Lyrics: For Suckers

Hot damn RIGHT, fools, I am back! I was gone because I contracted a rare disease only carried by a rare species of flower that resides only on the side of one cliff in Peru. It happened while I was hanging upside-down from that cliff trying to photograph another, equally rare flower. The disease-carrying flower can sense things by their proximity and uses the disease as a method of propagation. Damn thing blew up in my face, fools. It's all true.

It's OK, because I have been cured by a native tribe in a remote part of Indonesia. They ferment 30 different indigenous roots from their area with rainwater that has been filtered through the lava rock of a nearby volcano. The "patient" is made to drink the final product after being the center of a ritual dance meant to summon the dead ancestors of everyone involved. The ghosts then have an orgy while the dancers watch. The entire process takes 90 days, which is two days less than the time that I have not posted here. After a quick flight on the Concorde, I am hella jet-lagged, fools.

One of the things I have been meaning to say is the lyrics, indeed, are for suckers. To me, they simply aren't important. This realization has some exceptions in individual songs or in three (count 'em) artists: Prince, Tom Waits, and Iron and Wine. They have lyrics that are, at times, so profound and insightful that they can't be ignored. Tool comes close, but even with their particular brand of badassery, I could get by without the lyrics.

The voice is simply another instrument in my opinion. It provides melody and harmony and doesn't necessarily have to be saying something to be effective in making the song better as a whole. For example, check out Cocteau Twins. Elizabeth Fraser sings, by her own bio's admission, lyrics that are "mysterious" and "indecipherable." You know what, though? It doesn't matter a single bit. Their songs are lush and full despite ol' Mushmouth Liz's refusal to sing in English, or any other language for that matter.

A song, for me, has to have good music in order for me to care about it. The lead singer could be singing about clubbing baby seals while the background singers cooed about the beauty of the Republican Party for all I care. If there is wonderful music there, too, I will give the song a good hard listen.

But then there are songs that can't get it together musically, and don't seem like they even try. Sometimes this is because of poor writing, poor arrangement, or complete lack of talent. Other times, it is because the singer fails to use his or her voice to convey to me what is most important about the song. The best example of this is (flame on!) Bob Dylan. The words to his songs are oh so beautiful and oh so deep, supposedly, but they sound like well, somebody shitty is singing them. Such a trainwreck for a voice, but he is undoubtedly one of the most successful artists of all time.

All because of the suckers.

Seriously (and I know this is an extreme example), I would actually rather listen to "It Wasn't Me" by Shaggy than hearing any song by Dylan. AND SHAGGY SUCKS!!!! AND I KNOW IT!!!! Not to mention his music is below us all in terms of its composition and artistry. But hell, it's better than having to listen to Bob Dylan. "Great" lyrics are fine and all, but the price shouldn't be so heavy.

I wish I had a time machine, fools. Dylan, U2, and The Doors would feel my wrath.

Johnsburg, Illinois

She's my only true love
She's all that I think of
Look here in my wallet, that's her.

She grew up on a farm there
There's a place on my arm where
I've written her name
Next to mine.

You see
I just can't live without her
And I'm her only boy
And she grew up outside McHenry
In Johnsburg, Illinois.

-- Tom Waits

There it is. The absolute perfect song. Clocking in at just over a minute and a half, "Johnsburg, Illinois" is everything a song needs to be. Simple but poignant lyrics, sparse piano, and an almost childlike perspective about love that is sorely missing in today's world. For Tom Waits, it was a song about his wife, Kathleen Brennan. For everyone else, it is, or should be, a small, evocative glimpse of the ideal way of which love is spoken.

Music is important to me, so much so that I treat exposing my children to great music as one of my most essential parental responsibilities. So I made sure that when Julietta and Sabrina were introduced to music a day or two after they were born, "Johnsburg, Illinois" was the first song they ever heard. Ever. In their whole, lovely, dear lives. They are six and five years old respectively, but Tom Waits is an artist that they are familiar with and view as one of the things they can count on being there.

I've heard this song hundreds of times now, and the original effect of the song remains. From the first tinkling of the piano beneath Tom Waits' grizzled fingers, I just kind of stretch out my neck like a turtle and soak it in. It never makes me tired, and it always gives me a measure of hope. I don't always remember that "Johnsburg, Illinois" is a palliative for whatever ails me, but all of us (myself included) should hang on to these little chunks of goodness in our lives.

UPDATE: I usually listen to the version of "Johnsburg, Illinois" that is on Big Time, Tom Waits' live album.

Much Love To: Prince

This is the first in what will be a regular feature here on The MUSIC, Fools. In the "Much Love To:" series, I will heap praise upon an artist that I think richly deserves it. Basically, this is my chance (cuz it's my blog) to tell you what I really like.

So, today, we begin with much love to PRINCE, the granddaddy of them all when it comes to giving much love. There is no one who is more important to my musical life than Prince. No one. Everyone else falls short, and this includes other artists who I am absolutely crazy about, like Tom Waits, Iron and Wine, XTC, Tori Amos, Tool, Ricky Skaggs, and Radiohead.

I began listening to Prince about the same time everyone else did, around the time Purple Rain came out. I was on the way to the beach with my family and "When Doves Cry" came on the radio. I didn't like Prince at all at the time (for stupid, childish reasons), so there was some resistance. It didn't last.

Soon, I was shakin' my ass along with the rest of America, doing air piano, and pounding on every surface with reach to keep the beat with this totally bitchin' song. 1983 turned into a Purple Rain festival for me, as I grew to know songs like "The Beautiful Ones," "Computer Blue," "Let's Go Crazy," and, lord help me, "Darling Nikki." Hell, "The Beautiful Ones" became so important to me that I recorded it over and over on a 120-minute tape just so that I could listen to it when some damn girl had done me wrong. Think on that: A two hour tape filled with nothing but one three to four minute song! Ah, teenagers who torture themselves willingly....

Whenever I discover an artist that already has a body of work in progress, what usually happens with me is that I go backward as well as forward. This is what I did with Prince. Around The World In A Day came next, and then I went back in time to 1999. I was thoroughly amazed.

Many more albums followed, and I followed with them. Years later, when the Daily Texan (the University of Texas at Austin's daily paper) ran a picture of Prince and Appolonia, I went out and got hundreds of copies, put a song title on each picture, and taped those suckers to my wall. Prince was present at almost every turn. If he wasn't there when something important was happening to me, his music certainly worked as a context for my life. "Friend, Lover, Mother, Sister, Wife" was the song I danced to with my wife for the first time. My kids like (and sometimes request) Prince's music, which gives me fatherly pride like you wouldn't believe.

Prince's music is like an heirloom of sorts, something I can pass on after I am gone. And I know that his music will never lose its relevance because it is timeless and universal and inventive and ever-changing. Prince endures.

So much love to Prince, for being the most important musician of the last 25 years. Keep it up, fool, because not everyone does it as right as you do.