Since we don’t live by politics alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
Life, Culture and Politics from BrisVegas
Larvatus Prodeo was an Australian group blog which discussed politics, sociology, culture, life, religion and science from a left of centre perspective. more»
Did some server tweaking, so if you saw glitches, mea culpa.
I missed this the other night on the ABC, so since it’s a rainy old day in Melbourne:
http://www.archive.org/details/salt_of_the_earth
Earlier this evening over dinner with some friends (it is — or at least it used to be — still Saturday night here) we got into one of those parlor-game discussions that makes for amusing conversation, and I thought might make a good LP topic: what is your vote for the single greatest rock and roll line? (Example: “Please allow me to introduce myself” — Mick Jagger). It doesn’t have to be the first line, though.
A complication soon arose: some people (myself included) felt there was a distinction to be made between “rock n roll” which is essentially an American folk art defined by folk-derived practitoners like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Buddy Holly; and an art form better called just “rock”, which is self-consciously poetic/artistic, and draws on many more sources than the American folk tradition — viz., the Beatles started out recording “rock n roll,” but quickly evovled into recording “rock”. Examples: a great rock n roll lyric is Buddy Holly’s “I’m-a gonna tell ya how it’s gonna be!”, whereas a great “rock” lyric is more like Bowie’s “Gee my life’s a funny thing!/ Am I still too young?”
That said, what are your votes? (Either category is fine, just define it when you proclaim it.)
My dinner contribution was as follows: in terms of “rock,” my personal taste synched up with a kind of pure points system, viz.: the last (and funniest) line of what is arguably also the best ‘rock’ song is: “Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.” (Lennon)
But that’s a personal take. A big winner over dinner was Lou’s “Standing on the corner, suitcase in my hand” but personally I feel it lacks bite.
What are your own votes, LPers?
Last night I saw Ray Beadle for the first time; one of Oz’s hottest new blues players. Do yourselves a favour if you like the blues. He’s a great guitarist and singer, acoustic and electric.
Still smiling today. More info here.. Geoff Achison and he are playing tonight at Lizottes in Kincumber, Geoff is back in Melbourne next week.
Support your local artists!
I had my first glass of wine for a month for lunch after successfully completing Dry July and raising some funds for cancer treatment. ’twas a nice Riesling to accompany some Chinese BBQ pork. Most pleasant.
“She’s high strung and a little young
But she’s a real Texas twister.”
I’ll play that game, j_p_z, but it’s hard, because pretty much anything by Iron Maiden or Metallica will do the job. Iron Maiden wrote The Rime of the Ancient Mariner after all, so they’re in the literary canon…
I’d say though, for starters, from Metallica’s Fade to Black the line “No one but me can save myself, but it’s too late, Now I can’t think why I should even try.” As I read those lyrics I can feel the slide into Kirk Hammett’s solo, and the chaos that comes with it.
I spent today trying to work on some editing while hideously distracted by this little guy, who I rescued from a fate worse than (but ultimately ending in) death on Wednesday. $700 later, he’s almost as right as rain…
jpz, you could make a game of it out of Dylan songs alone. Of his I’d go with from ‘My Back Pages’ the line:
‘But I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now’.
More pertinent to the current dreadful Australian election campaign is Dylan’s ‘It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding’:
‘While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society’s pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he’s in.’
Geez, that’s too difficult. The best opening line on an album is “jesus died for somebodies sins, but not mine”. But the best line EVER will need some thinking music, I reckon……..*wanders off to peruse record collection*.
furious balancing, are you thinking of Crass? The entirety of “Reality Asylum” is brilliant, and adjusts that line slightly to “Jesus died for his own sins, not mine!”
Nab sg, it’s from Patti Smith’s “Horses”.
Oops, I meant “nah, sg”. This damn autofill is messing with my vernacular again.
Poly Styrene:
“Little girls should be seen and not heard… OH BONDAGE, UP YOURS!!”
enjoying a few days on holiday in Paris – lovely city
cheers
Gavin Bryars’Jesus blood never failed me yet get any votes besides mine? Great for getting guests to leave.
“I’ve got a Rolls Royce,
Becos’ it’s good for my voice.” ?
Spent much of the weekend o trains betwixt Tokyo and Okayama.
Fell in love with someone who looks like the actress Yuki Amami.
Now sitting at Narita with $20 and a four-hour wait until departure, and spending the time recharging by computer and phone from a stray power-point, while listening to a young Chinese businesswoman arguing on her mobile phone about missing money, Omar from the UAE, and a kickback account.
@bmh – not at my place it wouldn’t : ) – I had a lovely relaxed Saturday playing prepared guitar to a Dogon drumming piece.
Boy now knows 3 chords but is having trouble with the transitions. We’re doing “Don’t worry Be Happy”.
Can anyone suggest cool 3-chord songs? I’ve googled “Three chord songs” on the net but most of them are so dorky.
re the lyrics – “Don’t know what I want, But I know how to get it”
Ambigulous @ 14 Does that explain why we’ve heard so little from you recently? Lucky man. Life back here has some compensations, like rain and sunshine together here in the West. Comforted myself by kicking these verses around as I did some gardening today. Everything was fresh and flowering but la vie politiquekept intruding! Is this wishful thinking?
These tales of Alexander
The ALP should seize,
Take him to court for slander
With other lies like these.
Show that for filthy rumors
There’s none that can compare
With the spiteful bitchy humor
He delivers with a sneer.
Let’s tell how Alexander
Whitewashed AWB
For paying out backhanders
And joined their treachery.
So while our solder heroes
Were fighting in that war
Who were in fact their real foes?
Downer and Co. for sure!
Who showed up Alexander
As traitor that he was?
Rudd, man of repute grander
Than most have had in Oz.
But now he’s ill and troubled,
Enemies all about,
Still not yet been that humbled
He won’t call Downer out.
So watch it Alexander!
Kicking a man who’s down
May to your own side pander,
But most in Oz will frown.
So don’t start counting chickens.
You smart arse, can’t you see -
Labor’s spirit lifts and quickens
As Rudd returns to fight their common enemy!
@17 I think it still ranks as receiving the most complaints ever when played on ABC radio a few years ago.
I went to the Greens launch (had a brief chat with AB before he was whisked away with the other VIPs) then went for coffee with friends. Letterboxing starts for me this week.
terangeree : “…sitting at Narita with $20 and a four-hour wait until departure…”
Hmmm, for rock n roll purposes that sounds for good ‘n all like the Thing Itself. Take notes, bud, and write an opera to make Pete Townshend blush!
Once upon a time, eons ago, at a Greyhound bus station in rural Nevada somewhere between Reno and Vegas, a one-armed homeless Korean War vet made it his personal bizness to teach me the Secret of Life. I hafta say I was skeptical at first, but thought much better of what he said when I was in… well, many more complex sorts of bus stations, as it were.
Now, past forty, I think maybe the dude was a boddhisattva.
What rock lyric does all that sound like? Hmm, durn if I know, but mebbe David Byrne’s line…
“I have adopted this and made it my own! /
Cut out the weakness, re-inforced what is strong!”
But maybe not, right?
“Life’s the same,
I’m moving in stereo.
Life’s the same,
Except for my shoes…”
Watched the Wallabies play on Saturday night.
First half seemed to have a lot of mistakes. Second half featured a lot of exciting rugby, unfortunately 80% of it was by New Zealand.
Rugby is a tough game for the uninitiated; does anybody have a handy primer on the rules?
How about ‘Knocking on Heaven’s Door?’ You could sing harmony on the ooh-oohs.
Actually, that’s four chords. But it’s not hard.
PC, you are spooky. I had printed that one out the other day. Will start on A minor tonight!
A song that’s been floating my boat recently is Smoke by Assemblage 23:
@Robert Merkel: The armchair referee: a bluffer’s guide to the rules of rugby union (it’s from 2003, so a few of the rules have changed)
“My woman likes long neck bottles, and a big head on her beer, one night she started drinking and shot up the town, I’ll be damned she brought an airplane down!” Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band.
there are zillions of great lines in popular song but
“I’ve been contemplating suicide, but it doesn’t really suit my style”
are the opening lines from the first time I saw an Australian act and thought “This is a ‘star’”
“3 chord songs”!!?!
As to 3-chord songs…Someone once said (was it Bill Murray?) that if you just chucked a guitar down a flight of stairs, it would naturally sort of play “Gloria” on the way down…
I can sort of vouch for this, since I once agreed to front a teen rock band for a night on very, very short notice — what harm can come of it? I thought, we all know the same damn songs.
Well they came out playing the classic old-skool 3-chord “Gloria” (Van’s/Them’s version, which it is kind of required to know) but I started up trying to jam in Patti Smith’s version.
Somehow I thought they would converge naturally, but they don’t, really — not without planning ahead. I tried, much as I could, but… um, nope, wrong, bad, idiot, fired, etc.
There’s a lesson here somewhere, beyond the one of I’m personally a doof. But I’ll let others meditate on it, in a Su Tung-p’o sort of way; life’s too complex ta begin with…
Eric Sykes @ #29: kudos to you, palomine, but ya left out the best part…
“Well I don’t like ta talk about my woman,
But I’m gonna do it anyway —
An’ then I’m gonna GIT right outta town!!”
Shades of J. Entwistle’s “My Wife,” a comic masterpiece.
Eheu, fugaces labuntur etc etc…
I’ve just discovered this blog which I highly recommend to ppl around Melbourne
http://bushwalkingblog.blogspot.com/
Followed in the footsteps of one already.
I’ve just discovered this blog which I highly recommend to ppl around Melbourne
http://bushwalkingblog.blogspot.com/
Followed in the footsteps of one already.
Sorry! Is there an echo-echo-echo in here?!
I’ve been wondering around my neighbourhood taking photos at the festival which it is throwing at the moment!
Much more fun than election stuff.
That and link whoring
“Does anybody need yet another politician caught with his pants down and money sticking in his hole.”
“Advertise a bullshit lifestyle and immigration is your new problem.”
“And when she’s on a roll she pulls a razor from her boot
And a thousand pigeons fall around her feet.”
“I’m waiting for my last ride while the bugle up my backside blows the blues in ‘B’
Hope I don’t run out of gas
Bet my sacrilicious ass ain’t nothing down there that scares me”
Yes, Patricia WA @ 20.
Missing the campaign but will be back in time to vote.
au ‘voir!
Robert, I think I learnt the rules of rugby (to the extent that I understand them) during the 2003 world cup, or maybe it was a bit before then, from Roy &HG. Particularly, they had a woman on each night who did a “girl’s introduction to rugby” that was really quite hilarious. It was meant to be for women who were being forced to watch every match by their boyfriends, the idea being they couldn’t help but enjoy it if they just understood the rules.
Somehow this woman managed to fit in some kind of handbag/tag team dating/family relations analogy for every rule. I didn’t understand most of these (I like to think it’s because they were drawing a long bow, not because I’m a sociopath) but the actual rules explanations the woman gave were quite easy to understand. And it was kind of funny, in that understated roy & HG kind of way.
I suppose it’s like learning to appreciate Quentin Tarantino through Bikini Cinema (which is about the only way I could appreciate that prat). Maybe you should try digging them up on youTube…
Speaking of Don Van Vliet (as we were above), I s’pose you could argue that he wrote the one line that best summarizes Life, the Universe, and Everything…
“In this lifetime, you got My Human Gets Me Blues.”
This is my last one and then I’ll quit annoying everyone…
If you think about it, practically every other line in “Sister Ray” qualifies as Best Line Evah. It’s quite a little gold mine:
“I’m searching for my main line.”
“Aw ya shouldn’t do that./ Don’t you know you’ll stain the carpet?”
“He said he didn’t like the weather.”
It’s just like Sister Ray said.
If you do the riff in your head it makes an ordinary line extraordinary:
But then I’m lowbrow like that.
Alternatively the works of Presley et. al. are another goldmine of lines that just shouldn’t have ever been set to music:
No.
For punishment, Ghost of Colonel Parker, go and resurrect Ol’ Dirty Bastard to do a cover of Wooden Heart.
@tigtog @Robert Merkel. As a long time Rugby fan I really liked that beginners guide the the rules
. It about sums it all up. Add beer or rum to the mix and it’d be perfect.
Second greatest line would have to be in Custard’s Leisuremaster:
Don Van Vliet on the Australian federal election trail:
“All you ever do is blabber ‘n smoke
There’s ah big pain in your window
‘N all your waters turn t’ rope
It’s gonna hang you all
Dangle you all
Dang you all
If you don’t hurry there will be no hope
Why don’t you quit actin’ like ah dope
All you ever do is blabber ‘n smoke”
and van vliet more obliquely on Australia’s capitulation to big capital/USA/anyone with power
“Sun lke a bubble pop, yellow, down she go”
Hey, Ambigulous (on 14): Do you want someone to carry your bags?
Paris is one of my favourite cities but have always had to rush through and never had enough time in them to see much.
Is it two lines or “a line” as in a completed sentence? Tom Petty:
Spent the weekend absorbed in the 18C trying for the most part to ignore the election. read precis of General Howe’s Letters; General Howe’s orderly Book for 1776, entries for Halifax, Nova Scotia, Redcoat to Rebel : The Thomas Sullivan Journal. Also taking notes from Cassandra Pybus’s Epic Journeys of Freedom. The Slaves of the American revolution and their Global Quest for Liberty, mostly for. Virginia, 1775-6. Probably have reached the point of diminishing returns in my research on the 1775-1776 Siege of Boston, and life in Halifax Nova Scotia, April-June 1776. A few more books to read, but I think I can safely start writing my next 3 chapters without coming across anything astoundingly new in the books on the topic I still have to read, though I’ve a lot more research to do for the chapter on Virginia in 1775-1776, which is about an escaped slave.
Sunday night, didn’t know whether to watch King Lear or Cranbrook. Opted for Cranbrook.
“And there’s a girl, she’s fallin’ in love,
near where the pianola stands,
with a young local factory out-of-worker,
just holdin’ hands”
If you grew up within sight, sound and stink of heavy industry these lines are etched into the body:
Try this rule-of-imaginary-thumb thought experiment, all—any line from any pop song of the last fifteen years sounds bad-arse if you imagine Bruce Springsteen delivering it a capella in a stadium.
It’s magic.
Waiting for a girl and she’s got stains all down her dress
Waiting for a girl and my feet are getting wet
She ain’t come out yet
Waiting for a factory girl
Oh alright.
That’s how it goes doesn’t it?
Eric, I’d forgotten! Liam, lol, now that’s something I’d like to see.
MMMM… Zevon.
“And if California slides into the ocean
as the mystics and statistics say it will,
I predict this hotel will be standing
till I’ve paid the bill”
In that song alone, there’s also
“don’t the sun look angry at me?”
“I’m not going to get too sentimental
like those other sticky valentines”
Once some friends and I sat around listening to “Mirror Man” (tripping v hard on shrooms) for 3 hours why the CD jumped randomly around the song and we kept looking at each other sayinG (approximately):
“This song should be over by now shouldn’t it?”
“Nah its goes on for a while.”
“Yeah but I’m sure its been going for ages.”
“Yeah, but you are tripping.”
“Yeah maybe”
….
“Nah man I’m sure this song is going on way to long.”
“Yeah maybe it is.”
“You two are losing it, you said that 30 seconds ago.”
….
“Ok this is really starting to freak me out.”
“Relax, this bits good.”
….
etc etc
for 3 hours.
DVV’s a genius.
BTW IT wasn’t really the weekend but close enough.
On Friday I went to the funeral of Harry “Trucker” Anning, who at the time of his death was president of the Nimbin branch of the ALP.
He’d been involved in the ALP most of his life, and was from Brissie originally. I dunno if anyone from here knows him or not, but there are a few old school ALP people here from S Qld so maybe.
(He was also a devoted supporter of the Nimbin Demons Aussie rules club.)
Cheers Harry
RIP
Old boyfriends
Lost in the pocket of your overcoat
Like burned out light bulbs on a Ferris Wheel
Old boyfriends
“I want to reach out and touch the sky
I want to touch the sun but I don’t need to die”
“One evening as I was lying down by Leicester Square
I was picked up by the coppers and kicked in the balls”
“Now I’m lying here on a Thursday, and you’re lovin someone new
And it looks like I’m up shit creek again”
“But it’s so hard to dance that way
When it’s cold and there’s no music”
And there’s some shit hot opening lines to songs, but this one always gets me:
“It was Christmas Eve babe in the drunk tank
An old man said to me: ‘won’t see another one’”
And one more:
“I was born in a lucky country
Every day I hear the warning bells”
Hey PC – you’re playing my song!
No, it’s definitely my song.
Old boyfriends
Remember when you were burning for them
Why do you keep turning them into
old boyfriends?
Ah yes… the resemblance to me was purely coincidental.
On that note, I’m off to play scrabble and get drunk on single malt with the ex.
*3, phhwwooaahhh !
And there was this big ferris wheel about a half mile out in the ocean, half in and half out of the water. And all my old boyfriends were on it. With their new girlfriends. And the boys were waving and shouting and the girls were saying Eeek.
Oh that is such a bad idea.
Such a bad idea.
In my experience, Eric, it tends to be the other way around.
indeed yes PC, ….and it continues so:
Then they disappeared under the surface of the water and when they came up again they were laughing and gasping for breath. In this dream I’m on a tightrope and I’m tipping back and forth trying to keep my balance. And below me are all my relatives and if I fall I’ll crush them….
“It’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock’n'roll”.
What? It is.
A Wop Bop A Loo Bop.
A Wop Bam Boo.
Thanks for your offer, Graham Bell @47.
This is only my second visit, very good to walk around, use the Metro, etc.
FDB: who won?
favorite graffito in Paris:
Vive la police!
near the Gare du Nord