The LA Woman Phenomenon

[Please Note: This is Appendix B of my book, "The Jim Morrison Myth: How a Man Became a God," which was originally entitled, "Lord Jim: Mythos of a Rock Ikon."   You can buy the book at Lulu.com :

http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/the-jim-morrison-myth/6344919

Also, before you begin reading, take a look at the following pictures and note the parallels between Jim Morrison as "LA Woman," and Shiva Nataraja...]

“Remember When We Were in Africa?”

The LA Woman Phenomenon

(unfinished)

Before I had read much about the Doors and the making of their records, etc., I was convinced that Morrison and the other Doors had planned LA Woman as their swansong.   It almost seemed as if both Morrison and the band knew that this was Morrison and the band’s final fling together, and soon their beloved band/ring leader would be gone for good.  There are just too many hints to Jim’s grand unraveling, and even a sense that he was on his way to Africa.  Like I said, it almost seemed as if he and the band were conspiring together and leaving some clues here and there on the last record.

The album is a blues record disguised as a rock and roll album.  While only half of the ten songs are pure blues, almost all of the other songs are based on a blues progression of sorts.  For instance, Riders on the Storm and Love Her Madly use a blues progression and incorporates jazz elements (it is not that Bo Diddley covers the latter song on Stoned Immaculate); Hyacinth House repeats the first line of each verse twice as per the blues; even LA Woman, for all its jazz-inspired elements has Morrison sounding like an old blues master.  All of this is not so strange as the Doors, like so many of the rock artists in the sixties, had been heavily influenced by African-American music.  But even more than this, the Doors had been planning to do a blues album, and Morrison apparently didn’t want to do anything but blues at that point.  Already on the Doors record prior to this one, Morrison Hotel, for which Morrison wrote most of the lyrics and the music, one can detect a movement toward the blues; the record ends with “Maggie M’gill,” a blues number which ends with Morrison singing:

I’m an old blues man

And I think that you understand

I’ve been singing the blues

Ever since the world began

Now it hardly needs saying that the blues was brought to this country by the slaves who were inhumanly taken from their homes in Africa.  Morrison knew this and probably thought of Africa as not only the birthplace of the blues, but of humanity.  Some early indications of his thinking include the enigmatic line at the end of “Wild Child” (on the Soft Parade) in which Morrison says, “Remember When We Were in Africa?”  This one sentence does as much for the Morrison mythology as that other famous spoken line, “I am the Lizard King, I can do anything” at the end of “Not to Touch the Earth” (part of “Celebration of the Lizard” on Absolutely Live).  The line about Africa now only fuels the fire of those who want to believe that Morrison somehow escaped death and stardom and is now living somewhere on that continent.

There are some who don’t make so much of the “Remember when we were in Africa?” line. Linda Ashcroft, who is the daughter of Morrocan immigrants, says that the song “Wild Child” was based on a poem that Jim had written for her and that when asked about the line at the end, Jim apparently told her that he was referring not to our collective human origins (the Leakeys), but much more narrowly to some pictures of Ashcroft’s North African family that she had shown Morrison.  But if Morrison really said this, it seems to me that must have been up to his old trickster self.  No doubt the line also referred to the time spent looking at the pictures with Ashcroft, but it seems highly unlikely that Morrison was not also referring to our “wild,” primitive origins.  And for that matter, “Wild Child” is not just about Ashcroft — it is far more archetypal than that, both of the sixties Flower Child and of the divine Dionysian ecstatic child of the forest, screaming wild.

Morrison revisits the Africa theme on the last album, both implicitly (by singing the blues like an old master) and explicitly on a fascinatingly beautiful partly spoken-word blues, The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat).  The song gives many indications that Morrison was deeply longing for an end to stardom and a final release into that pure land of light and bliss that Africa symbolized:

The negroes in the forest, brightly feathered

And they are saying, forget the night

Come live with us in forests of azure

Out here on the perimeter there are no stars

Out here we is stoned, immaculate

The song is also a fond and touching farewell to his friends, the other three Doors (as well as his other close friends, no doubt):

I love the friends I have gathered together on this thin raft

We have built pyramids in honor of our escaping.

Pyramids, indeed.  If you will bear with this exegesis, it is not only Morrison who is escaping, it is his friends, the other Doors, and whoever else cares to come along.  But it is a thin raft – not too many people will follow:

But you’ll never follow me

From where are they escaping?  America, which is Egypt — the biblical House of Bondage:

This is the land where the pharaohs died

Whither are they headed?   Down South, to Africa proper:

Wow, I’m sick of doubt

Live in the light of certain

South

***

He went down south and crossed the border

left the chaos and disorder

back there over his shoulder

If Egypt stands for America, Africa is thus also Latin America (L’America), a symbol of freedom (especially in the sixties, where hippies fled to escape the law – listen to “Hey Joe”).  But Morrison isn’t only talking about escaping from the American Dream, he is talking about the death of what he calls the “Western Dream” of freedom and progress:

I’ll tell you this…

No eternal reward will forgive us now

For wasting the dawn

As I mentioned, “The WASP” is only the most explicit expression of Morrison’s longing to get “Back to Africa.”  In fact, from the very first song, “The Changeling,” a hard-driving, blues-inspired rant which has Morrison grunting and screaming as good as James Brown, Morrison begins to reveal his personal “End Time” mythology, telling us he’s about to bust out and get loose (he used the blues format to tell us he had to “rock ‘n’ roll”):

I live uptown

I live downtown

I live all around

I had money

I had none

I had money

I had none

But I never been so broke

that I couldn’t leave town

I’m a changeling

See me change

The song could mean a lot of things.  One interpretation that I would suggest is that Morrison is saying he is free — he is not bound by money or by conventional societal stratification or success — and thus he can change at will.  But money in particular seems to have been for him the epitome of all that was antithetical to freedom and change, and being free desire for money meant freeing the soul:

I want to tell you people about something I know –

Money beats soul every time, come on!

He’d been “broken” to a certain degree by a system which values money (and stardom and power) over “soul,” but in “The Changeling” he is declaring that he’s not completely broke and can get out when the time comes.  And the time had come.  The song ends with Morrison somewhat eerily chanting:

I’m leaving town

On a midnight train

Gonna see me change

Change, Change, Chaaaange!

According to conventional standards, Morrison’s contempt for wealth and power seem inane if not crazy, but again, there was a method to his madness:

I am not mad

I am interested in freedom

In another song on the first side of the album, “Been Down So Long,” which is more of a pure blues, Morrison again sings that it’s time to get up and get away:

I been down so goddamn long

That it feels like up to me

I been down so very damn long

That it feels like up to me

Why don’t one of you people

Come here and set me free?

One might say that Morrison wrote the last line with his audience in mind, still thinking that he and the other Doors would perform their new record live (and in fact they did, but only two shows).   On the other hand, it could be argued that the fact that the song’s title is taken from that of Richard Farina’s first and only novel, he having died in a motorcycle crash two days after it was published at the age of 3??, is another hint that Morrison was also headed in the same direction.  In any case, I think the song gives more indication that Morrison was longing for a change.

Another song on the first side with much clearer intent is Hyacinth House.

On the first album, The Doors, Morrison had sung:

This is the End

Beautiful friend

This is the End

My only friend,

the End

On the second album:

When the music’s over

Turns out the lights…

For the music is your special friend

Dance on fire as it intends

Music is your only friend

Until

the End

On the fourth album, the Soft Parade:

Coda Queen

Now be my bride

Now on the last album:

And I’ll say it again

I need a brand new friend

The End

As I noted, Morrison had mentioned to some of his friends that he was going to split L.A. and go live in Africa incognito.  In order to pull it off he was going to change his name and he came up with Mr. Mojo Risin’ as a perfect anagram for “Jim Morrison.”  In the middle of the title track of “L.A. Woman” Morrison reveals his new alias:

Mr. Mojo Risin’

Mr. Mojo Risin’

Got to keep on Risin’

Risin’ Risin’

[also sounds like “ridin’” and “writin’]

I think some people fail to see the irony in this, as with many of Jim’s poems and lyrics.  If he really was serious about using “Mr. Mojo Risin’” as an alias, would he really be so foolish as to tell the world about it?  It seems to me he was just having fun, adding yet another element to his personal mythology, laughing at the people who were eating it up, salt-less.

On the other hand, how prophetic this all was!  For the three decades since his passing on, Morrison has certainly kept on risin’, both literally (all of the Morrison sightings, etc.) and figuratively in the minds and hearts of those who attentively listen to the Doors music and read the vast and growing literature on the band.  Morrison sang “Cancel my subscription to the Resurrection,” but there appear to be many out there (including myself) who haven’t cancelled their’s.

NOTE:

Riders on the Storm – most likely from Hart Crane’s poem “Praise For An Urn” – “Delicate riders of the storm” (see Fowlie, p. 91)

“Our life will never end”

Sowing the Seeds of Love

LYRICS

High time we made a stand & shook up the views of the common man

And the love train rides from coast to coast

DJ’s the man we love the most
Could you be, could you be squeaky clean
And smash any hope of democracy
As the headline says you’re free to choose
There’s egg on your face and mud on your shoes
One of these days they’re gonna call it the blues, yeah yeah

(Sowing the seeds of love) anything is possible
(Seeds of love) when you’re sowing the seeds of love
(Sowing the seeds of love)
(Sowing the seeds of love) anything is possible
(Seeds of love) sowing the seeds of love (Sowing the seeds)

I spy tears in their eyes
They look to the skies for some kind of divine intervention
Food goes to waste, so nice to eat, so nice to taste
Politician Granny with your high ideals
Have you no idea how the majority feels
So without love and a promised land
We’re fools to the rules of a government plan
Kick out the style, bring back the jam

(Sowing the seeds of love) anything (seeds of love)
(Sowing the seeds of love) (Sowing the seeds of love, seeds of love)
Sowing the seeds, the birds and the bees, my girlfriend and me in love

Feel the pain, talk about it, if you’re a worried man then shout about it
Open hearts, feel about it, open minds, think about it
Everyone read about it, everyone scream about it
Everyone (everyone, yeah yeah)
Everyone (everyone) read about it, read about it
Read it in the books in the crannies
And the nooks there are books to read…Chorus!!!

(Sowing the seeds of love) Oh, the seeds of love
We’re sowing the seeds, sowing the seeds

We’re sowing the seeds of love. we’re sowing the seeds
Sowing the seeds of love, we’re sowing the seeds of love
(Mr. England sowing the seeds of love)

(Time to eat all your words, swallow your pride, open your eyes)
Time to eat all your words, swallow your pride, open your eyes
High time we made a stand (time to eat all your words)
And shook up the views of the common man (swallow your pride)
And the love train rides from coast to coast (open your eyes)
Every minute of every hour “I Love a Sunflower” (open your eyes)
And I believe in love power (open your eyes)
Love power, love (open your eyes) power

 

(Sowing the seeds of love, seeds of love…Sowing the seeds of love)
(Sowing the seeds of love, seeds of love)
We’re sowing the seeds (sowing the seeds of love)
Sowing the seeds of love, we’re sowing the seeds (seeds of love)
Sowing the seeds, an end to need, and the politics of greed with love
(Sowing the seeds of love, seeds of love, sowing the seeds of love)
(Sowing the seeds of love) anything (seeds of love) anything
(Sowing the seeds of love, Sowing the seeds of love, seeds of love)
(Sowing the seeds, an end to need, and the politics of greed with love)
(Sowing the seeds of love, seeds of love, sowing the seeds of love)
(Sowing the seeds of love, seeds of love, sowing the seeds of love)
(Sowing the seeds of love, seeds of love, sowing the seeds of love)
(Sowing the seeds of love, seeds of love)

wikipedia articles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sowing_the_Seeds_of_Love

       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tears_for_Fears

 

 

Commentary

        Tears for Fears were one of the better groups of the ’80s, and “Sowing the Seeds of Love” was definitely one of the better and more memorable songs.  Back then I (and others) thought less of it because it seemed like such a Beatles knock-off (particularly Lennon-esque at the end there), but I can certainly appreciate it, and the video, much more now.   It’s quite a brilliant piece of work, I think we all will agree on this point at this point.

          So what’s this song saying, if anything?  It seems to be extolling music, for one, and through music (and via the medium of radio — the “love train” that rides from “coast to coast” is radio, and “DJ’s the one we love the most”) the band is “sowing the seeds of love,” and each song on their LP “The Seeds of Love,” is a seed.  I think that’s the message in a nutshell (in seed form).  And perhaps music has been one of the greatest catalyzers of open hearts and minds — and so have books (find them in the nooks and crannies — of the heart, of the earth, where the seeds of new life is, where the flowers grow), of course, but mostly music — that’s the key.   There’s a sense in which you might say, ”Yes, but here we are two decades later, and what’s really changed?  Did this little song make any kind of difference?”  

          Well, I guess it would have had more of an effect if everyone and his brother didn’t want to rule the fookin’ world ; ) .   No, seriously — I’m serious.   The only way to Love is via changing your own heart and mind — or perhaps better put: Tuning into the Love Frequency.  It’s something that each individual (and his brother) has to do.  Don’t look to the skies for some kind of divine intervention – intervene within.

        But even so, “We’re fools to the rules of a government plan” — and at this point the “government plan” in question seems to be more “Shadow Government” (the “Illuminati”) than any elected government.  Is that what TFF meant?  Maybe, maybe not (although the video does show the Masonic/Illuminati symbol of the All-Seeing Eye atop the Pyramid), but let’s read it that way.  And if we do, and guided by Love, we have to stop these poor misguided souls with agendas of malicious intent.

        No worries, though, no problem.  Omnia Vincit Amor — Love Conquers All.  Don’t you know?

         So tune into the Love.  And your Eartheart?  Turn it up.

 

 

    ”There is enough for everyone’s need, but not for everyone’s greed.”  ~ Gandhi

 

 

 

Journey to the Center of Your Heart & Mind (The Amboys vs. the Elevators)

Amazing song, huh?  That’s a young Ted Nugent playing guitar there.

Here are the lyrics of said song:

 

 Amboy Dukes The – Journey To The Center Of The Mind 

Leave your cares behind
Come with us and find
The pleasures of a journey to the center of the mind      

(CHORUS)
Come along if you care
Come along if you dare
Take a ride to the land inside of your mind
Beyond the seas of thought
Beyond the realm of what
Across the streams of hopes and dreams 
Where things are really not

But please realize
Youll probably be surprised
For it’s the land unknown to man
Where fantasy is fact
So if you can, please understand
You might not come back

(CHORUS)

How happy life could be
If all of mankind
Would take the time to journey to the center of the mind
Would take the time to journey to the center of the mind
Center of the mind

***********************************

      So, you know what this song is talking about, right?  Pretty clear, no, at this late date?  Funny, thing, when I heard this song in the early 80s (on Philly stations WYSP and WMMR), I had no idea what it was about.  I liked the song, but it sounded like it was just a cool science fiction/fantasy piece.  I heard it enough times back then to not forget it, so they must have played it quite a bit.  

       Anyway, what’s even funnier is that Ted Nugent himself claims he also had no idea what the song was about (!)   Here’s a brief excerpt from an interview done by Allan Vorda with him:

           “ Do you want to know the most amazing thing in the world? When we put out Journey to the Center of the Mind in 1968 it had that pipe collection on the front cover and I didn’t have the faintest idea what those pipes were all about! Everybody else was getting stoned and trying every drug known to mankind. I was meeting women, playing rock and roll, and meeting girls. I didn’t have the faintest idea about dope. I didn’t know anything about this cosmic inner probe. I thought “Journey to the Center of the Mind” meant look inside yourself, use your head, and move forward in life.”

AV: But you co-wrote the song.     

TN: I wrote the music. He wrote all the lyrics.”

       Well, this in some ways is not so amazing, because many rock songs have “two meanings” (to borrow Zep’s phraseology), and rock star bards past and present notoriously have disguised the true meanings of their songs from both the listening public, but even from their own band members, who are left scratching their heads at their frontman/woman.  Here’s the continuation of this thread in the interview:     

“AV: To set the record straight, for the umpteenth time, you don’t do drugs, do you?

TN: I have never smoked a joint. I have never done a drug in my life. I’m the only human being who can make that statement. I’ve never had a cigarette in my mouth. I don’t drink. I had beers when I was fourteen or fifteen. I `ve never done a drug!

AV: Why not? If you’re at an age when most teenagers are impressionable I can see you trying drugs and saying you don’t like them, but why didn’t you even try drugs?

TN: There were a lot of reasons, but the decision was very easy by the time I was in the Amboy Dukes. I watched incredible musicians fumble, drool, and not be able to tune their instruments. It was easier to say no than to say, “Hey, gosh, that’s for me.” I’ve also seen my fellow musicians die. It was so obvious. The same reason you don’t run across certain highways during peak rush hours. I was first offered drugs by a beatnik in 1958 and he was slobbering. I just made a very simple conclusion early on. The man with a marijuana cigarette comes off as asshole next. Not me. I was therefore able to plunge into the depths of total irresponsibility with my music.  Music over drugs was an easy choice for me.”

        Sounds somewhat reasonable, no? Or, at least it would have sounded reasonable to me
for most of my teens and twenties, when I basically agreed with Nugent’s thesis that dope is for dopes. But I would have to agree with Allan Vorda’s question why didn’t he at least try LSD or mushrooms, or whatever, rather than be so diametrically opposed to these things? Certainly there
was misuse and abuse of drugs at that time (and now), people went crazy, offed themselves, were permanently traumatized, but as the song says,

“How happy life could be
If all of mankind
Would take the time to journey to the center of the mind
Would take the time to journey to the center of the mind
Center of the mind”

while at the same time acknowledging that “you might not come back.” Sure, it’s a risk, but the risk in this case is worth it, and if you think about it, any great achievement requires some degree of risk. Indeed, I might risk the thought that the greater the achievement, the bigger the risk required.
As Ken Kesey said (this is a paraphrase), “Sure, you get bruised, there’s a risk, but the insight you gain from doing these mind-expanding drugs is well-worth it.”

 (BTW, For the entire fascinating interview with Nugent, go to a href=”http://web.wt.net/~duane/nugent.html; for Kesey’s comments: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4ilnADvT2s)

Now, let’s look at another band, and not just any band, but the one considered to be the first band of the Psychedelic Era, ah yes, you know them well, the 13th Floor Elevators. First, watch this video:

These guys apparently played all of their music (live and on record) on LSD, that was part of their mission. If they’re trippin’ on this video, you’d be hard-pressed to prove it, except maybe for lead singer Roky Erickson’s eyes (!) If you look at the liner notes for the group’s break-out album, it’s a whole Psychedelic manifesto (though brief) explaining how each song really has a deeper meaning than the surface meaning. Here is a most telling quote from the liner notes:

Since Aristotle, man has organized his knowledge vertically in separate and unrelated groups — Science, Religion, Sex, Relaxation, Work etc. The main emphasis in his language, his system of storing knowledge, has been on the identification of objects rather than on the relationships between objects. He is now forced to use his tools of reasoning separately and for one situation at a time. Had man been able to see past this hypnotic way of thinking, to distrust it (as did Einstein), and to resystematize his knowledge so that it would all be related horizontally, he would now enjoy the perfect sanity which comes from being able to deal with his life in its entirety.

Recently, it has become possible for man to chemically alter his mental state and thus alter his point of view (that is, his own basic relation with the outside world which determines how he stores his information). He can restructure his thinking and change his language so that his thoughts bear more relation to his life and his problems, therefore approaching them more sanely.

It is this quest for pure sanity that forms the basis of the songs on this album.

–Quote from the liner notes of The Psychedelic Sounds of The 13th Floor Elevators

It’s a pretty amazing album, very raw and real, and you can see how they must have influenced many of the bigger-name groups at the time like the Doors, Stones, and then later bands like REM.

There’s a new book out on the band, too, which I haven’t read yet, but which I plan to. But my main point is this: Who’s “right,” here? Nugent, or these guys? Well, Nugent obviously has had more success and staying-power, but from what I’ve seen and heard of him, he seems a bit dense. Yeah, it seems like who could have used a little more mind (and heart)-expansion. I can’t say I ever was into his music, either. I recall seeing pictures of him when I was a teen and being pretty freaked out by him for some reason, and though I knew he was this incredible guitarist, I wasn’t drawn to his music in any respect whatsoever. And when I listen to the “Elevators,” I feel like this is what rock music is really all about, namely an agent for inner and outer change. Not merely brilliant, virtuosic playing that separates the artist from the audience; but a message that breaks down the Walls of separation, that says, “I am you, and you are me, and you can do this, too…”

Another version of “You’re Gonna Miss Me”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moby Grape: OMAHA — An OM AHA (M)OMent

 

           You don’t have time to read, nor I to write a long post, so I’ll keep this brief.

           Been listening to the Grape.  Like you perhaps, I’d heard about them for a long time before I finally looked them up (on YouTube) and heard “Omaha,” which, like you perhaps, I thought was called “Listen My Friends.”  That inspired me to purchase the “Listen My Friends” best of CD (above).

        To make a long story short, even before I knew much about them, and had just seen a few videos, I 

took an interest in Mr. Spence (or Alexander, or Skip), there seemed something intriguing about him, couldn’t quite put a finger on it..

        Then I started to learn more, and need I go into the biographical details?   In brief, he was a crazy dude — brilliant and crazy, or crazy because of his genius, who knows?   Was it the LSD and other drugs, or was he somehow wired more weirdly than everyone else (Wired for Sound?)  What was it?

       Because Spence was the author of “Omaha,” and what an incredible song!  That’s like a song that I was

always looking for, the song that was always in me, too.   So I’m curious to know more about this Skip guy, you can imagine.  Like: Was he into “Om,” as the title of this suggests?   And not just the title, but the song is one long “AUM/OM” (and you can OM to it real well).  It just tells me that one reason I like psychedelia (or Acid Rock) so much was because it was coming from this deeper, mystical consciousness of actual sound vibration, hearing the AUM sound internally, which is almost certainly where this came from.  

      According to the Yoga Sutra, AUM is connected to Ishvara, or God, and is quite literally the Word/Sound of God, and maybe even the immanent form of God.  It’s often compared to the beginning verse of the Gospel of John: “In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”   That would explain why the music of that era is perhaps my most favorite, because it is quite a bit more Cosmic (and so more True, Beautiful, and Good) than other music, which is not so informed.

        So let us have more crazy people like Mr. Spence!  And Listen My Friends: OMAHA.

youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_FlNwQlBmU

ps. I love Spence’s other tracks on the Best Of CD, but “Seeing” is another favorite.  Would love to know

what the lyrics are, but no one has posted them on the Web to date.  Anyone know them?

 

CAN MUSIC SAVE YOUR MORTAL SOUL?

 

 

 

 

[or] CAN (ROCK) MUSIC SAVE YOUR MORTAL SOUL?

(Don McLean”American Pie”; Lou Reed, “Rock and Roll”; Elvis Costello “Radio Radio” — see lyrics below)

 

 

        I got into rock music at age 11, the year I started going through puberty.  Before that I basically listened to everything except rock, though I had heard and enjoyed the Pop Rock that was on the Pop stations.  How did I get into it? One of the things that got me into listening to rock was peer pressure: One afternoon a kid on the school bus asked me sneeringly what kind of music I listened to (as if he knew what it would be, I was so homely looking). When I told him innocently that I liked the Little River Band (“Night Owl” was out at that time), he and his buddies had a good, sneering laugh at my expense.  I had also heard kids talking about Rock music and I was curious and wanted to be cool like them, so one day when I got home from school I decided to tune in to one of the Philly rock stations, WMMR or WYSP, the two main ones at the time. 

 

   At first and for some time after, many of the sounds I heard coming out of my little Sharp radio were jarring and cacophonous to my ears.  It was not very appealing to me, but I kept listening.  It wasn’t long before I had acquired a certain taste for these new sounds and was inspired to pick up an old acoustic with only like four strings that my grandmother had around the house (first song I learned? “I’m Free” from the Who’s Tommy).  I started to become very conversant with the different groups and artists, partly by tuning in while doing homework, partly by reading magazines like “Cream” and anything else I could find.  I was definitely getting hooked.  What had just a short while earlier seemed strange and not a little bit taboo was now feeling a lot more homey.  I had taken a proverbial walk on the wild side, only to find out that once I checked in (to Hotel Kalifornikation?) and checked it out, I could never again check out.  It wasn’t long before I too began to take on that “Pop music sucks” attitude that the kids on the bus had, and of course there was that certain drive to be “cool,” but there was also a genuine fascination with rock music and the artists who made the music — to the point of reverence, of course.  Rock stars were my heroes, replacing my parents.

 

      Now, would I have said, as Lou Reed has “Jenny” say that “her [my] life was saved by rock and roll”?  I recall hearing Reed’s song at that time and feeling that it was true for me to some extent.  Not that I fully understood the song at that time (and wonder how Jenny would have at “just five years old”), but yes, it resonated with me at some level.   A little later in my teenage years, Reed’s words “two t.v. sets two cadillac cars/ ahhh, hey, ain’t help me nothin’ at all/not at all,” would definitely ring true.  If I had been given a choice between any other mortal, material pleasure and music, I would have chosen music hands down.  I still feel this way.  Music has been my way of connecting with Spirit, with the Divine (the non-material world), though I would not have put it that way until my mid-twenties.  I was just obsessed with it, it was a nearly all-consuming passion.  

 

      I guess I loved it so much that one summer, after attending music camp for guitar and trumpet, I suddenly decided to put my beautiful black Gibson Les Paul Custom, that for two years I had loved and cherished and played for hours a day, in the closet — for good.  Why?  Many reasons, but it all boils down to: I had to kill it, because I loved it too much.  Too much to not be better at it than I was, too much to not be able to give it more time, too much, basically, to let it and myself down.  Now, for my age, I was pretty good, I was precocious.  I could definitely jam, particularly with 12-bar blues.  For three years I had been emulating all the great guitar gods of the previous generation — Hendrix, Clapton, Beck, Page, Townshend, etc., and with a pretty good ear, I was able to pick up a lot just on my own.   And after my first year of just noodling with it, I started taking lessons with a guy at Medley Music, and then in the summer that I put the guitar in the closet, with a teacher at a music camp my twin brother and I had attended. 

 

          And suddenly it was all over.  

 

       The guitar went in the closet.  I didn’t play it again for 4 years — until the second semester of my first year in college.  During those four years, I was borderline psychotic, just going through a lot of shit.  I went through periods when I would spurn all things of the flesh, and music perhaps most of all, because I saw it as a sign of weakness.  It wasn’t an intellectual thing, because I was more feeling than thinking at that point.  It was visceral.  There were times when I just hated music, and I hated any weakness in myself, or in others.  Or put another way: The weakness I hated in others was the weakness I hated in myself.  There was a deep part of me that was longing to transcend the world.  I was like the teenage kid in Little Miss Sunshine, only I wasn’t nearly as coherent as that kid is in the movie.  I wasn’t into Nietzsche at that point, though I was a budding philosopher.  There was just so much going on, it would take a coming-of-age tale and then some to do it justice, so I’m not going to try, but just say I was going through some very heavy stuff there.

 

        There was a part of me, also, a deeper part of me, that loved music so very very much that I wanted to live without it for some time, just so that I could come to it again for the first time with fresh eyes and ears.  People who fast for some time and then break the fast have this experience with food, as does anyone who does any kind of self-denial or ascetic practice.  It’s a seeing something as if for the first time, like the now proverbial “stranger in a strange land.”   I had realized early on that too much of any material pleasure, music included, kills the music, deadens the spirit.  Or rather, it can.  For me it did.  And returning to music and the guitar — fully embracing them again when I was 19 — was in so many ways worth the wait.  

 

        I’m not finished, of course, but that’s already a long-winded way of saying that yes, music, and rock music in particular, did save this mortal soul, as they have that of many a fragile youth (I read Don Mclean’s question in “American Pie” was rhetorical).  Which is really why I’m writing all of this.  I’m an adult now, nearly 40 years of age in earth years, but I really feel the desire to give back and pay homage to the music that in many ways helped me to heal, and also led me to inquire and to research certain things that, if I hadn’t looked into them, I would be still lost in illusion and searching in a lot of ways.  And I hope that these words reach you, whoever you are, you who feel confused, lost, struggling to discover who you are and your place in this vast universe, and I say this without any guile.  I know from personal experience how hard it is when you’re growing up, and especially if you are sensitive and don’t feel like you completely fit in. 

 

         [Note: The night after I was working on this little piece, I watched the clip of Elvis Costello singing "Radio" on Saturday Night Live.  It's an interesting thing he does: He starts singing another song, and then tells his band to stop and says, "There's no reason why we need to sing this song on this show."  Then he lauches into "Radio Radio," which is a jab at the music biz.  I've noted that many rock musicians have tended to eschew radio (listen to REM's "Radio Song," Tom Petty's "The Last DJ" etc.), but then you have songs like Lou Reed's which kind of glorify it - or at least glorify the music for which it is the messenger/medium.  I have mixed feelings about radio, too, but there are so many choices these days, it hardly seems to matter anymore.  In general, though, I would just affirm that some of the best music is not played on the mainstream stations.]

 

 

 

 

 American Pie (Don Mclean)

A long, long time ago…I can still rememberHow that music used to make me smile.And I knew if I had my chanceThat I could make those people danceAnd, maybe, they’d be happy for a while.But february made me shiverWith every paper I’d deliver.Bad news on the doorstep;I couldn’t take one more step.I can’t remember if I criedWhen I read about his widowed bride,But something touched me deep insideThe day the music died.So bye-bye, miss american pie.Drove my chevy to the levee,But the levee was dry.And them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and ryeSingin’, “this’ll be the day that I die.”this’ll be the day that I die.”Did you write the book of love,And do you have faith in God above,If the Bible tells you so? Do you believe in rock ’n roll,Can music save your mortal soul,And can you teach me how to dance real slow? Well, I know that you’re in love with him`cause I saw you dancin’ in the gym.You both kicked off your shoes.Man, I dig those rhythm and blues.I was a lonely teenage broncin’ buckWith a pink carnation and a pickup truck,But I knew I was out of luckThe day the music died.I started singin’,”bye-bye, miss american pie.”Drove my chevy to the levee,But the levee was dry.Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and ryeAnd singin’, “this’ll be the day that I die.”this’ll be the day that I die.”Now for ten years we’ve been on our ownAnd moss grows fat on a rollin’ stone,But that’s not how it used to be.When the jester sang for the king and queen,In a coat he borrowed from james deanAnd a voice that came from you and me,Oh, and while the king was looking down,The jester stole his thorny crown.The courtroom was adjourned;No verdict was returned.And while lennon read a book of marx,The quartet practiced in the park,And we sang dirges in the darkThe day the music died.We were singing,”bye-bye, miss american pie.”Drove my chevy to the levee,But the levee was dry.Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and ryeAnd singin’, “this’ll be the day that I die.”this’ll be the day that I die.”Helter skelter in a summer swelter.The birds flew off with a fallout shelter,Eight miles high and falling fast.It landed foul on the grass.The players tried for a forward pass,With the jester on the sidelines in a cast.Now the half-time air was sweet perfumeWhile the sergeants played a marching tune.We all got up to dance,Oh, but we never got the chance!`cause the players tried to take the field;The marching band refused to yield.Do you recall what was revealedThe day the music died? We started singing,”bye-bye, miss american pie.”Drove my chevy to the levee,But the levee was dry.Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and ryeAnd singin’, “this’ll be the day that I die.”this’ll be the day that I die.”Oh, and there we were all in one place,A generation lost in spaceWith no time left to start again.So come on: jack be nimble, jack be quick!Jack flash sat on a candlestickCause fire is the devil’s only friend.Oh, and as I watched him on the stageMy hands were clenched in fists of rage.No angel born in hellCould break that satan’s spell.And as the flames climbed high into the nightTo light the sacrificial rite,I saw satan laughing with delightThe day the music diedHe was singing,”bye-bye, miss american pie.”Drove my chevy to the levee,But the levee was dry.Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and ryeAnd singin’, “this’ll be the day that I die.”this’ll be the day that I die.”I met a girl who sang the bluesAnd I asked her for some happy news,But she just smiled and turned away.I went down to the sacred storeWhere I’d heard the music years before,But the man there said the music wouldn’t play.And in the streets: the children screamed,The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed.But not a word was spoken;The church bells all were broken.And the three men I admire most:The father, son, and the holy ghost,They caught the last train for the coastThe day the music died.And they were singing,”bye-bye, miss american pie.”Drove my chevy to the levee,But the levee was dry.And them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and ryeSingin’, “this’ll be the day that I die.”this’ll be the day that I die.”They were singing,”bye-bye, miss american pie.”Drove my chevy to the levee,But the levee was dry.Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and ryeSingin’, “this’ll be the day that I die.”  

Jenny said, when she was just five years old
You know theres nothin happening at all
Every time she put on the radio
There was nothin goin down at all
Not at all

One fine mornin, she puts on a new york station
And she couldnt believe what she heard at all
She started dancin to that fine-fine-fine-fine music
Ooohhh, her life was saved by rock n roll
Hey baby, rock n roll

Despite all the amputation
You could dance to a rock n roll station
And it was all right
It was all right
Hey babe

Jenny said, when she was just five years old
You know theres nothin happening at all
Two tv sets, two cadillac cars
Ahhh, hey, aint help me nothin at all
Not at all

One fine morning, she heard on a new york station
She couldnt believe what she heard at all
Not at all

Despite the amputation
You could dance to a rock n roll station
It was all right
It was all right
Oh, now here she comes now-now

Jenny said, when she was just five years old
You know theres nothin happening at all
Yeah, every time she put on the radio
There was nothin goin down at all
Not at all

Then one fine morning, she put on a new york station
And she couldnt believe what she heard at all
She started dancing to that fine-fine music
Ahh, her life was saved by rock n roll
Rock n roll

Despite all the amputation
You could dance to the rock n roll station

Its all right, all right
All right, all right
All right, its all right
All right, all right
Baby, baby
Baby, baby, ooohhh

                                  Radio, Radio (Elvis Costello) 

I was tuning in the shine on the light night dial
Doing anything my radio advised
With every one of those late night stations
Playing songs bringing tears to me eyes
I was seriously thinking about hiding the receiver
When the switch broke cause its old
Theyre saying things that I can hardly believe.
They really think were getting out of control.

Radio is a sound salvation
Radio is cleaning up the nation
They say you better listen to the voice of reason
But they dont give you any choice
cause they think that its treason.
So you had better do as you are told.
You better listen to the radio.

I wanna bite the hand that feeds me.
I wanna bite that hand so badly.
I want to make them wish theyd never seen me.

Some of my friends sit around every evening
And they worry about the times ahead
But everybody else is overwhelmed by indifference
And the promise of an early death
You either shut up or get cut up;
They dont wanna hear about it.
Its only inches on the reel-to-reel.
And the radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools
Tryin to anaesthetise the way that you feel

[chorus]

Wonderful radio
Marvelous radio
Wonderful radio
Radio, radio…

An Early List of Songs and Themes for the Ministry



To be a rock and not to roll — Zep — I gotta roll, can’t stand still…

 Let it roll, baby, roll – The Doors (also Cars, REO)

 Lighten up while you still can — Eagles

 It’s better to burn out than it is to rust – Neil Young (“There’s more to the picture, than meets the eye.”)/Long Live Rock –Who

 It’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock and roll — ACDC

 You can’t always get what you want — Stones

You can’t hide from what’s inside of you – Steely Dan

  The Answer is Blowin’ In the Wind — Dylan

Get it On, Bang a Gong

Sometimes Your Heart Cuts a Fart – Tenacious D

Now that you have gone, there’s no other — Squeeze 

Whatever Gets You Through the Night is Alright — Lennon

 Alright Now, Baby It’s All Right Now — Free

 Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough – Michael Jackson

 I Really Don’t Know Life At All – Joni Mitchell

History Shows Again and Again – Blue Oyster Cult

Who’ll Stop the Rain? — CCR

Inside We’re All the Same — Styx

We Got Two Good Eyes But We Still Don’t See — Dead

The Simple Life Ain’t So Simple – Van Halen

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss – The Who

Are You Experienced? – Jimi Hendrix

Castles Made of Sand Fall Into the Sea Eventually — Hendrix

MMMBop — Hanson

Shama Lama Ding Dong – Otis Day and the Knights

Cry, Cry Baby – Janis Joplin

Fight the Good Fight Every Moment — Triumph    

 The Love You Take Is Equal to the Love You Make

Who You Jivin’ With That Cosmic Debris?

 1-2-3-4 What Are We Fightin’ For

  War Can’t Give Life, It Can Only Take It Away

  Feed Your Head

  Smile On Your Brother – Everybody Get Together

 People Can You Feel It – Love Is Here, There, Everywhere

 All You Need Is Love

 All We Need is Music

 All You Really Need Is Good Love

You can understand everything’s to share. Let your spirit dance brothers everywhere. Let your head be free. Turn the wisdom key

Find it naturally, see you’re lucky to be — Santana

 All We Are Saying Is Give Peace a Chance – Yes/Lennon

 Two Girls For Every Boy – Jan and Dean/Brian Wilson

 I Feel Like a Spinnin’ Top or a Dreidl – Don McClean

 Yo No Soy Marinero, Soy Capitan – Richie Valens

 It’s All Mixed Up – The Cars

 Freedom’s Just Another Word For Nothing Left to Sell – Billy Bragg

 Don’t Let It Rock, Let It Roll

 R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Find Out What It Means To me – Aretha Franklin

 When You Believe In Things You Don’t Understand, You Suffer

Move On Up – Curtis Mayfield

I Hope I Die Before I Get Old – The Who

One Is the Loneliest Number that You’ll Ever Do

See the Carpet of the Sun — Renaissance

All That We Can Be is Not What We Are – John Denver

I’m a Soul Man

Close Your Eyes, Girl, Look Inside…Let the Sound  Track You Away – Steppenwolf

Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow – Fleetwood Mac

Everybody Hurts Sometimes (Hold On) – R.E.M.

56)What If God Was One of Us

Freedom’s Just Another Word For Nothing Left to Lose –  Kris Kristoferson

I Don’t Know – Ozzy Osbourne

All That Lives Is Gonna Die – Love

Philosophy of the World – The Shaggs

Like A True Nature’s Child, We Were Born to Be Wild – Steppenwolf

Nothing Really Matters  — Queen

We Are the World, We Are the Children – 

The Clash

Grace Sees Goodness In Everything – U2

Play the Game Called “Go Insane” – The Doors

Different Strokes for Different Folks – Sly Stone

Dance to the Music – Sly

Oz Never Did Give Nothing to the Tin Man That He Didn’t Already Have – America, Pink Floyd/Wizard of Oz

Then I Saw Her Face, Now I’m a Believer – Diamond/Monkees

Teach Your Parents Well – Crosby, Stills, and Nash

I Know It Sounds Absurd, But Please Tell Me Who I Am – Supertramp

One Love, One Heart – Bob Marley

Listen Children, All Is Not Lost – Chicago

The Humans Will Give No Love – America

“Don’t Let It Bring You Down, It’s Only Castles Burning” – Neil Young

Love All, Serve All – Satya Sai Baba

Do You Believe in Rock and Roll, Can Music Save Your Mortal Soul?  — Don McClean

Dream On/Live and Learn From Fools and From Sages — Aerosmith

Instant Karma’s Going to Get You – Lennon

Early Morning Sunshine Tells Me All I Need to Know – Allmans

Tell You One Time, You’re to Blame — Sympathy for the Devil – Stones/Gimme Shelter?/”She blew my nose and then she blew my mind”

Til I Got Hurt, I Didn’t Know What Love Is – Cat Stevens

Iggy Pop

Only Love Is Real – Carole King

Gotta Love Your Grandma – Adam Sandler

All the Young Dudes Carry the News 

Warren Zevon?

We Don’t Need No Education – Pink Floyd

All That You Have Is Your Soul – Tracy Chapman

Philosophy – Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians

The Answer Lies Within – Cat Stevens

Prisoners of Our Own Device – Hotel California/Already Gone – Eagles

Carry On, Love Is Coming to Us All – Crosby, Stills, and Nash

Crucifixion – Phil Ochs

He Not Busy Being Born is Busy Dying — Dylan 

My Ding-a-Ling – Chuck Berry

Turn Turn Turn To Every Thing There Is A Season – Pete Seeger/Byrds

Snoopy For Prez/Om – The Royal Guardsmen

“Hypnotized, mesmerized, by what my eyes have seen” Carnival – Natalie Merchant

Listen, children, all is not lost – Chicago

“And though my eyes were open, they might have well been closed” – Whiter Shade of Pale

Learn to Be Still – Don Henley (Heart of the Matter, Inside Job)

Tell Me More About God — ?

Salvation A La Mode – Jethro Tull

Saved By Rock and Roll/Take a Walk on the Wild Side – Lou Reed

“You Only Gotta Do One Thing Well” (Janis Joplin)

              

 

 

           YOU ONLY GOTTA DO ONE THING WELL

                           “CRY BABY” – Janis Joplin

 

 

   There are two studio versions of this song out there, the “alternate” with Janis’ famous cackling and at the end you hear her ask “was it a hit or a miss?”  Well, it was a definite hit, baby, but not as good as the other take.  That’s the one I’m here to talk about, though I should mention that today Rosie at the health food store was asking me about the third eye, after which I got in the car and accidentally discovered an old homemade CD with this version on which Janis sardonically mentions the third eye(!) and one “Hare Krishna identity.” So here we are.

 

     Talk about the gospel of rock, this is like a rockin’ gospel song.  Only this gospel is the Gnostic Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and Janis said Mother Goddess.   Horny Mother Goddess,  but she’s decidedly in Divine Mother mode. 

 

      Seems like music and men were Janis’ thing.   But when push came to shove, seems like music was her main thing, singing was her main thang.  Men were a sideline.  Music was the one thing she did the best (that “did” has sexual connotations, as of course, does “thing”).  And on this song, my favorite or hers and quite possibly her best, she’s using her main squeeze – music — to share a very deep truth.  As she puts it in her seemingly rambling, but actually dead on monologue: 

“You can go all around the world

Trying to find something to do with your life, baby,

When you only gotta do one thing well,

You only gotta do one thing well to make it in this world, babe.

You got a woman waiting for you there,

All you ever gotta do is be a good man one time to one woman

And that’ll be the end of the road, babe,

I know you got more tears to share, babe,

So come on, come on, come on, come on, come on,

And cry, cry baby, cry baby, cry baby.

 

 

      

   This reminds me of an old story I’ve heard.  It’s about this poor guy (we’ll call him Jay Jay) who dreams that there’s a treasure buried under a castle in this far off country.  So he travels all the way over there to get the treasure.  Only when he’s at the gate, the gatekeeper stops him, and asks him his business.  When he tells him about his dream, the gatekeeper laughs.  “That’s funny,” he says, “because the other night I had a dream that I was supposed to travel all the way to this guy Jay Jay’s home to find a treasure buried under there.”  So Jay Jay returns home and finds the treasure buried under his own hearth.    The End.

    

 

                                     Which is a longass way of saying: 

               “The answer lies within, so why not take a look now…” (Cat Man Do)

 

 

 

                                         You Dig?

 

 

 

Epilogue : I mentioned that a little synchronicity led me to begin writing this piece.  Namely, I found this CD after talking about the third eye.  Well, so after writing this piece, it’s languished for over two years on my computer.  The other night I dig it up again, and the next day I find another old CD with “Cry Baby” on it, same version.  Weird, huh?  But so natural, too.  Why shouldn’t it be so?

Closer to Your Heart — Rush

 

 

                 Closer to Your Heart

              

    What is it that keeps us returning to the same piece of music time and again?  After hearing it once or twice, why would we need to hear it again?  I mean, before recorded music, people weren’t able to continuously play and replay music as we do and hey, they turned out okay.  Did they enjoy music any less, or more than we do? 

 

     Here’s what I’ve been feeling about this.  When we hear a piece of music, if it moves us, if we get goose pimples or our hair stands on end and a shiver goes up our spines, well that’s a pleasurable and meaningful feeling.  We feel connected at that moment, in touch with something greater than us but which also unites all of us.  It’s a taste of transcendence, or ecstasy.  Some might even call it feeling “saved” or touched by the ruakh ha-kodesh, the Holy Spirit (or by whatever name you call it).  It’s a state that, once passed, we long to recapture by re-playing the song.

     I once was approached by two Mormon missionaries on Penn’s campus, I sat with them and heard them out, not letting on that I was a graduate student in the religious studies department.  One of them asked me if I had ever felt the “Holy Spirit,” he said it was like a tingle in the spine.  I wondered at that point whether he was referring to that feeling I get when I experience Truth and Beauty through music. As far as I am aware, yes, it is the self-same experience, and it’s why sometimes you can’t tell the difference between, say, a U2 concert and a religious revival (I mention U2 because their song “Beautiful Day” influenced this writing).

    As a naive teenage loner I had no clue why the band Rush called themselves “Rush.”  Ironically, what I experienced listening alone to some of their songs was a rush, but even though I knew the feeling, I didn’t really have the concept at that point.  Granted, the name “Rush” is highly suggestive, mystic even, and it has a number of different connotations; even so, does anyone really think that Geddy and the boys weren’t like, “Let’s call the band Rush, ’cause our music is A Rush, eh”?

    I would also acknowledge that some people don’t experience these kinds of finer feelings from music.  While I would hesitate to call them the unredeemed, doomed, or the damned, I would suggest that it is transcendent experiences that separates the musicians and music afficionados from those for whom it is less a central part of their existence.  You could say it’s what separates the addicts and obsessed from the fly-by-nighters.

    My experience has also been that music of the rock genre provides more of these types of transcendent rushes than other types of music.  I speak only for myself here.  Again, maybe it’s because I grew up with this music.  

     How does this rush experience happen — what are the physics of it, so to speak?  Generally what occurs is a song begins with the first verse slow and then builds to a chorus, or a bridge to the chorus.  By the time you get to the chorus, the song has “kicked in” with all of the instruments going full tilt and the singer in high range.  The best songs will provide the rush toward the end of the song by building to climax throughout.

        

       And what is the physiological experience that takes place when this “rush” experience happens?  Well, first of all not all rushes are the same, but the adrenaline and dopamine are most likely at work in both, with some kind of endorphin-release no doubt, but I have not researched this to know what the science is behind it — if you need that.

       What I like about Rush is that they weren’t just out to give you a rush experience without also getting you to think and maybe open your heart.  Some rushes do open your heart, by the way, as I’m sure you have experienced, but many lesser bands were more about the adrenaline power than the deeper message.  Which brings me, finally, to talking about two Rush songs that really complement one another, “Spirit of Radio” and “Closer to the Heart,” both written by the drummer, Neil Peart.  Here’s the lyrics to “Spirit of Radio”:

 

 

Begin the day

With a friendly voice

A companion, unobtrusive

Plays that song thats so elusive

And the magic music makes your morning mood

 

Off on your way

Hit the open road

There is magic at your fingers

For the spirit ever lingers

Undemanding contact

In your happy solitude

 

Invisible airwaves

Crackle with life

Bright antennae bristle

With the energy

Emotional feedback

On a timeless wavelength

Bearing a gift beyond price —

Almost free…

 

All this machinery

Making modern music

Can still be open-hearted

Not so coldly charted

Its really just a question

Of your honesty

 

One likes to believe

In the freedom of music

But glittering prizes

And endless compromises

Shatter the illusion

Of integrity

 

For the words of the profits

Are written on the studio wall,

Concert hall —

Echoes with the sounds…

Of salesmen.

 

And the lyrics to “Closer to the Heart”:

 

And the men who hold high placesMust be the ones who startTo mold a new realityCloser to the heartCloser to the heartThe blacksmith and the artistReflect it in their artThey forge their creativityCloser to the heartCloser to the heartPhilosophers and ploughmenEach must know his partTo sow a new mentalityCloser to the heartCloser to the heartYou can be the captainI will draw the chartSailing into destinyCloser to the heart

 

 

  Basically, for Peart and Rush, it’s about Heart, feeling, truth — not about sex, drugs, and loads of money.  And it’s like that for many musicians.  Unfortunately it’s not true of the “men who hold high places” — the music industry execs and their ilk.  Not that musicians are all saints and the music biz chieftains all sinners.  The “glittering prizes and endless compromises” are sought after and made by the musicians, too, and it’s not like they don’t have free will, after all (just listen to the Rush song of the same title if you don’t believe me).

 

      So Rush get down to the Heart of the matter, and you know what?  Their music reflects that.  It’s held up, it still rocks, and it can still give you that rush that will set you free (or “almost free”).

 

 

  ps. Not long after I started writing this, some moons ago, I had a dream which starred Geddy Lee, who was singing “Closer to the Heart,” and he was really emphasizing the “YOUR” in the outro fade where he sings “closer to YOUR heart.”  He just kept singing that over and over, I don’t know why ; ).

 

Just Ask the Axis

JUST ASK THE AXIS

(He Knows Everything)

 

And all these emotions of mine keep holding me from, eh,

                                     Giving my life to a rainbow like you… 

 

                                                                                – Jimi Hendrix, Bold As Love

 

 

Dear Axis,

 

   I’ve heard you know everything.  So maybe you can clear up an argument I’ve been having with a friend.  He says that it’s good to feel and express our emotions; I say otherwise.  Who’s right?

 

                                                — Sick S. Anine

Axis:

 

   Well, as with any question like this, it depends who you aks!  There are at least two sides to every issue, so it’s best to listen carefully to all differing sides before you adopt your own view.  From one perspective, emotions are very good, even negative emotions.  The reason is negative emotions (anger, fear, jealousy, hatred, lust, etc.) often motivate us to improve our lives as we often do not act upon these negative emotions directly, but choose to channel them in creative ways.  For example, when your fitness trainer tells you to “get mad,” they mean that you should call upon the energy of the emotion of anger by imagining a person or thing that you would love to bust up.  Another example: Yogis, Taoists, and other spiritual aspirants have for ages sublimated their sexual energy with sublime results!          

 

      That said, for many people negative emotions are very destructive because they do not channel them in socially acceptable and creative ways, but either let them fester or act upon them in ways that are both harmful to them and to others.  Sometimes they fester for so long that they ultimately (inevitably?) explode into extreme violence — either to themselves or others.  Not very healthy!

 

    But don’t look at me askance when I say that the Axis shall, with that, give himself the Axe!  Axe!

Triumph’s “Fight the Good Fight”

Triumph,
Triumph, “Fight the Good Fight” words and lyrics by Rik Emmett, on Allied Forces

Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto you art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.
(I Timothy 6:12)

For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith…
(II Timothy 4:6-7)

Offer to Me your works, rest your mind in the Soul; free yourself of vain hopes and selfishness and the fever of delusion; and fight you your fight!

Mayi sarvaani karmaani
samnyasyaa ‘ dhyaatmacetasaa
niraashir nirmamo bhuutvaa
yudhyasva vigatajvaraha//
(Bhagavad Gita 3:30)

Remember Me, therefore, at all times, and fight you your fight. With mind and intellect fixed on Me, thou shalt surely come to Me alone, of this there can be no doubt.

Tasmaat, sarveshu kaaleshu
Maamm anusmara yudhya cha
Mayy arpitamanobuddhir
Maam evai ‘shyasy asamshayaha
(Bhagavad Gita 8:7)#

Jihad/Holy War/Crusade
Head and heart
Rock and roll as the devil’s music
“the love of money is the root of all evil”
songs are more serviceable than sermons

I remember standing in the local music store with my guitar teacher, Chet, after a lesson and watching some live footage of Triumph on MTV on the store T.V. While I was impressed, I was just a tad surprised when Chet told me, “Now those guys can really play guitar!” This was the early eighties and Triumph was really just taking off with the help of their new single that was getting a lot of airplay, “Fight the Good Fight.” The local rock stations seemed to be playing it over and over. Not bad for a Christian rock band, huh? Christ, you know it ain’t easy. There had been some precedent, of course: The Doobie Brothers’ “Jesus is Just Alright” is to this day still in rotation, and it’s a song which is a bit more in your face with actual use of the “J” word. And there was “Spirit in the Sky,“ Jesus Christ, Superstar, and others (like “Get Together,” discussed above). Christian rock hadn’t achieved the success that it has these days with bands like Jars of Clay, but it was proving that it had the potential to go mainstream in a genre that, ironically, the Christian moral majority had long condemned as satanic.

Unless you know your Bible, which I didn’t at that point (and had no desire or even thought to know either), Rik Emmett’s song isn’t overly religious. Sure, he mentions “the Good Book,” but it seems like almost a passing reference, sort of on par with Steve Tyler’s reference to “the Good Lord” in “Dream On” (see above). I didn’t even know that “it’s better to give than to receive” is an almost direct quote from Paul in Acts 20:34-35 (Paul says “more blessed,” not “better”), and not just some sort of paraphrase. There Paul tells the Ephesians:

“Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me. I [Paul] have showed you all things, how that so laboring you ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’

The only problem is that we have no record of Jesus ever saying specifically those words, though he certainly said some similar stuff. But in any case — let’s not wander too far astray here (Heaven forfend,O Lord): regardless of whether or not Jesus really said it, “it’s better to give than to receive” is really the theme of Emmett’s song. If you didn’t get this, it’s because you didn’t “read between the lines,” as Emmett advises. (Verily I tell thee, the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. In books you got to read the white parts#; in music, the silences.) Emmett’s song appears to be condemning “filthy lucre” (and possibly the filthy music business, as well) as much as it is praising keeping the faith moment to moment. As such, it’s sort of a commentary on the Timothy text, in which appear both “filthy lucre” (I Timothy 3:8) and “money is the root of all evil” (I Timothy 6:9-10). The latter actually immediately precedes the “fight the good fight” quote. Dig it:

“But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. | For money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”

So “fighting the good fight of faith” in this context means sacrificing that lust for lucre that afflicts so many, especially in this society. It’s the “price we pay” for purity of heart. Only the poor/pure of heart will see God. And it’s a continual fight, an ongoing battle between head and heart, between the lower and higher impulses within us. Muslims call this the “Greater Jihad.” Constant vigilance is called for, for “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might…and these words shall be on your lips when you rise up and when you lie down and when you walk on your way,” says Moses in Deuteronomy.

But how much is too much? Did Jesus live on a rock star’s salary? It doesn’t appear to be the case. Jesus Christ Superstar maybe, but not the J.C. we know. Some would say that real faith is believing that all of your needs (needs, not wants) will be taken care of so long as you direct your heart to heaven and become a giver rather than a taker. As Jesus said: “First seek thee the Kingdom of Heaven, and all things shall be added unto you.” I took that slightly out of context, but you see what’s troubling me: Can one truly be a rock star and a good Christian? Is it okay to charge money in return for offering another soul spiritual guidance? Or is it okay to make a lot of money if you plan to take only as much as you need to put food on your plate or whatever, and give the rest to charity? Didn’t Paul say that “the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel”?

This brings us to a great philosophical question that a college buddy once posed to me one night in the dorm: Who does more good for the world, the rich altruist with many beneficiaries, or a priest with a small flock (or any holy person)?

My friend was in the business school, so you can probably guess what his answer was. Me, I’m not so sure, and I tend to approach coming to any definite conclusions about such weighty issues with a considerable amount of fear and trembling. After all, who can say? Who are we to judge the value of any soul? Yet we all must come to some kind of personal conclusion and act upon it with strength and conviction, right?

So for me personally, I’d go with what Jesus said (or maybe said — who knows if he really said it): “Whosoever does not become a little child will not enter the kingdom of Heaven.” Or in other words, Love is all you need, everything else takes care of itself. Call me overly into the mystic (or the music!), but I’d wager if you truly had faith you could move mountains, and that without moving a muscle. That includes moving muscles to be a rock star – or just one who writes about them.

FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT
The days grow shorter and the nights are getting long
Feels like we’re running out of time
Every day it seems much harder telling right from wrong
You got to read between the lines

Don’t get discouraged, don’t be afraid, we can
Make it through another day
Make it worth the price we pay

The Good Book says it’s better to give than to receive
I do my best to do my part
Nothin’ in my pockets I got nothin’ up my sleeves
I keep my magic in my heart

Keep up your spirit, keep up your faith, baby
I am counting on you
You know what you’ve got to do

Fight the good fight every moment
Every minute, every day
Fight the good fight every moment
It’s your only way

All your life you’ve been waiting for your chance
Where you’ll fit into the plan
But you’re the master of your own destiny
So give and take the best you can

You think a little more money will buy your soul some rest
You’d better think of something else instead
You’re so afraid of being honest with yourself
You’d better take a look inside your head

Nothing is easy, nothing good is free
But I can tell you where to start
Take a look inside your heart
There’s an answer in your heart
Chorus