“Eleanor Rigby” by The Beatles

 

Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby
Picks up the rice in the church
Where the wedding has been lives in a dream
Waits at the window
Wearing the face that she keeps in
A jar by the door, who is it for?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Father Mackenziе
Writing the words of a sermon
That no one will hеar no one comes near
Look at him working
Darning his socks in the night
When there's nobody there what does he care?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

All the lonely people (All the lonely people)
All the lonely people (All the lonely people)
All the lonely people (All the lonely people)

Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was
Buried along with her name nobody came
Father Mackenzie
Wiping the dirt from his hands as
He walks from the grave no one was saved

All the lonely people all the lonely people
(Ah, look at all the lonely people)
(Ah, look at all the lonely people)
(Ah, look at all the lonely people)
(Ah, look at all the lonely people)
(Ah, look at all the lonely people)
(Ah, look at all the lonely people)
(Ah, look at all the lonely people)
(Ah, look at all the lonely people)

Songwriters: John Lennon / Paul McCartney

“Revolution 9” by The Beatles

Bottle of Claret for you if I had realised...

Well, do it next time.

I forgot about it, George, I'm sorry.
Will you forgive me? Am 

Yes.

Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9
Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9
Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number...

...then there's this Welsh Rarebit wearing some brown underpants
...about the shortage of grain in hertfordshire

Everyone of them knew that as time went by they'd get a little bit older and a litter slower but...

It's all the same thing, in this case manufactured by someone who's always/umpteen ...
Your father's giving it diddly-i-dee/district was leaving...
Intended to die ... Ottoman
...long gone through...
I've got to say, irritably and...
...floors, hard enough to put on ... per day's MD in our district
There was not really enough light to get down
And ultimately ... slumped down
Suddenly...

They may stop the funding...
Place your bets
The original
Afraid she'll die ...
Great colours for the season

Number 9, number 9

Who's to know?
Who was to know?

Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9
Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9
Number 9, number 9

I sustained nothing worse than ...

Also, for example
Whatever you're doing
A business deal falls through

I informed him on the third night, when fortune gives...

People ride, people ride
Ride, ride, ride, ride, ride

Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9

Ride! Ride!

Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9

...I've missed all of that
It makes me a few days late
Compared with, like, wow!
And weird stuff like that...

...taking our sides sometimes
...floral bark

Rouge doctors have brought this specimen

I have nobody's short-cuts, aha...

9, number 9

...with the situation

They are standing still

The plan, the telegram...
Number 9, number...

A man without terrors from beard to false
As the headmaster reported to my son
He really can try, as they do, to find function...
Tell what he was saying, and his voice was low and his hive high
And his eyes were low...

Alright!

It was on fire and his glasses were the same
This thing knows if it was tinted
But you know it isn't
To me it is...

Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9
Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9
Number 9

So the wife called me and we'd better go to see a surgeon to price it ...
Yellow underclothes
So, any road, we went to see the dentist instead
Who gave her a pair of teeth which wasn't any good at all
So I said I'd marry, join the fucking navy and went to sea

In my broken chair, my wings are broken and so is my hair

I'm not in the mood for whirling

How? Dogs for dogging, hands for clapping
Birds for birding and fish for fishing
Them for themming and when for whimming

...only to find the night-watchman unaware of his
presence in the building

Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9
Number 9

Industry allows financial imbalance

Thrusting it between his shoulder blades

The Watusi, the twist

Eldorado

Take this, brother, may it serve you well

Maybe it's nothing
What? What? Oh...

Maybe, even then, impervious in London

...could be difficult thing...
It's quick like rush for peace is because it's so much
Like being naked

It's alright, it's alright
It's alright, it's alright

It's alright, it's alright
It's alright, it's alright
It's alright

If, you became naked

-------------

Recorded 30, 31 May, 4, 6, 10, 11, 20, 21 June, 16 September 1968

"Poets" by The Tragically Hip

 

January 2021

Spring starts when a heartbeat's pounding

When the birds can be heard above the reckoning carts doing some final accounting

Lava flowing in Superfarmer's direction

He's been getting reprieve from the heat in the frozen-food section

Don't tell me what the poets are doing

Don't tell me that they're talking tough

Don't tell me that they're anti-social

Somehow not anti-social enough

And porn speaks to its splintered legions

To the pink amid the withered cornstalks in them winter regions

While aiming at the archetypal father

He says with such broad and tentative swipes "Why do you even bother?"

Don't tell me what the poets are doing

Don't tell me that they're talking tough

Don't tell me that they're anti-social

Somehow not anti-social enough

Don't tell me what the poets are doing

On the street and the epitome of vague

Don't tell me how the universe is altered

When you find out how he gets paid

If there's nothing more that you need now

Lawn cut by bare-breasted women

Beach bleached, towels within reach for the women gotta make it

That'll make it by swimming

"Je te veux" by Erik Satie

 

Erik Satie

Erik Satie - Je te veux

I understood your distress Dear lover And I give in to your wishes Make me your mistress Far from us the wisdom No more sadness I long for the precious moment Where we will be happy Yes, I want you I have no regrets And I have only one desire Close to you, right here To live my whole life May my heart be yours And your lip mine Let your heart be mine And all my flesh be yours Far from us wisdom I long for the precious moment Where we will be happy Yes, I want you Yes I see in your eyes The divine promise That your loving heart Comes to seek my caress Embraced forever Burning with the same flames In dreams of love We will exchange our two souls I understand your distress Dear lover And I give in to your wishes Make me your mistress Far from us the wisdom No more sadness I long for the precious moment Where we will be happy Yes, I want you

"Nothing" by The Fugs

 

The Fugs first album, 1965

Monday, nothing
Tuesday, nothing
Wednesday and Thursday nothing
Friday, for a change
a little more nothing
Saturday once more nothing

Sunday nothing
Monday nothing
Tuesday and Wednesday nothing
Thursday, for a change
a little more nothing
Friday once more nothing

Montik gornisht,
Dinstik Gornisht
Midwoch an Donnerstik gornisht
Fritik, far a noveneh gornisht pikveleh
Shabas nach a mool gornisht

Lunes nada
Martes nada
Miercoles y Jueves nada
Viernes, por cambia
un poco mas nada
Sabado otra vez nada

January nothing
February nothing
March and April nothing
May and June
a lot more nothing
July nothing

'29 nothing
'32 nothing
'39, '45 nothing
1965 a whole lot of nothing
1966 nothing

reading nothing
writing nothing
even arithmetic nothing
geography, philosophy, history, nothing
social anthropology a lot of nothing

oh, Village Voice nothing
New Yorker nothing
Sing Out and Folkways nothing
Harry Smith and Allen Ginsberg
nothing, nothing, nothing

poetry nothing
music nothing
painting and dancing nothing
The world's great books
a great set of nothing
Audy and Foudy nothing

fucking nothing
sucking nothing
flesh and sex nothing
Church and Times Square
all a lot of nothing
nothing, nothing, nothing

Stevenson nothing
Humphrey nothing
Averell Harriman nothing
John Stuart Mill nil, nil
Franklin Delano nothing

Karl Marx nothing
Engels nothing
Bakunin and Kropotkin nothing
Leon Trotsky lots of nothing
Stalin less than nothing

nothing nothing nothing nothing
lots and lots of nothing
nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing
lots of it
nothing!
Not a God damn thing

No More Progress!

An old 78 RPM recording from my father's record collection

Progress is a mug's game, to paraphrase T.S. Eliot's comment on writing poetry. Some people think that society is improving, that it is evolving to some greater state of generosity, kindness, and wealth. It is more likely that it is devolving into all of us being captives to isolation, loneliness, and being defined as consumers. Change is not progress, it is just change, and in our consumer society change is often the replacement of one consumer item for another more expensive item. Change is buying more stuff we mostly don't need. There are other, probably better, examples but for now let's take a simple example of this, about listening to music. 

Long, long ago people listened to music on wax cylinders, then we moved on to single sided 78 RPM records, then two sided 78 RPM records, then to 33 1/3 RPM vinyl albums, then to 45 RPM records and then cassette tapes and then CDs, and each time we had to replace our record collections with recordings that worked with the new technology; and then our old records, tapes, and CDs were discarded when we (the editorial we) began buying digitized music--we were really just renting it--and this music (our virtual record collection) was streamed to what we now call our device, farewell record players, tape decks, and CD players; farewell to my grandmother's large wooden console record player with a little box of steel needles and old magazines stored on the shelves below the turn-table. Farewell to scratchy recordings, vinyl recordings, and hello to digitized music so evolved that no one can hear the attraction of listening to digitized sound. Farewell to the human dimension of things. 

Did technology really improve so much that we should care to buy into the next latest technology? I don't think so. We could have stayed at vinyl records, and there seem to be enough people who agree with this as 33 1/3 RPM vinyl recordings are making a come-back. We discarded our old record collections when they became obsolete, meaning that the machine required to play this music was no longer being manufactured and new vinyl recordings were also not being made. I always liked to collect certain things, for instance books and old postage stamps, 33 1/3 RPM vinyl albums and compact discs; I listened to my father's 78 RPM records, Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, and Glen Miller; I bought CDs of John Coltrane and Miles Davis, Van Morrison and Jim Morrison and others. This music was a part of my life.

The last music I wanted to buy were the complete Glen Gould recordings of J.S. Bach, but the technology changed before I could begin; so, farewell to me as a consumer of music. I stopped buying any music when CDs became obsolete; at the most, now, I listen to some music on YouTube. I put all of my CDs onto my computer thinking I would listen to them as I sat writing, I've never listened to any of these copies of my CDs. Human nature hasn't been factored into the mania for "progress". Some of us like to collect things, to have an album cover to look at and liner notes to read, to have something an album or a book that we paid for and then to put it on a shelf; it seems this desire to collect things has been forgotten.  

It is possible (or is it wishful thinking) that a failed technology is the digitized book, while they are still being sold the demand for digitized books seems to have plateaued (except for text books). The paper book, two covers containing pages with printed writing on each page, is among the the greatest technological inventions, it is also inexpensive,  and it will not be replaced; the world of learning, spirituality, and entertainment is available in books, whether a poem, a detective novel, Ian Fleming, Agatha Christie, Chaucer, Dante, Shakespeare, or the King James translation of the bible. The replacement of paper book technology didn't work because digital technology could not compete with the older paper format, a book is tactile and people like to hold a book, write notes in the margins, fold a corner (God forbid!) as a book mark, write their name and date when purchased or read on the cover page, give books as gifts, own a copy of the book, and buy books used or second hand; of course, Amazon and others tried to replace books with Kindle, etc. But books are still among the greatest technological inventions in history. For a while book stores were closing, replaced by Amazon, who wanted to sell digitized books that you could read on your Kindle that they also sold. They wanted to sell the device and then sell the customer a digitized book; it was a means to divert profit from the publishers to, in this case, Amazon. 

Digitized books peaked and paper copies of books are now selling more copies than ever. It used to be a sign of learning and intelligence to have, in your home, bookshelves filled with books and some of us enjoyed browsing at the titles of a friend's home library. Your books reflected who you were, what kind of interests you had, even your education. Not the best example but a fun example, remember the old Dell detective novels, they were purposely designed to be small enough to fit into the back pocket of a pair of jeans; some people used to walk around with a book in their back pocket, reading was that important to people. Remember the map on the back cover of these books? Remember buying second hand copies of these Dell books just for the cover art? They are still worth collecting and the Dell novels are still worth reading. We have fond memories of these and other books, we don't have fond memories of Kindle books, browsing Amazon's website, storing music in the Cloud, or what have you. It hasn't quite worked out as they had planned. People still enjoy visiting book stores, not just shopping online. But the damage is done regarding music, I doubt I will ever visit a record store again, I don't even think there are any left in Montreal.