As Promised and With My Apologies
Please note: MP3s are only kept online for a short time, and if this entry is from more than a couple of weeks ago, the music probably won't be available to download any more.


 

Frank Black - "I Burn Today"

“Yesterday I will burn/for the times I did not learn,” sings Frank Black in his warm and wide voice. Probably because he never learned about tenses in school, or maybe because his friend the “tarot maid” taught him that tenses are an artificial human construction (will be a human construction, were a human construction, are being one, etc.). Or maybe he was just distracted by the beautiful playing of his pianist, who finds hidden aspects of the melody and brings them out with a single note or a few sparsely timed chords. [From September's Paste Magazine sampler]

***

Listing Ship - "Baise Ca"

“Baise Ca” can be understood as a suicide note of sorts, but its macabre elements extend beyond that interpretation. I’m reminded of the stark black and white images of the bayou in “Down By Law:” the anxiety inducing stillness of the water, a boat cutting through the green surface cautiously, mist and mazes. I’m also reminded of galleys and fires and war in muddy trenches. When I wrote about Think About Life about a month ago I flippantly referred to Heart of Darkness, and now I wish I hadn’t. Because above all, when I hear the tribal click and thud of the percussion and the funereal fiddle, when I hear the singer’s voice emerge, breathless and resigned; I think of Marlow sailing down the banks of the foggy Congo, losing his grasp on reality, seeing a harlequin waving eagerly in the distance. [Buy/Info]

Posted by Jordan at October 5, 2005 1:45 PM
Comments

Maybe Frank believes time is a Moebius strip. Will it go around in circles? Sort of, with a twist in the middle.

Good picks btw.

Posted by Tuwa at October 5, 2005 3:38 PM

I applaud today's first choice. Of course, being a Frank Black fanatic, I own the album it's from. I think my favourite track is "Strange Goodbye," which he sings with his ex-wife.

I'm not quite sure what Frank believes about time, but it's a concept he mentions in at least two other songs off the top of my head.

Headache: "This wrinkle in time, I can't give it no credit"

Czar: "Time. If he could travel time, he would have been on time, instead of making rhyme ..." (The "he" is Bob Denver.)

Posted by jeremyw at October 5, 2005 7:11 PM

Sorry to be picky, but it's Marlowe, not Marlow.

Posted by Jess at October 5, 2005 9:31 PM

Tuwa and Jeremy - Thanks for talking about time. As well as for your compliments and applause.

Jess - Not to be metapicky, but it's Marlow. Philip Marlowe, but Marlow and Kurtz.

Posted by Jordan at October 5, 2005 10:14 PM

maybe it's "yesterday I will burn," as in I will burn yesterday, the idea, not "I will burn (something else) yesterday."

Posted by eric at October 6, 2005 2:18 AM

Frank Black: New Humourist?

Posted by Joel Taylor at October 6, 2005 1:18 PM

Joel - It seems that there is one fewer New Humourist than there are words in your sentence. I'm not sure whether or not you can deal with that, but...

Posted by Jordan at October 6, 2005 9:36 PM

it goes "Yes, today I will burn"

Posted by oktay at January 12, 2006 11:49 PM

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