  According to web, "Sansankudo no Sakazuki" generally called "sakazuki-goto," is the traditional custom at every wedding performed according to Shinto rites - Long ago in Japan, sake played an important role in tying together the gods and common people. Therefore, one would never drink alone, but always in groups. There are now many old customs which have lost their meaning or popularity, but the drinking of sake at wedding ceremonies, known as "Sansankudo no sakazuki", a major focus of the ceremony, continues to thrive even in modern culture. "Sansankudo no sakazuki" brings the gods in between humans to help them, through the sharing of sake, come closer together and create a bond of friendship.”  “San-san-kudo literally means "three, three, nine times." The cup used at san-san-kudo is a special one called "sakazuki," which is only used to drink sake and no other beverages. The bride and groom take turns taking three sips each of three different bowls of sake, each one larger than the next. One does not drink the sake like a 'shot' but rather tilting the cup up very gradually and sipping lightly. Three is an indivisible number, and it is considered a sacred number in Buddhism. Nine means triple happiness. But just as the san-san-kudo sake sips may not be altogether delicious, the couple's marriage life may not always be delightful, but they will have to overcome their hardships with the co-operative spirit of the san-san-kudo. By exchanging the nuptial sake sips—three times three—husband and wife are united.”  I liked the notion of three times three, and the three words in Paul 1C13, and the two different translations over time.

I have only played this song once at the wedding but hope to relearn it again, although the music will certainly be different than on that day.  I would also love to have this song translated properly into Japanese and then to try to learn it in.

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Song #97. Somewhere

Somewhere

It’s almost certain

Somewhere

Somewhere it's almost certain life has finally wrestled free from fear.

Somewhere it's almost certain there is a God who could love us,

But man, He ain't here.

But it’s almost certain somewhere

Somewhere it’s almost certain hope can’t hurt you.  Hope only makes you strong.

Somewhere it’s almost certain no one claims something’s right when it’s certainly wrong.

It's almost certain

We’re running somewhere in a coward’s parade.

From a world that is poisoned, broken and sick.

Go on.  Try to breathe freely.  You’ll drown in shit.

What dreams you've left obscure your view.

The stones on your chest ain't new.

It's almost certain

They were hewn somewhere.

Somewhere maybe men know just how hard it is to walk in another man’s shoes.

Somewhere all the so-called lovers of Jesus know

Lies are called lies, not "the news"

It’s almost certain

Is it true in their somewhere no one has ever died?

A somewhere where nature’s defied?

Where you can live unwounded and clean

With nothing to learn or to lose

‘Cause you’re sure?  Or a fool?

It’s almost certain

Somewhere*

You don’t need to die just to be reborn.

No man lives a life that’s untorn.

But you’re being cheated by powerful men

Who think they’ve nothing to learn or to lose

‘Cause they’re sure

You’re a fool.

They’re so certain

They’re somewhere

-October 2010     *Verse in Italics was in an earlier draft

The notes were made on 3/4/2012.  “Ever been lied to?.” –Paul Simon’s “Born At The Right Time”.   This is a piano song.  The song is about being lied to, especially lying to yourself. And about certainty.  And faith.  

There was a quote from “All In The Family” that always stuck with me.  Archie Bunker is talking about religion with his son-in-law and explains, “Faith is believing in stuff that no one in their right mind would believe.”   I think Archie was paraphrasing Karl Popper.  Studies have shown that humans thirst forcertainty as part of their survival mechanism.  And I ain't no different, but it is this thirst that leads us to be nothing more than pawns in others hands, especially when we are hurting and lost and lonely. There’s a sucker reborn every minute, eh?  How many times do we need to relearn this lesson?  The song owes an unpaid debt to Vernon Tonges’s brilliant phrase “almost certain” I blatantly stole from his masterful and magisterial song “Thunder Goose”.  And of course, another debt to Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg.

There is a homespun video of an earlier draft of this here.

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Song #100. Think What You Will

Portrait of Senator Rick Santorum made entirely of
male pornographic images

"The idea that the Crusades and the fight of Christendom against Islam is somehow an aggression on our part is absolutely anti-historical. And that is what the perception is by the American Left who hates Christendom. ... What I'm talking about is onward American soldiers. What we're talking about are core American values."  Rick Santorum at a South Carolina campaign stop on February 22, 2011. 

Think what you will.

You can say just what you think.

It’s a free country still.

Tell us what’s gone wrong.

Tell us just what’s at stake

If we deny

What we all know Jesus hates

About some of our so called "citizens".

 

Everything you think

You know you know is true

Don’t you?

And everywhere you go

You find those folks who

See things just like you do.

Which only goes to prove

That those who disagree

Well, they're just misinformed                              

Or more likely, what they are are liars

Intellectual provocateurs

Defilers

Heretics

And of course you think

That no real patriot could shrink

From the greater task at hand

 

To root out those who disagree, 

To punish those who’ve earned our calumny,

To sever the cancer that corrupts

Our Lord Jesus' country

Only then will men finally see

The wisdom to agree

With righteous men’s advice

Your righteous men’s advice

Or, put more clearly,

Rich white men's avarice.

 

 -September 2011

Here is a video of the song performed at the Gallery. 

The notes were made on 3/4/2012: The music for this one has a bit of Spanish feel…maybe ala Dylan/Levy’s “One More Cup of Coffee”.   Am I suggesting a connection with the themes in this song and the Inquisition?  Ask me later. So far I have only played this one once…and that was a previous draft at that. I have certainly been spending a lot of time lately dwelling on the noise spewing from the mouths of these republican corporate shills, not just Santorum.  Although Santorum is a perfect exemplar, who preach hate and intolerance, and who convey some kind of twisted sincerity, a poisonous earnestness, that not only are their views reasonable, but also that they reflect some silent majority of people.  However, I fear the truth is that these hate-mongers represent, speak for,  a larger than acceptable minority of scared ignorant hate-filled morons that populate the tea parties, evangelical unChrist-like hateful Christian shitheads,  the Republicans, the Klan, and the Survivalists and the Neo-Nazis, and whatever else inhumane human fecal matter that floats in that fetid pool of our citizenry.  If the Christians could try a little harder to read St. Paul’s Book of Romans and try to get it. 

There is only one fact that has been true, is true, and will always be true, about all human beings.  That fact is that some portion of what anyone person knows to be absolutely true, is not true at all.  Further, it is the heterogeneity of opinions about this fact has led to almost all of the inhumanity of man versus his fellow men from the beginning of time to now.

Which side are you on?

Song #99. What Is It That You Want? (for Diane Izzo and Marco Zas)

What is it that you want

This time?

Can you put it into words?

Would you know it if it bit you?

Can you wrap your fingers ‘round

Those dreams put there to kill you?

Tomorrow’s lying face down in the road

Congratulations!

You’re our one millionth new Tom Joad.

If you doubt what’s just been said

This is a wake-up call

But are you already dead?

Listen up Brothers and Sisters

What is it that you want?

What is it that you want?

Yeah I’m talking to you.

Face facts

You better fucking think this through.

But you don’t know what you want, do you?

Here’s a mirror.  Tell the truth.

You laugh. You smile. But you’re a liar

Blowing smoke but without the fire

You say you can live without desire?

Can you name someone else who would even want to?

Can I get a witness brothers and sisters?

What is it that you what?

Is it a brand new car?

A brand new wife?

A good night’s sleep?

A decent life?

To die in your sleep

Your loved one’s near

Your soul to keep?

Just one more year?

Do you want to sing to hear to see

To walk to talk to breathe

To know deep in your soul

You were once worth something to someone

That you ain’t yet died inside

That your ship ain't sailed its last time

And to know when it all finally slips away

That your life was one hell of a stay

Testify Brothers and Sisters

What is it that you what?

 -July 2011

The notes were made on 3/4/2012: Diane Izzo and Marco Zas, pictured above, are friends of mine. Diane, a brillinat singer-singwriter and performer, lost her battle to a brain tumor in 2011, way too fucking early in her life.  Marco, Diane’s lover, has renal failure, and has had troubles with transplants and complication of renal disease.  I spoke with them a lot during some of their trials.  Despite of being their friend, and a physician, I felt I did almost nothing to help them through all this.  I certainly wanted to do more, should have done more.

Many years ago, I had lost a friend, a former girlfriend, Pat Irving, to a brain tumor, when Pat was 20 and I was 22. Pat ws the basis of an earlier song of mine called “Waltz with Me Jenny (there's a old video of this is linked here)” I had kept that experience of Pat from Marco and Diane, as Pat had died, and I wanted to be hopeful for them.  I remember Marco talking to me after Diane’s tumor was diagnosed as having recurred, and that they were trying to make plans for “just one more year”, a year they were cheated of.  When he told me I thought of Pat, her recurrence, how scared she was when that happened and of course her eventual demise.  The notion of “just one more year” hit me hard, especially since I was, and still am, wondering what the hell it is I want out of life, what the hell is important, my current sense of depressions and resignation and hopelessness, and what if anything am I gonna do about it anyway.  I miss Diane. Everyone who knew Diane misses her. I hope Marco is doing okay. 

This is a piano song, and with the help of a tight band and some horns, can take off for sure.  There is a video of this from The Gallery's Singer-Songwriters night at 13:08 into the video.

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Song #98. Me, The Girl Bar-Singer, And A Stupid Broken Heart (for Julie Jurgens)

A day don’t pass me by when a perfect stranger doesn’t tell me

That I remind them of someone that they once loved or knew that’s died

I smile back at them as if to say “Well, thank you.”

‘Cause it’s good having been seen for having tried.

Like you, I’m here to raise a glass to all my lonely foolish dreaming

Glass spill over sometimes when the troubles start to swell

No right minded no one wants to break down to a stranger

So that’s why God made bars, and girl bar-singers, and one-night cheap motels

But hey you look like you’re drunk enough that you might understand me
Let me pull on your sleeve awhile 'til the night tears us apart

There ain’t nobody sober gonna talk to me tonight
‘Cause they’ve all heard this one already

About me and the girl bar-singer
And a stupid  broken heart.

I know just why I came here  

But I know I won’t admit it 

At least not before I had a few more than a few

I’m staring up at the stage and wondering when she’ll get started.

A few more and every song she sings will be about me too.

She sings about loneliness like it was something she invented.

She’s kicking at my head from the inside

She shatters my illusions that I just might one day be happy,

Then leaves smiling before I can drink up all I can’t hide.

But friend, if you’re my friend, you'd think you’d tell me,

But I’m too drunk to listen and the night’s tearing me apart.

There ain’t nobody sober gonna talk to me tonight
‘Cause they’ve all heard this one already

About me and the girl bar-singer
And a stupid  broken heart.

 
-Nov 2010 (re-edited 1/6/17)

The notes were made on 3/4/2012.  “Who could love me…I talk too much.” -Hector from Alan Bennett’s brilliant 2004 play "The History Boys".   This is a song of obsessive, uninvited, and unrequited love. Is it actually true that some guys picked up an instrument to become a musician to get laid?  Thank God that wasn’t me, or I would have died years ago of disappointment.   Things could be worse, it could be raining.  Who needs affection anyway? Or water or food for that matter.

There is a video of this from The Gallery Cabaret here, the song starts at about 13:52 into the video. Bill K. is on bass and Nate M is on drums.

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