Did you hear about the midnight rambler
Everybody got to go
Did you hear about the midnight rambler
The one that shut the kitchen door
He dont give a hoot of warning
Wrapped up in a black cat cloak
He dont go in the light of the morning
He split the time the cockrel crows

Talkin about the midnight gambler
The one you never seen before
Talkin about the midnight gambler
Did you see him jump the garden wall
Sighin down the wind so sadly
Listen and youll hear him moan
Talkin about the midnight gambler
Everybody got to go

Did you hear about the midnight rambler
Well, honey, its no rock n roll show
Well, Im talkin about the midnight gambler
Yeah, everybody got to go

Well did ya hear about the midnight gambler?
Well honey its no rock-in roll show
Well Im talking about the midnight gambler
The one you never seen before

Oh dont do that, oh dont do that, oh dont do that
Dont you do that, dont you do that (repeat)
Oh dont do that, oh dont do that

Well you heard about the boston...
Its not one of those
Well, talkin bout the midnight...sh...
The one that closed the bedroom door
Im called the hit-and-run raper in anger
The knife-sharpened tippie-toe...
Or just the shoot em dead, brainbell jangler
You know, the one you never seen before

So if you ever meet the midnight rambler
Coming down your marble hall
Well hes pouncing like proud black panther
Well, you can say i, I told you so
Well, dont you listen for the midnight rambler
Play it easy, as you go
Im gonna smash down all your plate glass windows
Put a fist, put a fist through your steel-plated door

Did you hear about the midnight rambler
Hell leave his footprints up and down your hall
And did you hear about the midnight gambler
And did you see me make my midnight call

And if you ever catch the midnight rambler
Ill steal your mistress from under your nose
Ill go easy with your cold fanged anger
Ill stick my knife right down your throat, baby
And it hurts!

Gee, this is interesting...

http://www.iorr.org/talk/read.php?1,841198

 

---

The wind kicks up with the smell of rain
The kids are gone but the souls remain

In live performances in recent years, the narration of the song has switched from first to third person.  ("He'll stick his knife right down your throat..." etc.) 

Jagger claimed it was too draining to try and channel this character every night. 

 For going into dark places, there needs to be some respite.  Walker Percy talked about "re-entry" to real life for artists after completing works. 

I suspect that after the 99.9 record and tour, SV probably needed to do some "re-entry" of her own. 

 

Of course, simply growing older takes some of the edge off, for better and for worse...from a recent review....

“….There was not a trace of boredom, rote performance or forced bonhomie on stage.  When Mick went into a wild, spastic dance that sent him jittering across the stage, it wasn't "part of the act," it was what he genuinely felt like doing at that moment…And you know, they're not just enthusiastic, they're humble...They went through a terrific, drawn-out version of "Midnight Rambler" and right after Mick threatened to "stick a knife right down your throat," he politely thanked the audience for their patience (the show got started late, after having been moved from Saturday because of Mick's throat infection) and then actually apologized for the traffic.  It kind of undercut the whole menacing-serial-killer vibe, but like I say, menace didn't really seem to be the point of the show….So, Mick might no longer feel as though he has been crowned with a spike right through his head, and he may no longer see a red door and want it painted black, and he may no longer feel that it's absolutely necessary to call him the tumbling dice.  But he and the others have found a way to keep playing those songs after 40 years and still make the performance mean something, even if the meaning is mainly in the act of performance itself.  The songs celebrate bad behavior, loose morals and throwing one's life away, but their performance celebrates perseverance, longevity and a life well-lived….”

 

---

The wind kicks up with the smell of rain
The kids are gone but the souls remain

Great topic, M. So what qualifies as "overlooked"? Anyway, this is "Video Feed" by the Philadelphia songwriter Jody Hamilton and her ex-band Rifle Nice:

 

I used a video feed as I replaced my bathroom mirror.
So my image from the day before's not gone,
in fact I see her.
When I brush my teeth I see that yesterday's still peeing.
She's looking right at me but it's
the day before she's seeing.

And to the girl who bought my shoes,
who used my name and shares my views
and used my cash and placed it in my memory:

You did right
You were wise
We wear the same shoe size
We must work for the same company

 
CHORUS (Repeat four times)

Time's power frightens me
Its paradox enlightens me
My past and future ignore me
I burn them both in effigy

 

I don't give a damn about my sorrows that were yesterday.
She means nothing to me.
She has gone away.
I am her replacement, another momentary lie.
I pretend to continue
'cause I'm afraid to die.

Being then, being now
seems impossible somehow,
seems to be a deep-embedded lie.
Her-and-me dichotomy:
could I be only memory,
revealing the bureaucracy of "I"?

 
CHORUS (Repeat ten times)

Time's power frightens me
Its paradox enlightens me
My past and future ignore me
I burn them both in effigy

And I think these lyrics are simply beautiful, though also kind of frightening and menacing:

 

I put my foot deep in the tracks that you made
Walked behind you off into the wood
'We'll know where when we get there,' you said
And we both knew we would

High above like a spider
The colors turning brown
Freeways passing by us
I took your hand and we knelt down

Wheels paddle wheels paddle movement as we go
Trees passing trees passing signs along the road
A view through the trees to a couple in the snow
A view through the trees to a couple standing in the snow

Suddenly the trees were flashing by us
Clouds reflecting fast across your eye
We turned in to a frozen meadow
The wind the only sound

'We'll know where when we get there,' you said
'We'll know where when we get there,' you said

 

-- Sonic Youth, "Hoarfrost" (written by Lee Ranaldo, whose guitar adds so much to the atmosphere in "Ludlow Street") 

....And these streets

Quiet as a sleeping army

Send their battered dreams to heaven, to heaven

For the mothers restless son

Who is a witness to, who is a warrior

Who denies his urge to break and run

Who says: hard times? I'm used to them

The speeding planet burns I'm used to that

My life's so common it disappears

And sometimes even music

Cannot substitute for tears

---

The wind kicks up with the smell of rain
The kids are gone but the souls remain

Randomly discovered this evening while researching a book.

David Byrne is cribbing off 4,000 year old Egyptian poetry.

The Man Who Loved Beer:

Death is in my sights today
As when a man desires
To see home after many years in jail

From 4,000 year old Egyptian poem

Death is before me today

As a man who longs to see his house

When he has spent years in captivity

Gotcha David!

(I found a poem once, years ago, in an old issue of Time from '72)

---

The wind kicks up with the smell of rain
The kids are gone but the souls remain

Nice going, David B. Next we'll find out that he swiped all the lyrics to "Life During Wartime" from the Code of Hammurabi:

This ain't no ziggurat
This ain't no cuneiform
This ain't no fooling around
No sacrifices
to Baal or Marduk
I ain't got time for that, Gilgamesh 

 

Anyway, here's a song I like by a very young band from Baltimore named Monarch. Somehow the lyrics are much gloomier on the screen than when you hear the song:

 

 

If children were wishes,
my mother spent hers on impossible things:
My brother was money,
my sister was love
and I was world peace.

My brother, he spent it,
my sister got pregnant
and all that I'm worth
will only come true
when there are no more of us left on this earth.

If hearts were machines that kept running forever automatically
then you wouldn't be in that hospital bed on that saline IV.
And if it's your diet, you stubbornly swear
that it wasn't your fault.
You'd rather be dead in that hospital bed
than cut back on sugar and salt.

Oh, aren't you afraid of living in a major American city
to marry a stupid, unreachable girl who's impossibly pretty.
And I've seen you drive every day of your life
and it's always a rush
And I have to wonder how I ever let you
do something so dangerous.

And so I suppose this is just how it goes
and no matter how I try
I just have to watch you grower weaker and weaker
till you finally die.

But I have to remember
the wish of my mother in all that I'm worth,
which will only come true
when there are no more of us left on this earth.

It was a cold and wet December day
When we touched the ground at JFK
Snow was melting on the ground
On BLS I heard the sound
Of an angel

New York, like a Christmas tree
Tonight this city belongs to me
Angel

Soul love
This love won't let me go
So long
Angel of Harlem

Birdland on fifty-three
The street sounds like a symphony
We got John Coltrane and a love supreme
Miles, and she's got to be an angel

Lady Day got diamond eyes
She sees the truth behind the lies
Angel

Soul love
This love won't let me go
So long
Angel of Harlem
Angel of Harlem

She says it's heart
Heart and soul...
Yeah, yeah...(yeah)
Yeah, yeah...(right now)

Blue light on the avenue
God knows they got to you
An empty glass, the lady sings
Eyes swollen like a bee sting
Blinded you lost your way
Through the side streets and the alleyway
Like a star exploding in the night
Falling to the city in broad daylight
An angel in Devil's shoes
Salvation in the blues
You never looked like an angel
Yeah, yeah
Angel of Harlem

---

The wind kicks up with the smell of rain
The kids are gone but the souls remain

The lyrics to XTC's "Dear God" still pack a punch. The writer is someone who's had enough and needs to blame someone.

---

"The future has a brilliant future in it."

Sometimes there's someone who needs to be blamed, huntre. 

Sometimes you're just trying to find out what drives a bottle to the bottom of the ocean floor.

 

 

---

The wind kicks up with the smell of rain
The kids are gone but the souls remain

Frank Zappa's "I'm The Slime". This song was pre-cable, yet still captures all that is wrong with tv.

---

"The future has a brilliant future in it."

Who's the slime?

Thanks.

 

---

The wind kicks up with the smell of rain
The kids are gone but the souls remain

I've been called far worse than slime.  I refuse to believe it.  Not permanently.  Maybe for a while.  That's all you get.

"Man would fain be great and sees that he is little; would fain be happy and sees that he is miserable; would fain be perfect and sees that he is full of imperfections; would fain be the object of love and esteem of men, and sees that his faults merit only their aversion and contempt.  The embarrassment wherein he finds himself produces in him the most unjust and criminal passions imaginable, for he conveives a mortal hatred against that truth which blames him and convinces him only of his faults."

- Pascal

"And slime had they for mortar."

- Genesis II

Try me again and I'll start telling you what they call Oedipus in Harlem, but there are many ways to have a dialouge. 

Set. Point. Match.

Don't f___ with me.

 

 

---

The wind kicks up with the smell of rain
The kids are gone but the souls remain