Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts

Sunday, February 4, 2024

Linger On

Linger on,
you pale blue light

And it did linger on,
pale and blue

But just how long
and what followed – 

light or shade – 
I do not know

after the night’s 
weighty long dream

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Note
This was sparked by the song Pale Blue Eyes by the Velvet Underground, which has appeared and disappeared repeatedly in my mind for days now for reasons unknown with its title and imagery distorted.

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

No Regrets - one of the best break-up songs ever


Tom Rush performs No Regrets live

   
This gem, written in 1968, is probably Tom Rush's most well-known song, and it has been covered by other notable artists over the years (among them the Walker Brothers and Emmylou Harris). 

To me, his own rendition is the best and most touching by far. He has a great voice and is an excellent guitarist with a distinct style of his own.

From the lyrics:

No regrets
No tears goodbye
Don't want you back
We'd only cry again
Say goodbye again

Thursday, September 7, 2023

John Prine - Hello In There (Live From Sessions at West 54th)


Me and Loretta, we don't talk much now
She sits and stares through the backdoor screen
And all the news just repeats itself
Like some forgotten dream that we've both seen
(John Prine, from the lyrics of Hello In There)

This song has a story for me. I came to know it when I bought Diamonds & Rust by Joan Baez around 1975, the year it was released. Hello In There instantly struck me as one of the best songs on the album and made me aware of its composer, John Prine. As a result, I started listening to Prine and bought several of his albums.



Friday, May 19, 2023

Kate and Anna McGarrigle: Mother Mother (1990)


I've had this song in my head for days without knowing why. Usually there's some association that triggers the memory of a song. Nothing like it in this case. Didn't even wake up with it playing in my head as it sometimes happens.

I've been listening to Kate and Anna McGarrigle since 1977, when I picked up Dancer with Bruised Knees at the record store at the University of Regensburg in Germany on a whim because I loved the cover.



Thursday, January 19, 2023

This song will make u feel sad even if you have nothing to be sad about ...


2019), based on a true story (murder of Susan Smith by FBI agent Mark Putnam in 1989) - it is the song playing at the end of the movie.

Saturday, December 3, 2022

Steely Dan & Steeleye Span



An imaginary dialog

“Huh?”
“I get ‘em mixed up, that’s all.”
“What? They’re worlds apart.”
“But they sound similar.”
“Get your ears checked, my dear.”

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2022)

Note
You might guess from the video above which between the two I prefer.


Sunday, April 24, 2022

You think I'm lonesome? So do I, so do I

Most mornings I wake up with music going around in my head. Sometimes it's a piece I've heard the day before, but mostly these songs crop up out of the blue. Like many of the dreams I have, which are mostly weird and inexplicable.

The song this morning was Luxury Liner, written by Gram Parsons and performed by Emmylou Harris, and I have no explanation why this particular song and the particular line from it came to me. She and the Hot Band performed it during the 1977 concert of hers I attended in Munich, Germany. Well, that was a long time ago, no recent association there!

You think I'm lonesome?
So do I, so do I.

- Gram Parsons, Luxury Liner

Sunday, January 9, 2022

I’m doing nearly nothing


Ab Har Ho Bhola Nahin Bane - Pandit Mallikarjun Mansur

Fourth day of dreamily
listening to Mallikarjun Mansur -
always the same songs.

Nothing much is happening – 
I’m not listening attentively.
The music is flowing into me.

It feels like a conspicuous momentary
constellation – Mallikarjun Mansur singing
and me doing the equivalent of happy nothing.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2022)

Friday, January 7, 2022

Labordeta - Aragón


José Antonio Labordeta

Aragón

   
Polvo, niebla, viento y sol,
Donde hay agua una huerta.
Al Norte los Pirineos:
Esta tierra es Aragón.

Al Norte los Pirineos
Al Sur la tierra callada.
Pasa el Ebro por el centro
Con su soledad a la espalda.

Dicen que hay tierras al Este
Donde se trabaja y pagan.
Hacia el Oeste el Moncayo
Como un Dios que ya no ampara.

Desde tiempos a esta parte
Vamos camino de nada.
Vamos a ver cómo el Ebro
Con su soledad se marcha.

Y con él van en compaña
Las gentes de estas vaguadas,
De estos valles, de esta sierra,
De estas huertas arruinadas.

Polvo, niebla, viento y sol,
Donde hay agua una huerta.
Al Norte los Pirineos:
Esta tierra es Aragón.

**********

Aragon

   
Dust, fog, wind and sun,
Where there is water an orchard.
To the North the Pyrenees:
This land is Aragon.

To the North the Pyrenees
To the South the quiet land.
The Ebro flows through the center
With its solitude at its back.

They say there are lands to the East
Where there’s work and they pay.
To the West the Moncayo
Like a God that no longer protects.

Since time immemorial
We are on our way to nothing.
Watching the Ebro
Carry away its loneliness.

And with it go in company
The people of these meadows,
Of these valleys, these mountains,
These ruined orchards.

Dust, fog, wind and sun,
Where there is water an orchard.
To the North the Pyrenees:
This land is Aragon.

English translation by Johannes Beilharz.

Sunday, July 5, 2020

The Laura Nyro haiku


I like her looks more 
than her singing and songs. 
Strange as it may seem.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)

Note
The plain truth. Someone on tumblr recently posted a song by Laura Nyro, which reminded me of the one album of hers – New York Tendaberry – I have. As a consequence, I spent about half an hour listening to Nyro on youtube, coming to the conclusion that my love for her music and style of singing has not grown during about a decade of not listening. 

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

He thinks he'll keep her (haiku #2318)

Clock. Carpenter. My.
Close to midnight. YouTube playing.
He thinks he’ll keep her.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)

Note
Pieces of disjointed truth and nothing but.

Saturday, May 5, 2018

The quote haiku

Can quote Dylan. Can
quote Cohen. Can quote Springsteen.
Cannot quote myself.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
It’s true – I can quote from an infinite number of songs by the people named above, plus a zillion others, like Joni Mitchell, Richard Thompson, Neil Young, Gianna Nannini, Gianmaria Testa, Labordeta, Chavela Vargas, Amparo Ochoa, Soledad Bravo, Ralph McTell, Cyndi Lauper, etc., but I cannot quote from any of the poems I’ve written, even though they must number in the thousands by now. Well, except from one of my first ones, written in German when I was around ten, about some flower I claimed to have found deep in the forest.

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

The more than this haiku

More than this there’s
nothing – Roxy Music – more
of this – make my day

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
The truth and nothing but. This song by Roxy Music played at the bar while I was having today’s second coffee. The bartender started singing it as soon as he’d heard the first chords. Whenever I hear this, I’m reminded of Bill Murray’s unforgettable karaoke version in Lost in Translation.

Saturday, February 3, 2018

The who am I haiku

Who am I to stand and wonder, to wait
While the wheels of fate slowly grind my life away?
Who am I?
– Country Joe McDonald

Rediscovered stuff
I’d written and completely
forgotten. I am!

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
Looked at poems and stories – and the accompanying notes – I’d written in 2002 because I seem to be missing photos I’d taken that year, particularly in spring, so that a whole period of my life is undocumented, so to speak, except for the things I wrote and saved on the computer and what’s left in my memory. Oh well, even rediscovering oneself is some sort of evolution...

Sunday, November 26, 2017

The Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen haiku

The chimes of freedom
flashing and dancing in the 
dark mix persistent

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
Yesterday they played something by the Boss* at the coop supermarket, which was a welcome change from the idiotic stuff they mostly play, and a few days ago I listened to some songs by the Byrds on youtube, including Dylan’s Chimes of freedom. Some time this morning I found both songs going round and round in my head in an inextricable jumble, sort of my own DJ mind mix.

What connects the two songs? No idea, but must be significant.

*It wasn’t Dancing in the dark but Tougher than the rest, I seem to recall.

Sunday, October 22, 2017

The blue Spanish eyes haiku

Actually those
Spanish eyes were more likely
to be brown. Sí, sí.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
Woke up with this song coming into my head in a train of thought that started with Frank Sinatra and Nancy Sinatra singing something stupid like I love you, went on to Dean Martin and the Rat Pack (wondering if any of them were still alive), then Al Martino and that one and only song of his I remember.

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

The Heather Nova haiku

Dedicated to Alexa

Said my daughter: you’re
the only person I know 
who listens to her.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Notes
The truth and nothing but the truth (about the quote*). Out of the blue** I felt the urge to listen to Heather Nova’s London Rain and its healing effects*** today.

* Some evening in the early 2000s I ended up watching part of a Heather Nova concert on German TV, probably as a result of zapping through channels in search of something watchable. I don’t recall anyone else who comes off as ethereal on stage, as dreamy and enamored with singing with eyes closed. It’s something that can get too much. However, I ended up getting some Heather Nova CDs and playing them frequently when my daughter still lived at home. Hence the quote. I don’t think she liked H. N. very much. She preferred bands like The Back Street Boys back then.
** Does anything ever really occur out of the blue?
*** Nothing falls like London rain / Nothing heals me like you do

Friday, February 20, 2015

The budding rock'n roller haiku

If it's not base strum-
ming next wall, then it is wild
warbling or whooping.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
Once again a truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth razor-edge-of-time haiku. Next wall is the equivalent of next door except closer. Bless your emerging career, Oriane. It would be nice if it took you somewhere else.

Saturday, November 22, 2014

Monday, November 17, 2014

You are like a hurricane

Again woke up with a song playing in my mind that seemed to have sprung from nowhere – Neil Young's Like a Hurricane, essentially a one-image song: that of the stillness in the eye of the hurricane while the storm rages, blowing the narrator away.

It is one of my favorite Neil Young songs, but I haven't listened to it in ages.

What could have caused this to rise to the surface this morning?