No, this isn’t part of the “One Great Song” series. But it is one great song from one of the very best groups of the early Prog-Rock revolution:
The Strawbs, like the Moody Blues, were willing to “go places” other rock and pop musicians of their era would not. May their works echo long and wide.
Guitarist Mick Abrahams played on Jethro Tull’s first album, This Was. I have no idea why he left the group, but he went thence to form Blodwyn Pig, a more blues-oriented combo. Their first album, Ahead Rings Out, has some good stuff on it, but the following track is their bid for true greatness:
The blues don’t get any bluer – or any better – than that.
I like a lot of different kinds of music, including a few varieties that might surprise my Gentle Readers. And I have a special affection for the piano and its greatest exponents, in particular Frederic Chopin and Ludwig van Beethoven. But I also appreciate musicians who understand that theirs is a category of entertainment – and who therefore don’t take themselves overly seriously. So a piece such as the following delights me in more ways than one:
Queen’s best songs were truly awesome. This piano-solo arrangement of “We Are The Champions” is as dramatic as any rendition I’ve heard. That Miss Astanova is drop-dead gorgeous certainly doesn’t hurt. But even without such an attraction, I’ve always respected a good “cover band:”
Enjoy your Friday, Gentle Reader.
If you’re familiar with Mervyn Peake’s neglected fantasy trilogy Gormenghast, you’ll know the story of Fuchsia, the daughter of Lord Sepulchrave Groan, 76th Earl of the isolated community of Gormenghast. Fuchsia begins the story as an immature yet sensitive child, isolated by her position and her personality, who finds her deepest solace in dreams. As her young brother Titus, who is destined to occupy the Earldom, ages toward maturity, her isolation deepens, and she spends ever more time in the pursuit of love and acceptance through dreams and reverie.
Fuchsia is perhaps classic fantasy’s most pathetic character: incapable of fulfillment until the instant of her accidental death. Yet it is her very insufficiency that makes her appealing. As the daughter of a noble house whose powers pass through primogeniture to the oldest male descendant of the expired Earl, she is of no use to the house except as a means by which to form a useful alliance through a politically advantageous marriage – something impossible to the completely isolated House of Groan.
Readers have lamented and dreamed alongside Fuchsia for decades. But John Ford and Richard Hudson of the Strawbs were the first to immortalize her in song. Immerse yourself in her sorrows now, along with some beautiful images, woven into a compelling pastiche.
A child denied all love can't weep
But bravely bears her life alone
So Fuchsia as you try to sleep
You dream of friends you've never knownIn troubled years when no one cared
You searched for comfort everywhere
For heavy burdens never shared
Became too much for one to bearSo much to give, but those who live
Don't know of you...
Your fantasy of love to be...
Cannot come true:
Oh Lady Fuchsia
Oh Lady FuchsiaNow poised above the castle walls
You look your last on lonely skies
Night owls pray for you as they call
Returning ere the dawn shall riseYour loveless life has led you here...
Not knowing why
Your troubled mind's no longer clear...
To live or die:
Oh Lady Fuchsia
Oh Lady Fuchsia
Oh Lady Fuchsia
Oh Lady Fuchsia
Yes, Gentle Reader: I’m in one of those moods once again. (It doesn’t help that I’ve been up since 2:30 AM because of a yappy (and very poopy) puppy.)
Look out of any window,
Any morning, any evening, any day.
Maybe the sun is shining,
Birds are winging or rain is falling from a heavy sky...What do you want me to do,
To do for you to see you through?
This is all a dream we dreamed,
One afternoon long ago.Walk out of any doorway,
Feel your way, feel your way like the day before
Maybe you'll find direction
Around some corner where it's been waiting to meet you...What do you want me to do,
To watch for you while you're sleeping?
Well please don't be surprised,
When you find me dreaming too.Look into any eyes,
You find by you, you can see clear through to another day.
I know it's been seen before,
Through other eyes on other days while going home...What do you want me to do,
To do for you to see you through?
It's all a dream we dreamed one afternoon long ago.Walk into splintered sunlight,
Inch your way through dead dreams to another land.
Maybe you're tired and broken,
Your tongue is twisted with words half spoken and thoughts unclear...What do you want me to do,
To do for you to see you through?
A box of rain will ease the pain and love will see you through...Just a box of rain,
Wind and water,
Believe it if you need it,
If you don't, just pass it on...
Sun and shower,
Wind and rain,
In and out the window,
Like a moth before a flame...And it's just a box of rain.
I don't know who put it there.
Believe it if you need it,
Or leave it if you dare
And it's just a box of rain,
Or a ribbon for your hair.
Such a long, long time to be gone,
And a short time to be there.[Robert Hunter and Phil Lesh, for the Grateful Dead]
…we could all use an extra blessing or two, these days:
Bless the daytime
Bless the night
Bless the sun which gives us light
Bless the thunder
Bless the rain
Bless all those who cause us pain
Yellow stars may lead the way
All diversions lead astray
While his resolution holds
Fortune and good will will surely follow him
Bless the free man
Bless the slave
Bless the hero in his grave
Bless the soldier
Bless the saint
Bless all those whose hearts grow faint
[David Cousins]
Pray.
For healing.
For deliverance from fear.
For endurance in the face of trial.
For the courage to do what you must, however difficult.
For the good in yourself to come forward, and help you to stand fast.
But pray. For we have far to go.
Originality is a tough row to hoe. Not only is it appallingly easy to “allow” overused motifs and plot elements into your work without knowing it, it’s just as easy – and even more deadly – to go “too far,” and thus produce something so bizarre that the audience cannot find anything in it to enjoy. Anyone who’s tried to find something to enjoy in the resolutely non-harmonic works of Schonberg or the completely aleatoric and non-musical “compositions” of John Cage could tell you.
So when a multiply accomplished composer, accustomed to building adventurous music around and atop a great work of fantasy, goes looking for a genuinely new world to explore and comes away disheartened, I can easily understand his frustration.
If you know Glass Hammer, you know Steve Babb. Steve and keyboard wizard Fred Schendel have been making adventurous and inspiring music for more than two decades. Their oeuvre has made frequent use of the fantasies of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis for narrative inspiration and focus. The results have been all but uniformly stupendous. Unfortunately, those writers have let us all down by dying, which has imposed a limit on the breadth of their work.
Some time ago, Steve decided that it was time to try a completely original composition: one based on his own written work. The result was an impressive CD titled The Inconsolable Secret. Steve himself wrote the stories that underpin the compositions on that CD. The combination was impressive, to put it mildly.
But as Steve and Fred will readily tell you, time marches on:
Steve sought a new fantasy upon which to build a fresh composition. Whether he was unable to find enough inspiration in existing novels, or he simply wanted to exercise his own narrative gifts as he had in The Inconsolable Secret, he decided to found it upon a tale of his own imagining – and the result is upon us:
As usual with Glass Hammer, the music is complex and compelling. This is not “background music;” it must be actively listened to, with the liner notes in hand (and one’s reading glasses on) for maximum appreciation and enjoyment. Moreover, the embedded story, which refers to a novel I’d never heard of, tantalized me. I went to Amazon intending to purchase it regardless of price…and could not find it.
What’s this? Steve has employed a novel not for sale at Amazon? Surely something is amiss here. But not all my prodigious Google Fu could find the merest trace of this mysterious work, titled Skallagrim And The Dreaming City.
There was a mystery to be solved! So I took it to the Fortress’s resident mystery expert: the C.S.O., a.k.a. my wife Beth. She had as little knowledge of the book as I, and had no better luck locating it online. But she did make a useful suggestion:
Oh. Right. So that’s what I did. And Steve replied thus:
I wanted it to look as if [Dreaming City] was inspired by an obscure old sword and sorcery paperback I had read.
So I made up the name of the book and put it in the liner notes along with illustrations.
It’s really all about just giving the album a feel.
But always in the back of my mind I had imagined that I would actually [write] it. I have begun it and I am about 10,000 words in.
Ultimately it would be about the size of an old Elric paper back maybe with two stories in it.
What do you think?
(In case you’re not acquainted with them, the stories of Elric of Melniboné by Michael Moorcock can be found at Amazon.)
I immediately wrote back to Steve to encourage the project. From his previous narrative efforts and the material on Dreaming City, it will be a smash, guaranteed to delight any fan of sword & sorcery fantasy. And for now, we have the CD: a narratively structured concept-album as imaginative and compelling as anything in Glass Hammer’s oeuvre to date, including its previous high points Lex Rex and Valkyrie.
Highly recommended.
The contemporary use of the guitar is primarily as a “pop” or “rock” instrument. Yet it is one of the oldest of classical instruments as well, if we include its progenitor the lute.
There’s a wealth of classical music written for the guitar, but my favorite performances are of transmogrified pieces, especially from the greatest of the Baroque composers: Johann Sebastian Bach. A couple of them have been “done to death:” “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” and “Bourre.” But many of Bach’s compositions for other instruments can be transmogrified to the guitar, albeit not without considerable effort.
And so, because I’m in a “guitar mood,” have a beautiful guitar rendition of Bach’s Sonata II BWV 1003 Allegro, played by the extraordinarily gifted young Russian guitarist Tatyana Ryzhkova:
This has already become a hectic week for me, which is why I emitted nothing yesterday. Today looks to be even worse, but I can’t let two days go by without writing something for my Gentle Readers. Unfortunately, the “serious” subjects I’d like to address next are pretty large ones, which deserve more effort than a quick witty comment. So I’ll veer off to another topic for the nonce.
Way back when, I was regarded as a pretty good acoustic guitarist. Not excellent, mind you, and certainly not Marquee quality, but I provided many an evening’s entertainment at the corner coffee house. I even had a following of sorts.
However, as does every young man who picks up a musical instrument, I had heroes who were far better than I – guitarists whose ability I hoped someday to equal. Most prominent among them was a young man, just rising to fame, named Leo Kottke.
Kottke wasn’t merely excellent; he was an innovator. He composed most of his own material, which (of course) he conditioned to his unusual gifts. From his first album to be nationally distributed it was clear that he was something new in Guitar World, something to make other guitarists sit up and take notice. On that first album was a piece, titled “Vaseline Machine Gun,” that stood out from the other tracks as a diamond among the rubies, emeralds, and pearls.
“Vaseline Machine Gun” became the peak of many a guitarist’s mountain of ambition, including mine. I figured that if I could reproduce what Kottke had done on his twelve-string guitar, I could validly call myself a “pro” guitarist. I put a lot of effort into it, but sadly, I never quite got there. I’m sure many other aspiring guitarists could tell a similar tale.
Kottke’s music got much wider notice than just guitarists. Here’s a brief clip from a 1997 CNN interview of him, in which he played “Vaseline Machine Gun:”
I stumbled over that clip only yesterday, and marveled afresh at Kottke’s virtuosity. It remained unparalleled...or so I thought.
But time moves ever on, and the skills of guitarists do, as well. Today, “Vaseline Machine Gun” has become a guitarist’s showcase piece: the sort one uses to demonstrate that he’s “got it.” And indeed, there are guitarists who’ve moved beyond Kottke’s seemingly unbeatable technique. Here’s one: that crazy fingerpickin’ fool from Canada, Ewan Dobson:
But don’t imagine that only world-famous guitarists of genius have mastered “Vaseline Machine Gun.” Some guitar makers have “house” guitarists – quite good ones – whom they employ to demonstrate the sound of their instruments. Here’s one: National Guitars’ Macyn Taylor:
Pretty damned good, eh what? And on a six-string, which speaks volumes about the quality of that guitar. But I’ll bet Miss Taylor’s ability was as much of a discovery for you as it was for me yester eve.
I’ve lost most of my guitar skills due to lack of practice. And no, I never mastered “Vaseline Machine Gun.” But the clips above suggest that the advance of human ability is unstoppable. Someday there may be a guitarist who’ll throw Ewan Dobson, currently the most advanced fingerpicker I know of, into the shade. What’s certain is that there will be guitarists who’ll strive to equal and exceed him. There are probably a few working on it now. And if one does emerge to show us lesser practitioners that there remain new worlds to conquer, it will be because he believed it possible and never ceased to strive for it.
Because time does move ever on.
I’ve long enjoyed the music of Glass Hammer. I find their “concept” albums particularly appealing. Indeed, I regard Lex Rex and Valkyrie as the finest works of their kind. But I know people who regard their music as “too serious.”
I can understand the sentiment. There are people who find complex compositions laborious. There are people who simply want music to relax to. And there are people looking for what our British cousins would call music for “a bit of fun.”
Well, Glass Hammer’s leading lights Steve Babb and Fred Schendel make that sort, too. Way back when they released a whimsical CD titled Chronometree about a fellow named Tom whose overindulgence in prog-rock was driving him insane. It was wonderful fun. And quite recently, they’ve followed it with a sequel of sorts: Chronomonaut, in which Tom is catapulted into a series of time-travel adventures, again because of prog-rock overindulgence. I received the CD yesterday and I already love it to death.
However, while I was aware that Chronomonaut would be a “fun” recording, I did not expect the fringe benefit that accompanied it:
Suddenly I sense a compulsion stealing over me. My hands move toward the CD player of their own accord. They reinsert Chronomonaut into the caddy and turn the volume to 11. They pluck the libretto from the jacket and force me to stare at it. It seems that I must— No! Not that! Lord have mercy! I...must...don...the...headphones...
(tee hee)
I walk through the graveyard
A late snow is on the ground,
The bones lying underneath the ivy.
Black crow flies high,
His shadow moves across the stones.
The snow that holds my footprints melts away.I turn from the west gate,
And I look to the east,
I will await the coming dawn
To welcome the traveler home.I wonder if you hear me
Singing softly to myself,
And I wonder, do you recognize the tune.
At times I’ve been so lonesome
For another human sound,
I have cried and I have shouted to myself.I’ve turned from the west gate,
And I’ve looked to the east,
I will await the coming dawn
To welcome the traveler home.Dawn to dusk, and dust to dust
And days of mercury,
In mind’s eye the time gone by is set like crystal.
At end of year, the days grow dim,
I feel the time go by,
But you can’t hold on to mercury.You turn from the west gate,
And you look to the east,
While Earth awaits the coming dawn
To welcome all travelers home.– Heidi Berry, “Mercury” –
It’s common for men of my age to spend significant amounts of time with our memories. The memories we revisit aren’t all pleasant ones. However, my trips into the past are largely positive recollections of experiences I greatly enjoyed and want never to forget.
(No, they didn’t all involve sex. Get your mind out of the gutter. Besides, not all sexual experiences are particularly enjoyable. Not all of mine, at any rate...though that might just mean that I was doing it wrong. Oh, never mind.)
I’ve spent the past hour or so enjoying old Moody Blues tunes. All of them date from the Sixties and very early Seventies. I’m unfamiliar with their later efforts. When I left academia for other vistas, I lost touch with what was happening in music. I only returned to familiarity with such trends long afterward. Such are the pressures that go along with becoming a self-supporting adult.
The Moodies of my preferred period were consummate musicians. None of them acted like “virtuosi.” They didn’t show off on their instruments. They emphasized composition and faithfulness to it. Their stuff wears very well, despite its age.
I only had one chance to see them live. I greatly enjoyed the concert, but mostly because I loved their songs and admired them so much. At the time I was an intermediate-level guitarist, and my highest aspiration was to play as competently as did Justin Hayward. That having been said, the concert was much like listening to their recordings. That was their way.
Yet, even though that concert didn’t expose the audience to anything we couldn’t have played on our stereos, it remains one of the brightest of my musical memories. I was in the same room with musicians I admired, listening to them do what they did so well, and yearning to attain their level of competence some day.
Something has changed in contemporary music. It seems there’s been an ethical shift – a kind of “can you top this?” attitude that displaces musicianship. There are exceptions – Glass Hammer immediately comes to mind – but they’re not many, and they don’t get the degree of promotion they need to become widely known. Everyone else is showing off; few are humble enough to allow the import of the songs to shine through. That might be because the songs themselves aren’t terribly good, but de gustibus and all that.
Not long ago I saw a bumper sticker that tickled me:
It resonated with me for obvious reasons. Yet it’s strange to feel that way. Maybe you will too, some day, Gentle Reader. Cherish the things you love. Clutch them to your breast, no matter what they are. All those things must pass away, just as we will. Love ‘em while you’ve got ‘em.
…with the giveaway and related crap, so have a little music from the late, deeply lamented Sandy Denny, from her eponymous album Sandy:
The young man rose his pretty face,
All for to feel the salty spray.
When storms are mustering they say
I'll come and take you all away.I am a traveller by trade,
I only have what I have made.
A fortune teller too, they say,
And I can take you all away.Listen, listen to him, do,
He is the one who is for you.
Listen, they say,
He'll come and take us all away.And over there the young man stayed,
Upon on the rocks so rough and grey.
Watching the buoy. Watching the day.
Thinking of how he came to be.A young man he, he is so real,
And nevermore to go astray.
He is a farrier now, they say,
And he can take himself away.Listen, listen to him, do,
He is the one who is for you.
Listen, they say,
He'll come and take us all away.
If I could produce just one thing that simple and beautiful, I would consider my life well lived.
...on an sweet note can take some effort. Accordingly, have a track from the first October Project album, featuring the most beautiful contralto voice ever employed in popular music, that of Mary Fahl:
(I just barely missed being able to see Mary Fahl perform this weekend, up in Beacon, NY. That’s part of what soured the week. Oh well. Maybe next time.)
I know there are music aficionadi out there a lot better known and a lot more widely knowledgeable than I am, but every now and then a recording will impress me enough to blather about it here, with a warm recommendation for my Gentle Readers to look into it further:
Don’t let the strange title or the cover art fool you; this is serious stuff. It’s a soundtrack for a movie that was never made, written and produced by Tuomas Holopainen, keyboardist of the Finnish symphonic-metal band Nightwish. Some of the performers include Holopainen, his wife Johanna Kurkela, Nightwish’s piper Troy Donockley, and The London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Here’s a track from the album: “Go Slowly Now, Sands of Time:”
I’ve listened to it several times since it was given to me. I find it beautiful from end to end. I strongly recommend it to anyone with musical tastes broad enough to encompass both symphonic composition and contemporary popular music.
You know I’m old, right? And old people have old tastes. Tastes formed when they were relatively young people. And of course that extends to music.
But good music, if it isn’t timeless strictly speaking, certainly ought to be. So have a track from It’s A Beautiful Day’s insufficiently ballyhooed first album:
Enjoy!
...in which only a whole lot of great old music can possibly suffice:
Enjoy.
Perhaps the best song Richard Thompson ever wrote:
I was nineteen when I came to town
They called it the Summer of Love
They were burning babies, burning flags
The hawks against the doves
I took a job in the steamie
Down on Cauldrum Street
And I fell in love with a laundry girl
Who was working next to meOh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing
So fine a breath of wind might blow her away
She was a lost child, oh she was running wild
She said "As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay.
And you wouldn't want me any other way."Brown hair zig-zag around her face
And a look of half-surprise
Like a fox caught in the headlights
There was animal in her eyes
She said "Young man, oh can't you see
I'm not the factory kind
If you don't take me out of here
I'll surely lose my mind."Oh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing
...So fine that I might crush her where she lay...
She was a lost child, oh she was running wild
She said "As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay.
And you wouldn't want me any other way."We busked around the market towns
And picked fruit down in Kent
And we could tinker lamps and pots and knives
Wherever we went
And I said that we might settle down
Get a few acres dug
Fire burning in the hearth
And babies on the rugShe said "Oh man, you foolish man
It surely sounds like hell.
You might be lord of half the world
You'll not own me as well."Oh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing
So fine a breath of wind might blow her away
She was a lost child, oh she was running wild
She said "As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay.
And you wouldn't want me any other way."We was camping down the Gower one time
The work was pretty good
She thought we shouldn't wait for the frost
And I thought maybe we should
We was drinking more in those days
And tempers reached a pitch
And like a fool I let her run
With the rambling itchOh the last I heard she's sleeping rough
Back on the Derby beat
White Horse in her hip pocket
And a wolfhound at her feet
And they say she even married once
A man named Romany Brown
But even a gypsy caravan
Was too much settling downAnd they say her flower is faded now
Hard weather and hard booze
But maybe that's just the price you pay
For the chains you refuseOh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing
And I miss her more than ever words could say
If I could just taste all of her wildness now
If I could hold her in my arms today
Well I wouldn't want her any other way[Richard Thompson]
Just enjoy.
God bless you, Will. Wherever you are, I hope you're well and happy.
