![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1){kind=small}
http://www.archive.org/download/StephenF
Oh well.
Trains
========
And all I wanted was to take the train
And watch the countryside fly by
Instead I'm stuck on this aeroplane
Drifting so far above the rest of my life
And I remember a time long ago
where I drifted like this, and left behind
the people who were little, and so far below
the word that sank in to the roar of my mind.
And Christmas eve dinner, do you remember that
I can't even remember the point of our fight
Like two wayward ships that refused to see land
Like two seperate planes that cross in the night
If I wasn't up here in the unfriendly skies
If I was on the track to Baltimore
I'd get out in Philly, I'd give you a call
Forgetting this conference I'm heading for
And you'd gladly buy me extra rounds
I'd gladly pay the extra fare
And we'd talk of old times like it was not out of bounds
The brothers we were for the bulk of our years
And all I wanted was to take the train
And watch the countryside fly by
Instead I'm stuck on this aeroplane
Drifting so far above the rest of my life
But it's part of the sprint, so here it is:
http://www.archive.org/details/IDontWant
Incidentally, usually after I come up with a chorus I like, after the song is fully formed I google search it, just to see. And I've ditched a number of songs b/c they probably were unconcious rip offs.
Anyway, were this not a sprint this would go in the scrap heap. Depressing to realize it so late into doing it, but if you search too early you kill your momentum.
http://www.archive.org/download/LastManS
Last Man Standing
=================
Will you be the last man standing?
Or will you turn and run again?
I've tried and I've tried, and I've tried so hard to help you
You make it hard to be your friend
Way down south I thought I knew you
Way down south, a drifter's dawn
We were like brothers as we sat out by the tracks
Daring all the world to bring it on
Such an apartment as we never thought of then
I'm leaving all these messages for you
And all our heroes, all dying, dead, or lost
And not a one got closer to the truth
A life that was so simple, all charge or retreat
A life that grabbed at meaning by the roots
A life that I had to leave when it was tearing up at me
A life that is still eating up at you
You say "Will you be the last man standing?
Or will you turn and run again?"
I've tried and I've tried, and I've tried so hard to help you
You make it hard to be your friend
The Theory Was
==============
The theory was I was a poet
The theory was that I was touched
The theory was about the worth of this
The theory was it weren't much
The theory was I was an actor
The theory was that I was you
The theory was that getting out of here
Was the best thing I'd ever do
The best thing I'd ever do
And I know that I'm supposed to write
You back what's going on
But I'm afraid that I can't tell you
I don't know what has been done
The theory was it was a novel
The theory was this was a scene
The theory was that all that happened
Couldn't help but mean
The theory was the world was bullshit
The theory was I was above
All the stupid daily life
The theory didn't love
And I know that I'm supposed to write
You back what's going on
But I'm afraid that I can't tell you
I don't know what has been done
The theory was a life waiting
The theory was you were a ghost
The theory was that the world belonged to
The people who wanted it most
The theory was I was an actor
The theory was that I was you
The theory was that getting out of here
Was the best thing I'd ever do
The best thing I'd ever do
http://www.archive.org/download/YourSwee
Walk with me down St. James Street,
where the wind is whistling
and the subways beat
their steel against the tracks
in triple time.
Or to the Algiers, where we'll
sit and talk
in echoed whispers
while we watch
the stoic eastern widows past their prime.
And if it falls apart right here
well still I can't complain
for better than sweetest joy
Would be your sweet pain
Plot a course and get us lost
by the old bridge
where the high-wires cross
the setting sky
that gilds them all with gold.
Or deep downtown
Where the wreaths hung high
are set against
an electric sky --
and, silhouetted, shake
against the cold.
And if it falls apart right here
well still I can't complain
for better than sweetest joy
Would be your sweet pain
Anyway, I just don't feel I have the right to opine. So I'll only say that the scene in Athens Inside/Out that was the most compelling to me was where Vanessa and he talk about why they broke up the band. Basically they had said they would do it as long as it was fun. And as the music industry started to push them it became unfun.
That hit me hard when I first saw it. And for me, at least, that's a lesson I come back to in so many ways. I keep forgetting it.
"Well, I like it here a lot. It just depends on what kind of balance I want to have between career and quality of life. If I just decide to concentrate on quality of life, I think I'll stay here a long time."
Randy Bewley, guitarist and co-founder of new wave band Pylon, died yesterday in an Athens, Georgia, hospital where he was admitted Monday after having a heart attack. He was 53.
The influential band was started by Bewley and bassist Michael Lachowski, while the two were art students at the University of Georgia in 1979. Fellow students Curtis Crowe and Vanessa Briscoe -- who's coincidentally a nurse at the same hospital where Bewley passed -- joined soon after on drums and vocals, respectively. The band released four albums and toured with the Talking Heads and U2, before breaking up in 1983. They reunited in 1989 to tour with fellow Athens band R.E.M., recorded another album and were planning a 30th anniversary show.
Though they never achieved much fame, the band influence many acts in and out of Athens. Fred Schneider of the B-52's told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Pylon was "the best band to ever come out of Athens," while Michael Stipe told AJC that "Randy's guitar playing and attitude was intensely unique, and his influence integral and profound. He will be greatly missed." Bewley leaves behind two sons, and funeral arrangements have yet to be announced.
The influential band was started by Bewley and bassist Michael Lachowski, while the two were art students at the University of Georgia in 1979. Fellow students Curtis Crowe and Vanessa Briscoe -- who's coincidentally a nurse at the same hospital where Bewley passed -- joined soon after on drums and vocals, respectively. The band released four albums and toured with the Talking Heads and U2, before breaking up in 1983. They reunited in 1989 to tour with fellow Athens band R.E.M., recorded another album and were planning a 30th anniversary show.
Though they never achieved much fame, the band influence many acts in and out of Athens. Fred Schneider of the B-52's told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Pylon was "the best band to ever come out of Athens," while Michael Stipe told AJC that "Randy's guitar playing and attitude was intensely unique, and his influence integral and profound. He will be greatly missed." Bewley leaves behind two sons, and funeral arrangements have yet to be announced.
and
I actually think the initial Peggy Seeger version of First Time is a bit on the painful side, but if you've given up, both songs were written by Ewan MacColl, who wrote over 300 songs, in between stints as a communist agit-propper. He also wrote "The Ballad of Ho Chi Minh", which as far as I know met with considerably less success.
You might remember his daughter Kirsty from some of the Pogues duets, notably Fairytale of New York. So here's the real piece of trivia: Kirsty was also a songwriter. Among her songs? They Don't Know, the Tracey Ullman hit.
Weird.
http://www.archive.org/details/61Daysdem
Starts with the chorus which I like, but the first verse ("every bum has a screenplay") is trite and will be replaced eventually.
It's a beautiful picking style, and an original voice (people say it's a Dylan copy, but they are missing the subtlety of it -- it borrows heavily from Dylan's percussive style, but it's got a different flow and pulse to it, it's unique). The lyrics are well crafted while staying pretty traditional.
I don't know about you, but the execution just blows me away. You think you're sick of a style, but you listen to this and realize you're not sick of the style -- you're sick of the lack of authenticity. I don't mean the lifestyle of the artist or anything like that -- but the execution. Does it come to life in this larger way, or does it seem a stale Xerox?
Anyway, very happy to have found this.
