Categories
Música Personal Poetry

“I was never a breast man, anyway…”

 

Chocolate – Tindersticks

It had been the perfect Friday afternoon,
the job was almost done.
The house we were decorating was owned by a little old man,
forever in the same three piece suit he’d probabbly had since he was demobbed.
He seemed to be forever on his way to the post office,
carrying brown paper ansd string wrapped parcels under his arm.
He’d bring us out china cups of camp coffee and plates of custard cream biscuits.
The house had belonged to his parents who had both passed away within weeks of each other, a few years back.
They were the only people he had ever lived with, this was the only house he had ever lived in.
I wondered what would happen to the house when he’s gone.

It was a short walk to my bedsit, once a similar house to the old man’s, now broken into lots of single room accomodation.
It also once had a great garden like his, now occupied by one-storey modern block building, containing the dentist and chiropodist.

In my room was an electric cooker, which I only used in winter to keep warm,
next to that was a sink with a glass shelf above it, on which was a toothbrush and carton of marlboro’s.
There was a table with a chair in one corner, a single bed in the other, and about four sq ft in the middle.
There was a wooden drawer under the bed with most of my clothes in, the rest was over the back of the chair.
I had a record player on a table and boxes of records underneath.
The bathroom for the first and the second floor was opposite my room,
it had a meter for the water which took two 50pence pieces, you’d have to wait half an hour for the water to heat up, and keep an eye on the door in case some sod pinched your bath.
There was one toilet upstairs and one outside, but no one used the outside one anymore, so it was where the local prostitutes would take their clients for a quickie.
I’d spend as little time as I could in my room, my skin was still warm and soft from the bath as I walked into town.

So I was sat on my usual bar stool in my usual pub by 6.30, the usual twelve or so regulars in at this time of the evening, nice and relaxed before the post 8.00 crush, we’d crowd around the tiny bar then pool tables, the house rule for fool was winner stays on, you’d chalk your name on the balckboard, and wait your turn. The challenger would pay for the game, so if you were good, you ‘d play all night.Tonight I was great.
She walked into the pool room just as I potted the black, the next name on the list, bent down to the slot on the table and put coins in.
I was used to seeing her surrounded by burgundy flocked wallpaper and red velvet upholstery in the sunday night pub around the corner; she looked different stood here in the pool room, she looked good, she was looking at me.
I ended the game as quickly as I could, without losing badly and stood near her.
“Would you like a drink?”, she asked. “I get them. What do you want?” I replied. “The same as you’re having”, she said.
The great thing about being a regular when the bars turned deep is it only takes a raised eyebrow and a couple of nods, and two bottles of Holster Pils had been passed over people’s heads to you. We did the pool room dance for a while, moving to” excuse me”‘s bending around elbows and pool cues until we decided to move on
It was too early to go to the club, so we went around the corner to the Sunday night pub. It was still quite busy on a Friday night, full of couples and students. It had a reputation as a gay bar, probably why the students came in, to feel safe.
She was my dream, we drank pernod and blacks, talked about John Barry, Ford Cortinas (she preferred the Mark 3), what was best: gel or Brylcream? I preferred the Brylcream.
She even agreed On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was the best Bond film, if you accept it as a whole and not just get hung up about George Lazenby.
She smoked Silkcuts, she didn’t mind Marlboros, but we both had a fondness for Old Port cigars
We moved down to the club. Upstairs for a couple of onion bhajis went down to the quiet bar, near the dance floors.
We decided to leave early, you wouldn’t want to be there in the end, when the lights came on. You’d never sit down in here again. In a depressing shuffle we pushed to the door, now it was good to get up and out, while it was still a black hole, warm, and smokey, full of possibilities…

She lived by the river, the other side of town, queue for taxis was hell as usual, next to the late night chippy, the worst chips you could buy, but at this time of night, full. Outside fights and throwing up. We jumped in the taxi, nothing mattered but us.
Back at hers, a bedsit in a house similar to mine, she’d done something, painted three walls, put up some old fifties star wall paper, a big Bowie poster and some nice curtains, it would be easy for me to change my woodchip magnolia bedsit standard. Afterall, it was my job. She had a few lamps here and there were some candles. She made us proper hot chocolate, not the instant shit you get from the machine. She had Fox’sbiscuits and a small bottle of Cointreau, too. The end of a perfect day. The taste of chocolate, cigarette, and orange liqueur made it even seem better. I undid her tartan miniskirt, pulled off her black wool tights, my lips moved up her legs… What the fuck? I had a large hard dick poking me in the eye. “Shit! you’re a chap!” I felt like jumping through the window, screaming, I couldn’t move…
She… he…still looked the same… I had a pain in my head, I wanted to do something, say something…
He was holding me, sobbing… “you must have known, how could you not tell?” And “I love you, I can be your woman…” His eyes were still beautiful, deep brown, his lips still chocolatey and orangey.
“Shit!” I said, “I was never a breast man, anyway…”


This story always reminds me of Eurotrash, a story from Irvine Welsh’s ‘The Acid House’.

Categories
Música Personal

Why’d you let me let you in when I was younger?

Intruders – The Antlers

Maybe when I’m older, I’ll be clearer,
more attuned and understanding.
Well, I’m ready.
I wrote a list of my demands and then I burned an older version.

So to start with, I’ll start over.
I’ll cut my hair and cut the power.
So who am I without weapons? Without defense to arm my guards against intruders?
Well this is my house, so fuck your doubts and your cute battalion,
‘cause I’m steady,
and when my double scales the wall, I’ll know exactly where he’s landing and I’ll surprise him.

Then when he’s captured, with his hands bound,
I beg for answers to all my questions, like,
“What happened?
Why’d you let me let you in when I was younger?
And why’d I need to?”

Categories
Música

Poetry by Moddi

Floriography by Moddi is a beautiful album. I love it, from the name Floriography (communication through the use of flowers) to Moddi’s intense voice and everything in between. There isn’t a single track I don’t like but if I had to pick one, I would pick Poetry. It is a great poem and one of the greatest song lyrics of the beginning of this century:

I’ll bury my downcast hours in transparent ink,
tie myself to the mast and wait here for the ship to sink
Though I know I’ve set sail on a wishing well
the daylight is dimming out slowly with every breath I take,
gasps of air become roaring rivers keeping me awake
It gives me no time to think things through.
I know words always come before you do,
but I can’t find no poetry left in these lines
I’ve been trying too hard, too long, too many times

Is this what a biochemist would call happiness?
Is it part of some unmade promise I thought I could forget?
Is it time that I let some air come through?
For now strangling love is all I can do.
Yeah, I know you have mountains of poems in mind,
all explaining how all wounds will heal given time
But these days are no longer my time to spill,
and I know that by waiting, I’ll make them stand still

I kept it as close as I could through those winter nights,
but the ropes only tightened ’round me as I tried to fight
There’s no worth throwing stone in a wishing well
Now I’m out of black ink and true tales to tell
and I know it’s all poetry, know they’re just lies,
but I still scavenge on what I find in between those lines
I’ll pretend there was happiness, fake to have felt pain
just to feel there’s a reason to read it again …

Categories
Música

Geeking out Re: Stacks, Bon Iver

Re: Stacks
When asked about the purpose of “Re” in the song title, Justin Vernon replied:
It’s ‘Regarding.’ People use it in letters and emails. It’s about pointing towards an idea, to amplify that this song is about the stacks. I mean, every song title does that in a way, but I just really wanted to point it out: this song isn’t the stacks, it’s about the stacks.
This my excavation and today is Qumran

Qumran is an archeological site in the West Bank, and is the closest settlement to where the Dead Sea scrolls were found. Justin is saying that this is his

Justin stated in an interview in 2008:
It’s referring to the excavations where they found the Dead Sea Scrolls. When they found them it changed the whole course of Christianity, whether people wanted to know it or not. A lot of people chose to ignore it, a lot of people decided to run with it, and for many people it destroyed their faith, so I think I was just looking at it as a metaphor for whatever happens after that is new shit.

Everything that happens is from now on
This is pouring rain
This is paralyzed


Everything that happened after he realized the truth of faith referenced to “Qumran” is not what he imagined it to be. He feels let down and like he will never be able to get out of the bad mind frame he is in.

I keep throwing it down two hundred at a time
The stacks being discussed are poker chips, and are being used as an analogy to emotion and love. Here, Justin is discussing how he keeps throwing more and more of his love “down” into whatever he is into. The somber tone shows that it just isn’t working.

It's hard to find it when you knew it
When your money's gone
And you're drunk as hell

These lines seem to be pointing toward a hopelessness associated with the ground breaking discoveries at Vernon’s aforementioned “Qumran”. He states that it’s hard to find it (love, happiness, etc.) when you’ve already “known” it (or at least thought you did). Because if what you had wasn’t already it, then what even was it? His plight isn’t helped by the fact that his resources are gone, and he’s fairly inebriated…

On your back with your racks
And the stacks as your load
In the back and the racks and the stacks are your load
In the back with your racks
And you're unstacking your load

Stacks = Your chips for any form of gambling. In this sense, it represents your lifeblood and energy you have to commit.
Rack = This is the part that I don't think the thread has very clearly dealt (no pun intended) with to this point. When you go to a casino and have a lot of money to put into your night, you often receive a "rack" of chips to make it easier to carry them around. I would interpret the notion of a "rack" in Justin's song to mean that absolutely everything's been invested into this game (both with love and his previous bands).

So when I look at the chorus, if your "rack" ends up being your "stack" it implies that you've lost absolutely everything except the carrying vessel. It's in that sense that Justin felt stripped of everything he had to offer except his physical body. That's his "load" or burden.

I've twisting to the sun I needed to replace
Changing the lightbulb for the internal universe he has created for himself. His “sun” stands for the surface mental happiness he has tried created but has no substance and has blown.
The fountain in the front yard is rusted out
Love is not flowing anymore abundantly like a fountain. His world is not mansion-like where fountains are usually found. Imagery is used to create a cold winter like atmosphere.
All my love was down in a frozen ground
Love is dead like frozen water in the ground.

There's a black crow sitting across from me;
His wiry legs are crossed
And he's dangling my keys he even fakes a toss

The black crow is depression; the depression Justin is going through at this time. The keys are the gateway to a better and happier life- but the crow holds onto them and does not throw them back. He fakes a toss- granting a glimmer of hope that things will get better- but doesn’t follow through.
Whatever could it be that has brought me to this loss?
How did he get here? Where did he go so wrong that he cannot get out of this hole?

On your back with your racks
And the stacks as your load
In the back and the racks and the stacks of your load
In the back with your racks
And you're unstacking your load

This is not the sound of a new man
Or crispy realization
It's the sound of the unlocking and the lift away

He's not experiencing (nor can any of us) experience a full catharsis. We are never free to completely leave the past behind and start anew. We'll always carry some of that baggage and there's always the chance of relapse.
Your love will be
Safe with me

Will it?

Categories
Música

Yoko Ono – Will I

Touch, love, you
Touch, love, you

Will I miss the sky?
Will I miss the clouds?
Will I miss the ocean?
Will I miss the bay?

Will I miss the sunrise?
Will I miss the moon?
Will I miss the mountains?
Will I miss the trees?

Will I miss the city lights?
Will I miss the snow?
Will I miss the laughter?
Will I miss the jokes?

Will I miss touch?
Will I miss love?
Will I miss you?
Will I? Will I?

Will I? Will I?
Will I? Will I?
Will I?
Will I?