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FAVORITE PSYCHEDELIC
LYRICS
Now what
I'm thinkin' 'bout is so delicate.......
If I breathe you know, I might lose it.......
It's just a drop of water in the biggest ocean I've ever
known....
But at the very same time, it's big enough to drown the
whole world.....
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From
"Rainin' Babies" by The Flaming Lips, as it
appears on In A Priest Driven Ambulance. Wayne
Coyne always was good at writing these strangely conversational
spiritual aphorisms of surprising depth. Everyone thought
he was a major acid head, but as revealed in their recent
Magnet Magazine cover story, Coyne has only done
acid once or twice, a half-hit each time, revealing
his bounteous psychedelic imagery to be mostly just
speculation, about "the great acid trips we'd have
when we became rock stars" or some such.... |
She lifts
her dress and floats to dreamland,
Makes love to the sky
She lets her hair hang down as the weeds grow around --
Lady
Greengrass!
Licking lollipops, catching moon drops,
Bright and Beautiful
Big fat love-inns, groovy be-inns,
For lady Greengrass!
Puff! -- The Trees turn tangerine!
Puff! -- The sky is suddenly green!
Her eyes reveal her state of mind....
....She's beginning to fly!...."
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From
"Lady Greengrass" by a German band called
The Ones. I haven't heard it, but these lyrics were
printed in the book Cosmic Dreams At Play by
Dag Erik Asbjornsen. It was the A Side of a single released
in 1967, the only record The Ones ever put out. Edgar
Froese played "an excellent, wailing acid guitar
on this track" but, after The Ones' short-lived
career, went on to form the more outward bound and legendary
group Tangerine Dream, releasing several great albums
in the early 70s before normalizing themselves into
doing soundtracks for Tom Cruise movies. |
And
just when you tell her that you have no love to give her
she gets you on her wavelength and she lets the river answer
that you've always been her lover.....
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From
"Suzanne" by Leonard Cohen, who probably isn't
typically described as 'psychedelic,' but his first
album Songs of Leonard Cohen certainly works
for me. |
Words
are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup,
They slither while they pass, they slip away Across the
Universe.
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my opened
mind,
Possessing and caressing me.
Jai Guru Deva....Om
Nothing's gonna change my world.....
Images of broken light which dance before me like a
million eyes,
They call me on and on Across the Universe.
Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box,
They tumble blindly as they make their way Across the Universe
Jai Guru Deva....Om
Nothing's gonna change my world......
Sounds of laughter, shades of earth are ringing
Through my open ears inciting and inviting me.
Limitless, undying love, which shines around me like a million
suns,
And calls me on and on Across the Universe
Jai Guru Deva.....Om
Nothing's gonna change my world......
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John
Lennon's "Across the Universe." A very nice
bit of religious psychedelia. |
And
how do I define "psychedelic"? Basically, as "intoxicating,"
meaning that something that is psychedelic is either a drug
or something that mimics the effects of drugs. Even Leonard
Cohen music mimics drugs through its focus, with each song
a dirge of sorts that wends its way softly through one sound,
one mood, a metaphor for the flatline of the drug-induced
zone-out...or is it a metpahor for the sheer focus of epiphany,
drug-induced or, just as importantly, completely sober?
I think the latter is just as valid of a definition of "psychedelic"
-- the sheer blinding focus of epiphany -- which brings
us to the definition Richard Meltzer has used a couple times,
"mind-manifesting," which to me means having your
personal imagination fully engaged so that it charges you
and your surroundings. In the Sixties, when groups of people
were all mind-manifesting themselves in the same room, the
resulting charge often led to some wild things -- psychedelic
rock, folk, jazz, and electronic music, free love, and other
radical demonstrations of the politics of being AT PLAY.
Which is what I really mean when I say "intoxicating,"
is to be intoxicated by PLAY, not necessarily drugs, though
drugs certainly do induce play in various ways for all ages
who use them....just as they often don't induce any sort
of play at all for people who dislike them, or are abusing
them, or otherwise burnt-out on them, but using them anyway...DRUGS
DO NOT ALWAYS GUARANTEE PLAY, OR EVEN PSYCHEDELIA....or
even intoxication, for that matter. (cf. "I Couldn't
Get High" by The Fugs.) The guy you know/once knew
who sits in his living room at home and smokes tons of pot
and then just sits there and smokes tons more after a while
and just sort of repeats that all his life IS NOT psychedelic,
or is he? (Maybe as some kind of zen singularity?)
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I
am seriously NOT ready to have a column in this issue.
Hmm...
Yep,
I'm just gonna do this schtick for a while, the good ole
'columnist with nothing to say' schtick.
Oh,
excuse me, Marge? While you're in the kitchen, would you
mind getting me a beer? Oh, thanks.........yeah........love
you too..........mmm. Yep. That's better. Mrs. Margaret
Sonder, ladies and gentlemen. That's right honey, take
a bow....anyway, let's see...
You've
heard of "Top 10 of 1998" lists or whatever
(how boring?), or "staff picks," (who cares?),
but here's something that actually matters a damn in this
shill-dense global culture we're all breathing right this
'fucking' second:
TOP (x) ALBUMS/SONGS OF THE
LAST 2-20 YEARS THAT ARE CLEARLY GODHEAD (AND
MAYBE EVEN A LITTLE BIT ABOUT "WHY")
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No Neck Blues Band A Tabu Two
Either one. (They released two albums by that
title at the same time. Vinyl-only, on the New
World of Sound label, with catalog numbers NWOS-21
and NWOS-22. For the record, I slightly prefer
the second one.) On first listens I passed these
off as just random self-conscious 'noise' music
-- I thought their previous double CD Letters
from the Earth was more of a 'masterpiece.'
Now Earth sounds more like random self-conscious
'noise' music (except for that track with the
bongo beat). Not every passage on these two LPs
is exceptional, but it's never too long before
some combination of hushed ambient instrument
sound and hushed abstract-percussive rhythm makes
the music at hand actually seems to be breathing.
(Is that what people mean when they call music
"organic"?).
No Neck Blues Band Letters from
the Serth
And this one is probably even better than the
Tabu LPs, and definitely better than the
double-disc it almost has the same name as. Just
a rock solid 60 minutes of dark psychedelic groove
music. Oh shit, that makes it sound cheesy. It's
not cheesy at ALL. It's the best white Sun Ra
music I've ever heard. CD only. Warning to shoppers:
I don't think the band name appears anywhere on
it
Doug
Snyder and Bob Thompson Daily Dance.
Two rockers from Ohio, jamming
in their kitchen in 1972. "Doug plays a mean
distorto-chop guitar inspired by James Williamson,
while Bob smashes out the cascading, enveloping
melodies on his drums; Daily Dance lies somewhere
between rock and jazz, in a place you've never
been before (no "fusion" licks in evidence).
Abstract, but terribly immediate music, plus class
song titles like "Teenage Emergency."
Highly recommended." -- Richard Reigel,
Creem, September 1977. Warm
O'Brisk Records.
Miles
Davis Get Up With It
Another
great double LP from Miles Davis's 66-75 'electric'
period, this one is worth inclusion for side one
alone, a 30-minute tour de force of dazed melancholy
called "He Loved Him Madly." A eulogy
of sorts to Duke Ellington, it really sounds nothing
like his music, instead creating a shadowy late-night
feel that eventually simmers into a slow funk
groove thanks to drummer Al Foster. Miles's (uncredited)
organ playing on the first half really deserves
to go into the pantheon of atmospheric psychedelia.
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to
h*ck with label addresses, if you wanna connect
with any of this shit just go to google.com
and do a search on the band name and title too if
its different (using "__" + "__"
format) . that's honestly your best chance of buying
any of this stuff, it's just not economically feasible
to stock it in most record stores..
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There's
a killer new country song out that attacks one of the
most heinous forms of crap pop yet to come down the pike:
Nashville's "new country." It's recorded by
Dallas Wayne (co-written with Robbie Fulks). Haven't heard
of Mr. Wayne? Well, he's big in Finland. (That is not
a joke, he actually moved there from Chicago because that
was where the sales were.) With lyrics like these, it's
easy to see why the average American dumbo, intensely
terrified of any aesthetic challenge whatsoever, wouldn't
be interested:
There's a certain song that's got my local station
stuck
It's got a steel guitar and I believe that it mentions
a truck
But the singer don't sound like he ever worked a stick
shift
It sounds more like bad Phil Collins with a hip face-lift
It
reminds me, just a couple days ago I was overhearing these
two co-workers talk about music. Even though I'm thinking
of music 24-7-365 I couldn't bear to join in on the conversation.
One was trying to convince the other one that some song
by somebody was pretty good: "Yeah, I like that song!
Hey, it's all music! I can appreciate all types of music,
I've got an open mind about it." Oh great, I'm thinking,
you've got an open mind! Well, I've got some shit you
can borrow by Caroliner Rainbow Stewed Angel Skins, or
about some mp3's by The Laundryroom Squelchers? Or no,
no, you've gotta check out this Ilhan Mimaroglu record
my friend just lent me....What's that, you're not familiar
with the 1960s Turkish 'compositions for magnetic tape'
scene? Well, it should be perfect for an open-minded music
lover like yourself!
He continued:
"I'll even listen to some country! There's actually
some country that I like!" I'm thinking, hell yeah,
like The Carter Family, Bill Monroe, Hank Sr., Buck Owens,
Marty Robbins....but of course he has to go and say "Like
that one Garth Brooks song...." Jesus God, why is
it always Garth Brooks? Just because he wears a cowboy
hat on his album covers, are people really believing that
he's any more 'country' than Billy Joel and Phil Collins?
"Yeah, I'll listen to some country, some rap...but
really these days I've just been getting into good old
rock and roll, stuff that really jams, like Godsmack,
Buckcherry...." Okay, that's it, you get the GONG,
muh-fuh....
LITERATURE
MANIFESTO (like anyone really NEEDS one): I recognize
the beauty of texts, and my texts I mean pieces of writing,
stories, essays, comic strips, poems, songs, and any performance
thereof, that DO NOT DEMAND TO BE READ FROM BEGINNING
TO END. I hereby declare these OPEN TEXTS. Just reading
the first few lines should be enough to inform the reader
that this is an OPEN TEXT, and that he or she is free
to dip into the text randomly and enjoy its word-power
that way. These are TEXTS THAT DO NOT RELY ON BEING SEQUENTIAL.
(Like a performance of music in which you watch some of
the time, listen some of the time, play pool in the other
room some of the time, and go to the bathroom some of
the time....you dip in and listen when you feel like swimming,
and the water feels good, but pretty soon you feel like
getting out and putting the water back into the background
so you can go sun yourself. You do not have to experience
the music performance sequentially in order to have an
experience of it.) Have you read every word of Finnegan's
Wake and Absalom, Absalom? Two of my favorite
books -- I've read about ten percent of each. OPEN MOTHERF***ING
TEXTS.....(see also the oft-discussed-by-Blastitude Aesthetics
of Rock by Richard Meltzer, as well as the Wandering
Archive One anthology reviewed earlier in this issue...)
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Brad
Sonder is a writer who lives in Lincoln, and presumably
does nothing but sit at his computer and listen to
records -- no one knows anyone who has seen him. Don't
miss his dense 'new records' column, So
Much Music, So Much Time as published in Nougat.
Brad also writes a column about the Lincoln music
scene for lincolzine.com. |
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