Poets for a Generation: Paul Simon, John Denver, and ...

. Paul Simon's genius cannot be narrowed to a particular genre. He first came to our attention as half of the wonderful singing duo of Simon and Garfunkel, who became well known in the late sixties. Paul Simon's talent with both words and lyrics is amazing. A few of his songs stayed with us for years, e.g. Mrs Robinson, from the film The Graduate. The sarcastic wit in that song was beginning to define him, when fortunately for us there was a relief from its endless repetition on the airwaves. Along with Mrs Robinson was Sound of Silence (a youthful effort drenched with images of alienation) as well as a number of songs written while the duo spent some time in England, such as Kathy's Song, one of my all time favorites. Its most poignant lines are:

So you see, I have come to doubt The things that I once held as true, I stand alone, without beliefs, The only truth I know is you.

Unfortunately (and rather anticlimactically, in my opinion,) he follows with the last verse:

And as I watch the drops of rain Weave their weary paths and die, I know that I am like the rain: There but for the grace of you go I

I really don't have words to describe this almost-but-not-quite-perfect song, with its simple and unassuming tune and accompaniment. One almost has to be a twenty-something to be able to articulate what it is about this song that makes it timeless. The early album Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. has some rare gems that are well worth reviving, e.g. Who will love a little sparrow? (I must check the title and correct that; it may well be simply "Sparrow".) Sound of Silence is there, in the early acoustic version, as well as Bleecker Street, and the amazing Last Night I had the Strangest Dream, a song by Ed McCurdy whose cheerful irony suited the voices of Simon and Garfunkel beautifully. The album also features some gospel songs by the duo which are rarely heard, as well as a couple of Bob Dylan songs, performed beautifully. America is a gorgeous, evocative song that chronicles a time when folks were becoming more mobile, and the society of the sixties was becoming enriched by all strata discovering each other, something that was mostly restricted to a few in earlier years. It has been many years since a typical student would get into a Greyhound and embark on a big adventure. Oh for those days again! The furious gasoline consumption of the seventies may have given an illusion of even greater mobility, but it was a mobility that kept young people essentially insulated from the world they were supposed to be discovering. After the deregulation of the airlines, of course, we only discover our destinations, and nothing along the way except a few lonely bacteria on the planes. The Boxer is another poignant ode to the misery of surviving The City. Paul Simon described The City in many songs with the sensibility of an outsider, until later, in his solo albums one sees The City as merely background. Still Crazy after All these Years describes an encounter of a pair of former lovers, but the City is no longer a hostile environment, but rather a neutral one. That song also shows Simon's amazing ability to import other musical styles into his idiom. The tired wailing saxophone beautifully captures the fatigue of many nights out in the city, a happy but weary sound that says, same old, same old, but still manages to be a lovely interlude. I have a special soft spot for American Tune, set to an old German hymn tune by Hans Hassler, I believe, but an appropriate backdrop for Simon's Poem. The song Slip Sliding Away, which is interesting, reminds me of the year my daughter was born in the middle of a snowstorm, and the Hammond organ evokes the misery of those days in the hospital (and the delight of what we brought home) by association.

I know a father who had a son He longed to tell him all the reasons for the things he'd done He came a long way just to explain He kissed his boy as he lay sleeping Then he turned around and headed home again Chorus God only knows, God makes his plan The information's unavailable to the mortal man Were working our jobs, collect our pay Believe we're gliding down the highway, when in fact we're slip sliding away

John Denver, in contrast to Paul Simon, found his forte in depicting the beauty of nature, and the joys of simple things. His beloved Rocky Mountains, and the pleasure of high, isolated places formed the core of his early songs (or at least the earliest of his songs that I remember). The theme of flight was present -even if tangentially- in one of his earliest songs: Leaving on a Jet Plane, made popular by Peter Paul and Mary (who sing it here). As we know, ironically, it was while flying an unconventional single-seater plane that Denver tragically met his end. Other songs that are highly recognizable are: Follow Me, Carolina in my Mind, Take me Home, Country Roads, Starwood in Aspen, The Eagle and the Hawk, Rocky Mountain High, Goodbye Again, and the unforgettable Annie's Song, featuring a children's chorus. Though, like Paul Simon's lyrics, John Denver's poetry was intensely personal, they were less private. Even when addressing a theme such as the loneliness of the traveling artist, in Leaving on a Jet Plane, and the similar song by Gordon Lightfoot: Early Mornin' Rain, John Denver (and Gordon Lightfoot) are restrained. It may be that very restraint that makes the songs effective. Archimedes

The Seekers: I'll never find another You

This lovely, innocent song by the Seekers is one of my favorites! It radiates a wonderful air of certainty, and the Seekers' lead vocalist, Judith Durham, one of the most celebrated women's voices in pop and folk music of the decade of the sixties, gives the words her all. It is such a gift to make your audience believe that you believe the words! The song written by Tom Springfield has the following lyrics:

There's a new world somewhere
They call the Promised Land,
And I'll be there someday
If you will hold my hand
I still need you there beside me
No matter what I do,
For I know I'll never find another you

There is always someone
For each of us they say,
And you'll be my someone
Forever and a day
I could search the whole world over
Until my life is through,
But I know I'll never find another you

It's a long, long journey,
So stay by my side
When I walk through the storm,
You'll be my guide

If they gave me a fortune,
My pleasure would be small
I could lose it all tomorrow
And never mind at all
But if I should lose your love, dear,
I don't know what I'll do
For I know I'll never find another you

The song simply glows with a sentiment that stops just this side of naivete. Those lines that begin: "If they gave me a fortune..." always brings a lump to my throat. It seems such a wonderful thing to be able to say to someone! Well, it's only a song, and words are cheap. But I think it takes a certain genius to write words on behalf of lovers everywhere. Finally, just a word about the expressiveness of Judy Durham's face! A great deal of the charm of The Seekers was Miss Durham's smile, in my humble opinion, and in the video (click on the title), of a recording session, we see Judy's eyes glowing as she sings! What a sight.

Arch

How long a wait was that!

I was watching the inauguration of President Obama with several score students this noon. And I noticed a strange expression on the faces of the African-Americans in the crowd, caught by the Fox cameramen. It was a more exalted expression than I have seen before, even in comparison to the exaltation one sees during faith rallies, or gospel singing. It struck me that something very new was happening. In spite of all the euphoria following the elections, it had failed to come home to me that Obama's success would mean so much to America.

Symbolically, of course, it has meant something important. But this was more than an abstract victory. Perhaps it is because for wealthy white Americans, keeping America viable has not been an issue. They needed to be prosperous, certainly, but just as many upper-middle-class Americans are really not anxious about rising sea levels, except as something that erodes the value of recreational beach-front property, so to them, America going to the economic toilet is not something fearful. It certainly is something very annoying. But wealthy white Americans can always relocate, anywhere from Switzerland to Brazil. American dollars are still mostly good.

In contrast, the African American nation is utterly trapped here. This is their boat. If America sinks, they sink with it. All of the rest of us sink with it, but only some of us really know this. Perhaps this moment is a humbling one for those who have traditionally considered the White House to be their exclusive domain. But humiliation was an emotion singularly lacking in the festivities today on the Capitol steps. There was optimism, there was pride, there was gravity and consciousness of responsibility. There was stern assessment. There was greeting to the foreign nations of the world, not with the usual arrogance, but with a more collegial tone. There were promises, and there were challenges. There was defiance. But there was no humiliation. It is a wonderful beginning!

Arch

[Added later:]
It becomes clear that to some people, Obama's great successful 8 years was a slap in the face.  We observe this with terrible disappointment.  We note, with shock and awe, that some of our values are not shared, and were never shared, with certain of our fellow-citizens.  Without shared values---shared at least to some degree---there can never be a comfortable government.  And to think that while we delighted in eight years of mostly rational thinking from the Executive Branch, a large minority (thankfully it is just a large minority) was having its guts eaten by the existence of a black liberal in the White House.  Today, I am sorrowful and distressed at the dysfunction of the Executive Branch (and all of Washington, really), but I'm not getting an ulcer.  Some people are, but not me.  As Mano Singham has said, perhaps we're a nation of secret socialists. --Arch

Poets for a Generation: Bob Dylan, and John Lennon and ...

(I am not singling out these two personalities over all the brilliant men and women who created public poetry for the middle decades of the last century, but only reporting how I relate to them; I intend to talk about others, too.)  

Bob Dylan doesn't need my endorsement to be considered a genius. I must confess right here that I'm only familiar with a very few songs by him. His main claim to fame was his uncanny ability to express political truths in contemporary American language. Woody Guthrie, of course, had done this before him, but Bob Dylan was able to make political discontent understandable to the ordinary American youth, regardless of social background, whereas Guthrie was focused on workers.
 The Times, They are a-Changing is a gleeful prophesy, a joyous anthem with the anger needed to give it a little edge. I believe this song's time has come, once again, because unless the people take charge of the changes that are needed in America, Congress will, as usual, respond to these crises as a bunch of cynics, each looking after his own back. (Capitalists will consider a herd of cynics to be equivalent to a group of idealists, but then they're the ones who got us into this mess in the first place.)

 Blowing in the Wind, a song better known than The Times They are a Changing, is a more direct challenge to everyman, expressing the impatience of those who are denied the dignity due a citizen. *****How many roads must a man walk down, *****Before you can call him a man? The years have shown us that after a point, this question falls on deaf ears. We are faced with the stunning prospect of a black gentleman in the White House, or a woman, only because all the available male white alternatives were less satisfactory. If this has to be the way the nation is awakened to the potential that lies hidden among African Americans, and women, so be it. Let it be on the record about how hollow is our boast of being the melting-pot of the future. Evidently to many Americans, blacks have not walked down sufficiently many roads to earn the right to call themselves citizens. And Hispanics and Women must continue to walk these roads, waiting for their day.

 Dylan did more than eloquently express public indignation. Don't think twice, It's all right is a wonderfully witty, sardonic song that pokes fun at many stereotypical attitudes, and looking among one's friends, and at the media, one can see, with amusement, couples and individuals that the words describe perfectly! I can't take this song seriously, but in a certain mood, it makes me smile. [Here is Peter Paul & Mary singing it; my favorite version.]

 Like a Rolling Stone is a similar song, expressing the inarticulate frustration of a guy who has just lost his girl, and is hurling insults at her. (The clip features The Band, and is not entirely successful.) Perhaps this was not what was intended, but that's what comes across, and beautifully.

 A Hard rain's gonna fall is another wonderful song, whose meaning is not entirely clear. (I'm sure someone out there knows exactly what it means.)

 Finally, a song that I first heard on the movie The Last Waltz, which was a recording of the final concert of The Band which was a backup group for Bob Dylan. I shall be released has the wonderful heavy beat that lends itself to a variety of treatments, and the performance on The Last Waltz is a particularly brilliant one. Each verse is sung by a different artist. Notice Joni Mitchell, Neil Diamond, Van Morrison (?) and others. This did not at first seem to me to be a political song, but I find the first line particularly poignant: "They say everything can be replaced." And that line pervades my thinking all through the song, until the last line of the chorus sinks in: "Any day now, I shall be released." The two lines probably give a distorted impression of the song, but the rest of the poem has the sort of ambiguity that is a hallmark of good poetry anywhere, even though the images are fairly blunt. (On subsequent listens, I am hearing a possible reference to Nixon.)

 John Lennon made his tortured way through the seventies, rediscovering the wisdom of the political underdog at a time when ordinary folks did not know where to look for it. The anger that was part of his personality for most of his youth became focused as he matured, and it found a suitable target in the Vietnam War. In his native Britain, Lennon was born at a time at which the working class was beginning to feel the indignity of their condition. They aspired to the education which was available in principle, but which they were denied for a variety of reasons, reasons similar to those that are obstacles to education all over the West: financial, environmental, cultural.

Lennon began writing a sort of mix of prose and verse very early, and some of this nonsense writing worked its way into a few memorable Beatles songs such as I am the Walrus, Strawberry Fields Forever, A Day in the Life, and so forth (though that last may have owed more to McCartney than to Lennon, or been a true collaboration of the two of them).

 Meeting Yoko Ono was a major event in Lennon's life, and probably also that of Ono herself. Very gradually, Lennon emerged as a man who was comfortable being inoffensive and non-abrasive. A certain abrasiveness had characterized his public persona for nearly thirty years. He also emerged as a feminist, repenting his history of domestic violence. He gave an historic TV interview with someone who I still do not know, and his eloquence on that occasion, and his willingness to talk were amazing.  
 A working class hero is something to be. This song is a distillation of the bitterness of pure, frustrated innocence. Much of the agonized lyrics that came straight from Lennon's heart seems to me to be an expression of bewilderment, an expression of a child's feeling of being treated utterly unfairly. It seems that after meeting Ono, Lennon found the courage to drop the facade of cynicism he had worn heretofore, and expressed the bruised spirit whose thoughts resonated with many, whereas the cynicism of many of his songs of the Beatles period managed to reflect the mild alienation of Beatles fans, though they did little to illuminate its causes.

 [Added later: a friend of mine reminded me of the remarkable song Imagine, which foreshadows much of the wisdom I acquired since it was written. It must have taken great courage for the Beatle, who had to embarrassingly, repeatedly, and most of all, unnecessarily, defend himself about a perfectly reasonable remark that the group was more popular than Jesus Christ, to write:
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...

Since both Lennon and Ono were very focused on the Vietnam War, many of Lennon's later songs are most directly about war and peace. Merry Christmas (war is over) is a gentle but insistent dig for an end to the War. Give Peace a Chance cannot be considered poetry in the traditional sense because it is so utterly unsubtle. Freeda People is a freewheeling diatribe against the establishment, again not great poetry, but musically effective.

One of the most lovely, least played songs by Lennon is Aisumasen, a love song. The words are tender and direct. (In the clip he sounds rather defensive about the breakup of the Beatles, and the degree to which he was blamed for it seems amusing in retrospect.

These days we're accustomed to thinking of the groups that do survive, happy hexagenarians touring the country playing at nostalgia venues, as more the hilarious exception than the ordinary course of events. A group is supposed to play for a maximum of ten years, and gracefully go their separate ways.)

Arch

Next: Paul Simon and John Denver

Janet Baker sings "Vergnügte Ruh"

A few weeks ago, I wrote of recordings of the aria Vergnügte Ruh, by J.S. Bach, part of Cantata 170. I reported on most of recordings I had access to at that time. Just a couple of days ago, I received the recording by Janet Baker with Neville Marriner and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. Janet Baker brings out all the nuances of this aria beautifully, and with that conviction that seems a hallmark of her style (and that of her legendary predecessor, Kathleen Ferrier). Sir Neville and the Academy do a wonderful job with the accompaniment, which though not in authentic style, still serves this aria well. In particular, there seems a double-bass playing along, so that the accompaniment seems more orchestral than chamber-style. Still, even if Bach might have flinched to hear such a performance, the heavier bass does emphasize the beauty of the bass line. Ms Baker's light voice stands up surprisingly well to the assertive bass line. I am amazed at how Janet Baker gives so satisfactory an account of anything she sings.



Archimedes

Mano Singham Picks Parodies!

In his first blog for the New Year (or his last blog for the old, depending on where you are), Mano Singham picks his favorite parodies in movies! These are hilarious, and some of these movies I have never seen!

[Mano Singham changed blogging sites since this post was written, and I have to find links to insert here.  Stay tuned.]

Forty! Forty wonderful Years! ha ha ha ha! (thunder, etc)

Some time in 2009, Sesame Street will have completed forty years since its debut in 1969. When I first arrived in this wonderful country, the first television show I watched regularly was Sesame Street. (I could never figure out the schedules of the other shows, because I didn't know that daytime shows were at the same hour each day, and night time shows were just once a week. I felt really stupid once that was made clear. Then, of course, I needed to figure what went on on the weekend.)

I knew all the characters on Sesame Street, and would talk back to the screen, etc. It was a little black and white set, which we had bought second hand for about fifty dollars, and we mostly watched Sesame Street and reruns of Monty Python. It was dismaying to learn, much later, that all the shows were actually in color.

I loved some of the music. Joan Baez sang, Pete Seeger, John Denver (or was that only on the Muppet Show?), the Carpenters, Buffy Sainte-Marie, and of course, the regulars. I could do without Big Bird's singing, but everybody else was pretty good. I particularly liked a bunch of tiny bugs called, I think, the Twiddlebugs. They were the best! And of course, Cookie Monster was a great personality. I even enjoyed the kids who were featured there. The creator of the show is Joan Ganz Cooney (wish I had three names like that), who was featured on Morning Edition a few mornings ago, and who declared that the biggest break the show got was when Jim Henson, the creator of the Muppets, signed on for Sesame Street. Three of the signature characters (I pick these out only because I know who plays them) on the show were Big Bird (Carol Spinney), Ernie (Jim Henson himself) and Bert (Frank Oz). Frank Oz also played Grover Monster. Other brilliantly lovable muppet characters were The Count, Guy Smiley, and the famous Kermit D. Frog, of Sesame Street News. And let's not forget the singing Marshall and his horse.

By now, of course, the format of Sesame Street is well known. With acceptance has also come a degree of jadedness. Education-phobic children, and the adults who supervise them prefer other shows similar to Sesame Street in terms of their entertainment value, but without the educational component. Perhaps also the values adopted by Sesame Street are a lot more kinder and gentler than suits the popular taste! Still, Sesame Street has continued to more than keep up the same level of creativity, which should bring it great accolades in this anniversary year. I imagine Ms Cooney has been as surprised and pleased as anyone else at the critical and ratings successes Sesame Street has enjoyed over the years. Even if it seems, in retrospect, as though Sesame Street did the obvious things in the obvious way, at the time they were done, their level of innovation was unbelievable. The Sesame Street team, and all its collaborators deserve a great deal of credit for one of the most brilliant and timely inventions of the twentieth century, the fusion of make-believe and reality in a friendly urban setting, that turned a smile towards pre-schoolers when they most needed it. Three hearty cheers!

Archimedes, wondering if you'd be interested in buying a letter S?