John Lennon and 'I Am The Walrus'

“Decius: This by Calphurnia’s dream is signified. 

Caesar: And this way have you well expounded it.”

-            ‘Julius Caesar’, 2.2.95

 

““But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,’” Alice objected.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.””

- ‘Through the Looking-Glass’, ch.6

                     "That ignorance and haste may mourn the dead,

                       It is believing, it is believing."

                      - 'Tomorrow Never Knows'

1966

Illustration to 'The Walrus & the Carpenter', John Tenniel, 1871.

  

The Beatles get into one’s bones. They are a permanent latent obsession which circumstances cause to recur.

Recently, I have been listening repeatedly to ‘I Am The Walrus’.  It was released in November, 1967, so after Sgt. Pepper & before the White Album. It is a considerable understatement to say there is a lot going on in this track. In this piece, I don’t want to interpret the song line by line but to suggest some of its themes and sources.

Here are the lyrics:

I am he
As you are he
As you are me
And we are all together

See how they run,
Like pigs from a gun,
See how they fly.
I'm crying.

Sitting on a cornflake,
Waiting for the van to come.
Corporation tee shirt,
Stupid bloody Tuesday
Man, you been a naughty boy,
You let your face grow long.

I am the eggman, (Ooh)
They are the eggmen, (Ooh)
I am the walrus,
Goo goo g' joob.

Mister city p'liceman sitting pretty
Little p'licemen in a row
See how they fly,
Like Lucy in the sky
See how they run
I'm crying.
I'm crying, I'm crying, I'm crying.

Yellow matter custard,
Dripping from a dead dog's eye.
Crabalocker fishwife pornographic priestess,
Boy you been a naughty girl,
You let your knickers down.

I am the eggman, (Ooh)
They are the eggmen, (Ooh)
I am the walrus,
Goo goo g' joob.

Sitting in an English
Garden waiting for the sun.
If the sun don't come,
You get a tan from standing in the English rain.

I am the eggman.
They are the eggmen.
I am the walrus.
Goo goo g' joob g' goo goo g' joob.

Expert texpert choking smokers,
Don't you think the joker laughs at you?
See how they smile,
Like pigs in a sty, see how they snied.
I'm crying.

Semolina pilchard
Climbing up the Eiffel Tower.
Element'ry penguin singing Hare Krishna,
Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe.

I am the eggman, (Ooh)
They are the eggmen, (Ooh)
I am the walrus,
Goo goo g' joob..
Goo goo g' joob,
G' goo goo g' joob,
Goo goo g' joob, goo goo g' goo g' goo goo g' joob joob

 

Quarry Bank High School for Boys, school photo, 1957. 3rd row down 3rd from right is John Lennon, 4th from right is Pete Shotton.

The Quarry Men playing at St. Peter's Church in Woolton, July 6 1957. John centre and Pete to his right. This is the occasion Paul McCartney was first introduced to John.

John and Pete in 1967.

Pete Shotton had been Lennon’s friend since their school days together at Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool. He wrote a very interesting memoir called ‘John Lennon: In My Life’. In it he says that John wrote the song to be deliberately hard to interpret. It is worth quoting Shotton’s account of the origins of this song in full:

 

“Songs like ‘Norwegian Wood’ and ‘Eleanor Rigby’ caused John and Paul to be hailed not only as their generation’s spokesmen, but also its poet laureates. Though John was naturally pleased and flattered to have his work taken seriously, he often found the critics’ interpretations of his lyrics fell woefully short of the mark. It particularly irked him to see his own songs subjected to the same sort of heavy-handed analysis with which our schoolmasters had ruined his own appreciation of, say, Shakespeare and Keats.

One afternoon, while taking "lucky dips" into the day's sack of fan mail, John, much to both our amusement, chanced to pull out a letter from a student at Quarry Bank. following the usual expressions of adoration, this lad revealed that his literature master was playing Beatles songs in class; after the boys all took turns at analyzing the lyrics, the teacher would weigh in with his own interpretation of what the Beatles were really talking about. (This, of course, was the same institution of leaning whose headmaster had summed up young Lennon's prospects with the words: "This boy is bound to fail.")

John and I howled with laughter over the absurdity of it all. "Pete," he said, "what's the 'Dead Dog's Eye' song we used to sing when we were at Quarry Bank ?" I thought for a moment and it all came back to me:

Yellow matter custard, green slop pie, /All mixed together with a dead dog's eye, /Slap it on a butty, ten foot thick, /Then wash it all down with a cup of cold sick.

"That's it !" said John. "Fantastic !" He found a pen and commenced scribbling: "Yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog's eye ..." Such was the genesis of 'I Am The Walrus.' (The Walrus itself was to materialize later, almost literally stepping out of a page in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass.)

Inspired by the picture of that Quarry Bank literature master pontificating about the symbolism of Lennon-McCartney, John threw in the most ludicrous images his imagination could conjure. He thought of 'semolina' (an insipid pudding we'd been forced to eat as kids) and 'pilchard' (a sardine we often fed to our cats). "Semolina pilchard climbing up the Eiffel Tower, ..." John intoned, writing it down with considerable relish.

He turned to me, smiling. "Let the fuckers work that one out, Pete."

- ‘In My Life’, p.124

 

That last quote in authentic Lennon. You can hear him saying it.

Pattie Boyd. I take it this is from 1964 if that's a new copy 'A Hard Day's Night.' Pattie appeared in that film, which is where she met George.

Pattie Boyd in her memoir ‘Wonderful Today’ adds the detail that ‘semolina pilchard’ was a mickey-take of Sergeant Pilcher (p.129 – I have the book but Wikipedia reminded me of this fact. Both Pete and Pattie’s accounts are compatible and not contradictory in my opinion, since Pete simply seems unaware of the Pilcher double-meaning in “semolina pilchard”. Of course there is no reason why "semolina pilchard" can't refer to both Pete and Pattie's explanations.) This makes sense because that was just the kind of transformation John often did, for instance ‘my husband and I’ into ‘my housebound and eyeball’. Detective Sergeant Norman Pilcher is well-known to fans of the music of that time as the drug squad officer who seemed determined to bust all the rock stars. Lennon himself was not actually busted until October 1968. However Pilcher was already notorious by the time ‘I Am The Walrus’ was written, because he had conducted the raid against Keith Richards and Mick Jagger at Richards’ house Redlands in February 1967, which resulted in a trial which was a cause célèbre in the early summer that year, among other arrests.

The Revd. C. L. Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll. Self-portrait c.1857.

The Rossetti Family by Lewis Carroll, 1863. Left to right, Dante Gabriel, Christina, Frances (their mother), William Michael.

John Ruskin by Lewis Carroll, 1875.

‘Semolina pilchard’ is not only a typical Lennonism, it is apparently meaningless but does actually mean something. ‘Jabberwocky’ occurs in ‘Through The Looking-Glass’, which as Pete Shotton points out is the source of the Walrus, specifically in the poem ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’ which is recited by Tweedledee in Chapter 4, ‘Tweedledum and Tweedledee’. ‘Jabberwocky’ is surely lurking about in the background of ‘I Am The Walrus’ because they are both full of words and phrases which don’t at first glance seem to mean anything but really do.

 

“’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves/Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:/All mimsy were the borogroves,/And the mome raths outgrabe.”

 

Humpty Dumpty explains these words in Chapter 6, for instance Carroll’s portmanteau words, two meanings packed into one word: ‘slithy’ being ‘lithe’ and ‘slimy’; ‘mimsy’ being ‘flimsy’ and ‘miserable’. (It is remarkable to note that Carroll coined the words ‘burble’ and ‘chortle’ in ‘Jabberwocky’.)   Notice that ‘Jabberwocky’ is not just a string or pile of nonsense words, it is nonsense verbs, nouns and adjectives in a grammatical skeleton. We are in a setting, and guided through a sequence of events, however baffling the details. In ‘I Am The Walrus’ the recognisable structure of a song gives the piece coherence as the recognisable structure of a poem does in ‘Jabberwocky’.  As Alice says when she first encounters ‘Jabberwocky’:

 

““It seems very pretty,” she said when she had finished it, “but it’s rather hard to understand!” (You see she didn’t like to confess, even to herself, that she couldn’t make it out at all.) “Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas—only I don’t exactly know what they are! However, somebody killed something: that’s clear, at any rate—””

-‘Through the Looking-Glass’, ch.1

'The Jabberwock', Tenniel, 1871.

  

Humpty Dumpty and Alice. Tenniel, 1871.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Tenniel, 1871.

                                  

Another side of Tenniel. He was a cartoonist for Punch for many years. Here in 1881 we see him depicting an Irishman as being subhuman and brutish. The maiden that Britannia is sheltering has Hibernia written on her belt. The Irishman has Anarchy on the band of his hat.

Here we see his image of the British response to the Indian Rebellion in 1857, what were in fact our reprisals and atrocities at that time.

‘Through The Looking-Glass’ has several characters from childhood rhymes who come to life, as John makes the Walrus come to life in his song. These memories of childhood rhymes are a theme in the track. There’s the Walrus itself, as I have said. There’s the horrible rhyme Pete Shotton recalled which John condensed to:

“Yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog’s eye.”

No doubt that the reminder of school days from the Quarry Bank pupil’s letter brought that to John’s mind. Using it is a sarcastic jab at the teachers interpreting Beatles songs. “Expert texpert” is along the same lines, and also a wider hit at critics solemnly interpreting Beatles lyrics.There’s the line ‘pretty little policeman in a row’ which consciously or unconsciously both on John’s part and on the part of contemporary listeners recalls the last line of ‘Mary, Mary, quite contrary’:

“Mary, Mary, quite contrary,/How does your garden grow ?/ With silver bells, and cockle shells/And pretty maids all in a row.”

Whether John or we are aware of that link, it is quite clearly there.

by William Wallace Denslow, 1901

Similarly, when the backing singers say “Ooompah, ooompah, stick it up your jumper”, that is a childhood rhyme, and I suspect but don’t know that “Everybody’s got one !” is as well, a piece of schoolboy suggestive humour as well as an undeniably true statement.

The “pretty little policemen in a row” links with “semolina pilchard” to make a theme of scornful references to the police.

“Pigs” are referred to twice in 'I Am The Walrus', and occur in ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’ in the line “And whether pigs have wings”. Lennon says:

"See how they run/Like pigs from a gun/See how they fly."

i.e. there are traces of the memory of ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’ in the apparent nonsense of ‘I Am The Walrus’. Note that the sequence they run/gun/fly is later inverted to become they fly/sky/run:

"See how they fly/Like Lucy in the Sky/See how they run."

 ‘See how they smile/Like pigs in a sty/See how they snied’ seems to me to be talking contemptuously about materialistic and envious people - the association of ideas is reinforced by the assonance of smile/sty/snied - as George Harrison does in ‘Piggies’:

“Everywhere there's lots of piggies
Living piggy lives
You can see them out for dinner
With their piggy wives
Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon.”

“Snied” I think is “snide”, an adjective turned into a verb, meaning – ‘make snide remarks’, ‘think snide thoughts’, ‘behave snidely’. I note that that is a lot of meaning packed into a few words, which is one attribute of poetry. While you hardly need to go to Lewis Carroll to get the commonplace image of humans as pigs, I note that pigs crop up two other times in ‘Through the Looking-Glass’: when Humpty Dumpty is explaining the first stanza of ‘Jabberwocky’ in chapter 6, he says “Well, a ‘rath’ is a sort of green pig.”; and when the guests at Alice’s party in chapter 10 are drinking her health, the description concludes –

 

“. . . and three of them (who looked like kangaroos) scrambled into the dish of roast mutton, and began eagerly licking up the gravy, ‘just like pigs in a trough !’, thought Alice.”

I want to make a few random interpretations. “Man, you been a naughty boy/You let your face grow long” refers to Lennon’s periodic depressive episodes, as in ‘Help!’ and ‘Nowhere Man’. This obviously balances with “Boy, you been a naughty girl/You let your knickers down”, which is Lennon referring to his affairs, his unfaithfulness to Cynthia, as in ‘Norwegian Wood’ and ‘You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away’. The phrase "naughty boy" is in keeping with the context of school days. “Pornographic priestess” I take to be a reference to Yoko. "If the sun don't come you get a tan from standing in the English rain" could be one of the White Queen's six impossible things before breakfast.

“Man you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe” has a trace I believe of the memory of a fight Stuart Sutcliffe got into, which in retrospect has become a part of Beatles lore. This happened in January 1961 at Lathom Hall in Seaforth on Merseyside, a well-known venue for beat groups at the time. Stuart was attacked outside the venue after a gig by a group of Teddy Boys. John and Pete Best went out and rescued him. Stuart was either kicked in the head or had his head thrown against a brick wall. It is not known for certain but this may have contributed to Stuart’s early death in 1962 from a ruptured aneurysm in his brain.

 I make this link because Stuart Sutcliffe, Lewis Carroll and Edgar Allan Poe are all depicted in the crowd on the front cover of Sgt. Pepper’s, I’m assuming at John’s instigation, and therefore suggesting that they were linked in his mind. Stuart Sutcliffe is on the 3rd row down, far right: Edgar Allan Poe is in the middle of the top row; and Lewis Carroll is 2nd from left on the 3rd row down. The three faces form a triangle, but this I’m assuming is down to Peter Blake not John Lennon. But John may have made the link subconsciously from his familiarity with this front cover. It may be easier to see on an excerpt from the cover:

Edgar Allan Poe and Stuart Sutcliffe both died prematurely. “Them kicking Edgar Allan Poe” also refers to hostile critics attacking and not realising the worth of who they’re dealing with, as happened to Poe.

 

 

At the end of ‘I Am The Walrus’, John fed in a radio broadcast of ‘King Lear’. How exactly this was done, what John’s intentions were, and whether what is highlighted from this broadcast was done deliberately or left to chance I do not know, nor does it matter for my purposes here. The extracts are from Act 4, scene 6. There are a few stray sentences and then a main block of continuous text:

 

• Oswald. Slave, thou hast slain me. Villain, take my purse.
  If ever thou wilt thrive, bury my body,
  And give the letters which thou find'st about me
  To Edmund Earl of Gloucester. Seek him out
  Upon the British party. O, untimely death! Death!

He dies.

• Edgar. I know thee well. A serviceable villain,
  As duteous to the vices of thy mistress
  As badness would desire.

• Earl of Gloucester. What, is he dead?

• Edgar. Sit you down, father; rest you.

- ‘King Lear’, 4.6.243-252

You can make all this out once you know what it is, but for all the years I listened to the song without knowing what the text was, the three parts which stood out and stand out are:

“O, untimely death !”

“A serviceable villain”

“Sit you down, father; rest you.”

What is remarkable to me is that is there is one phrase which fits John Lennon like few other people, it is “O, untimely death !” The quantity of untimely deaths around Lennon is striking, including of course himself. And not just deaths of any kind, they were also all people who were highly emotionally significant to and formative for him. I would say I was partly aware of this, but it's only when you list them that it brings home the really unusual extent of it. These are all in addition to being abandoned by his father. No wonder he was such a volcano.

First, John's beloved Uncle George, Mimi's husband, died of a liver haemorrhage in June 1955 when he was 52.

Uncle George and John.

Second, as everyone knows, John's mother Julia was knocked down and killed by a drunk driver in a car on the 15th July 1958, at the age of 44.

John and Julia.

Third, John's best friend Stuart Sutcliffe died as described above on the 10th April 1962, at the age of 21.

Stuart and John.

Stuart Sutcliffe.

Fourth, Brian Epstein died of an overdose on the 27th of August 1967, at the age of 32.

Brian Epstein

Finally, John himself on the 8th December 1980, at the age of 40.

John in 1980 by Annie Liebovitz.

"As the Knight sang the last words of the ballad, he gathered up the reins, and turned his horse’s head along the road by which they had come. “You’ve only a few yards to go,” he said, “down the hill and over that little brook, and then you’ll be a Queen—But you’ll stay and see me off first?” he added as Alice turned with an eager look in the direction to which he pointed. “I shan’t be long. You’ll wait and wave your handkerchief when I get to that turn in the road? I think it’ll encourage me, you see.”

“Of course I’ll wait,” said Alice: “and thank you very much for coming so far—and for the song—I liked it very much.”"

- 'Through The Looking-Glass' ch.8

How a Song Evolves

Charles I in 3 Positions by Van Dyck, c.1635

The anniversary of the execution of Charles I on January 30th, 1649, has just passed. The mention of that year immediately makes me think of Billy Bragg's version of the song The World Turned Upside Down from 1985, which begins


"In 1649, to St. George's Hill - a ragged band they called The Diggers came to show the people's will . . ."


If you don't know it, or to have the pleasure of refreshing your memory, you can listen to that song here:

Billy states on his Facebook page (1 Dec 2013) that he first heard the song played by the folk singer Roy Bailey at Sheffield City Hall during the Miners' Strike.


As I researched a little in to the history of the song, it struck me that it stands as a very good example of how a song evolves - its origin is known & the steps of its evolution easily traced. It was written by Leon Rosselson & released in 1975. Leon & Roy Bailey were musical partners at the time:

 

 

 

Then there is the absolutely beautiful version by the folk singer Dick Gaughan, released in 1981:

 

 

 

 

 

Now you can see what Billy Bragg did to the song. He simplified the chords of the guitar accompaniment to the most basic necessary - to what the chords are fundamentally - & speeded it up to make it more aggressive & more rousing. This version therefore stands as a testament to the virtues - sometimes - of simplicity. Observe that Billy's version makes it most obvious that the song has no chorus and no middle 8. It consists of the verse again & again, & nothing else. This makes the song insistent, & also free of unnecessary elements or distracting clutter.

 

 

Another thing this song demonstrates is the power of words & music together as a mnemonic. If you know the song, it is very easy to remember where - at St. George's Hill - & when - in 1649 - that The Diggers tried to set up their commune. You have learned this in a very permanent way almost without effort because of taking pleasure in the song.

 

Ewan MacColl

 

Martin Carthy

 

I am not personally in full agreement with the politics of this song. For instance I do not believe in common ownership to the extent The Diggers did, even as an ideal or aspiration. The song shows very fully the kind of radical left politics one associates with folk musicians of Leon Rosselson's generation; think of Ewan MacColl or Martin Carthy. However, although I know I don't entirely agree with the song, I still find it rousing.  I love the lines

 

 

"We will not worship the God they serve - the God of greed who feeds the rich while poor men starve"

 

 

Isn't that  an accurate description of the world today ?

 

 

I haven't heard of a name for this phenomenon, for at the same time assenting to a position in a song or other work of fiction for the sake of enjoyment while also being aware of one's dissent from it. Perhaps we could call it temporary or provisional assent. Perhaps also it is a subset or aspect of suspension of disbelief. Another example of a song which requires this is John Lennon's Imagine. Another is George Harrison's My Sweet Lord ; I find it rousing, & I love singing along with it, but in fact I have no desire at all either to seek or to praise God or Krishna. Think of the audience at Glastonbury singing delightedly along with Tom Jones belting out Delilah :

 

 

"She stood there laughing - I felt the knife in my hand & she laughed no more."

 

 

It's high camp, everyone knows it, everyone is in on the joke. Not one of that audience has any intention of committing murder in a fit of jealous rage, nor would they approve of such a thing in real life.

 

To conclude, here is Billy again doing The World Turned Upside Down at Wembley Arena, 13th April 2012:

 

 

 

The Best Year for Music ?

What do you think is the best year for music in the 20th century ? 1956 and 1968 must surely be strong contenders, at least from the perspective of Rock music. However, the best year for music as far as I am concerned in the 20th c. is 1948. The reason is that John Lee Hooker, Hank Williams, Charlie Parker & Muddy Waters were all recording masterpieces in that year; also, laying the foundations of so much music to come. That list of names is actually quite hard to take in once you start thinking of what they achieved in music collectively.

Hank Williams

Charlie Parker

Muddy Waters

Charlie Parker very much appreciated Hank Williams' songs, a taste extremely unusual in his milieu, where Country or Hillbilly music was generally regarded as unsophisticated nonsense, certainly not worth serious attention. There are stories of Parker baffling his acolytes & other hipsters in New York jazz hang-outs, where he would put Hank Williams repeatedly on the jukebox. People remember this so vividly because it was such an eccentric thing to do in that place at that time. When challenged about it, Parker would say "Listen to the stories, man." I like to think it was one genius recognising another.*


So - 1948. & I haven't even mentioned Lightnin' Hopkins, or Flatt & Scruggs, also recording that year .....



*My source for this story is Ken Burns' Jazz. I use the word genius advisedly in the case of each man.

John Lee Hooker

The Day I Met Jackson Browne

Although of course I remember the encounter vividly, I was extremely unsure when it exactly happened. The extent of my uncertainty is shown by this: the only way for me to tie down the date was to look back through my diaries for each year in turn, & I started off with 2006, '07 & '08 because I guessed it had happened in one of those three. But as it turns out it was longer ago than I thought (the value of keeping good records !), in 2004 - Thursday 21st of October in fact at about 15.00 hrs, that I, improbable as it seems, met Jackson Browne. I recorded it in my diary in the following words, which now seem extraordinarily laconic for such an unlikely & significant occurrence, but which will do as well as any other way:

21 Thursday

15.00 ran into Jackson Browne outside Track

Those who know me will confirm that I lead a very retired & sedentary life, like Descartes & Montaigne; I rarely go anywhere or do anything, & am a creature of routine; which makes it all the more unaccountable that I of all people should meet someone like Jackson Browne, a famous musician who comes from & lives in another country, almost a separate planet. How it came about was as follows:

That Thursday was my day off, & I was coming back from my usual walk along the river. I turned into High Ousegate, where at the time was a well-known independent record shop called Track Records (long since closed, killed off by the Internet). Track had spinners of cds to browse in their doorway, & as I turned into the street I saw a figure browsing those spinners who I realised with a shock was very possibly, of all people in the world on a humdrum autumn afternoon in York, Jackson Browne. You see, I knew he was playing in York round about this time, and, thinking about it, what could be more natural for a musician to do on the afternoon before the gig than to have a mooch in some record shops ? Anyway, the figure went into the shop. Without stopping to consider, I went up to the doorway of the shop & peeped in to see if I could get a better view of the person. I had a clear view; it was indeed more than likely Jackson Browne in the flesh. (I identified him from old footage I'd seen from The Old Grey Whistle Test, & I suppose photos I'd seen in music magazines over the years.)

So, there he was at the counter in the shop either buying something or just chatting to the staff. I was in a quandary, & had to make up my mind fast. How exactly do you accost someone so randomly ? I felt very English all of a sudden. I didn't want to bother him. Would it annoy him ? Would he find it intrusive ? Had I even got the right person ? What decided me was, this chance was presenting itself to me, & I had to take it now or lose it forever. So I waited excitedly outside the shop until he came out.

When he did so, I stopped him and mumbled in the best English manner,"I'm terribly sorry to bother you, but are you Jackson Browne?" He said "Yes, I am !", & I put my hand out & we shook hands. My heart was beating wildly. I had a great rush of adrenalin. At the time I couldn't account for this. Later, as I thought about it, I realised why it was. I can't remember what we talked about particularly. We stood there, in High Ousegate, Thursday afternoon outside Track for about 5 minutes. He asked me what were my favourite albums of his - now, as it happens I hardly know Jackson Browne's music at all, then or now - so I said the one I do know, Saturate Before Using, one of his early ones (whose title has always puzzled me - it's evidently a reference I don't get). He seemed a bit vexed, I'm not sure about this but I think so, that I was as it were 'stuck' in his early work; that often annoys song-writers, they feel the audience is restricting them in a nostalgic way which is oppressive to them, not allowing them to age, change, grow. He asked me if I was coming to the concert that night. I answered firmly that I wasn't; in those days public events of any kind terrified me. And that was that. We shook hands again & parted, he back into the rest of his life, & me likewise. All in all he was gracious, friendly & down-to-earth. In fact I was a little taken aback that he was quite small & thin, an ordinary size; he ought to have been gigantic.

As I walked home, I was puzzled myself as to why I was so blown away by meeting him. Surely it wasn't just because (to people with taste in music like mine anyway) he was famous ? As I teased it out, I realised there were four principle reasons, all to do with the complex subject of the memories music lays down involuntarily as we progress through life & then evokes later.

The first was not so much to do with Jackson Browne himself, but the milieu of song-writers of which he is a part, many of whom are great favourites, even heroes, of mine. Encountering him in real life was like meeting a living link with David Crosby, Joan Baez & all the California early-70s crowd, it was almost like meeting them all embodied in him, he was somehow a conduit or channel for them. That's how I excitedly put it to myself, hardly able to believe that I really had met him: "He's met David Crosby !" As a very young man, Jackson as I knew was involved with The Factory in New York as well before he moved back to California, so he was a link to all of that powerful medicine as well.

The second reason is to do with the song I am listening to as I write this. When I was 15, starting to play guitar & absorbing styles from those players I knew, I had a friend called Ange who played guitar & had a beautiful voice. She must have introduced me to Jackson Browne's music because she used to sing a song I thought was called Morocco, because that word occurs prominently in the chorus, but is in fact called Something Fine & is on Saturate Before Using. It's a haunting song, & her version was too.

The third reason is to do with how I learned to play the guitar. My eldest brother JP is a player, & he showed me a few chords & above all barre chords. Then I got one of those thin guitar-case chord books (I still have it, the same one) to further my education. One major method I had of teaching myself was to get scores out of the Central Library. If you think about it, only scores where I knew the music in the first place (since I can't sight-read) & were simple enough for me to have a chance of playing them were of any use to me - & of course my choice was limited by what the library had on offer. They had a copy of the music for Saturate Before Using (other invaluable ones were of The Wall & The Final Cut by Pink Floyd), & I ploughed through it, playing what I could. So, as it turns out, Jackson Browne was unwittingly one of my major guitar teachers. That deep innocent thrill of playing something that sounds even remotely, however stumblingly, like what's coming out of the speakers, what's coming off the record ! And they were records or tapes in those days; this took place in the second half of the 80s.

The fourth reason is that Jackson's song Late For the Sky is used by Martin Scorsese as the soundtrack to a very powerful scene in Taxi Driver. It's quite late on in the film, & Travis is just sat in his small apartment watching television. There's a pop programme on, with teenagers dancing to Late for the Sky. Their carefree enjoyment forms an awful contrast with Travis' isolation as he watches, & you can see the pain, anger & loneliness in his face. Late for the Sky is a very poignant song to start off with; its use in this scene heightens the effect both of it & the scene itself greatly. I used to be obsessed with Taxi Driver. The first 3-quarters of the film, before Travis goes completely nuts, I related to very strongly indeed, in a way that's hard to convey or recapture once it's gone, which it has. I used to have a big Taxi Driver poster showing Travis walking up the street towards the camera, which I loved, in my kitchen; and I always thought it was a good & healthy thing when I took it down & put it away. So meeting Jackson himself brought up in an instant all those powerful forgotten feelings associated with Taxi Driver.

It was a power moment, no doubt about it.

Written & proofed to the accompaniment of Saturate Before Using.

Good Music & Bad Music

It has just occurred to me that a common factor among almost all my friends & acquaintances is a love of music, & taking music seriously, thinking about it, discussing it; we all love what we each consider good music, and condemn what we regard as bad music.

Now, Louis Armstrong, in terms of the reach of his influence & the consequences of his career, is one of the best & most important musicians ever, certainly in the field of popular music. (This is the case, I accept no disagreement on this one, & if you don't know why you need to do some research.) Louis said something to the effect of:

"There is no classical & jazz music, there is only good music & bad music."

Classical or jazz or any other style, music has to swing, the musicians have to mean it; and the difference between being on the money & not when it comes to music is plain, even if hard to define in words. This applies to all genres. The kind of swing is just different in each, but always there needing to be found. I'm not in any way being facetious. I'm in deadly earnest. Anyone who has heard a Baroque orchestra play with verve & bite will understand what I mean by swing in classical music. It's about all the musicians coordinating so the piece begins to take off, & the audience with it. When playing, the musicians need to be tight but loose. This is a paradox in description, but not in action.

Charles Shaar Murray, who is a superb rock critic, author of fabulous books about Jimi Hendrix (Crosstown Traffic) & John Lee Hooker (Boogie Man), came up with a very funny idea, which once you start to think about it in practice actually makes you think very hard about music & its quality - he suggested a record shop in which everything was organised into one of only two categories: Good Music & Bad Music.

Remember: It don't mean a thing - if it ain't got that swing.

Against Coldplay

The following was prompted most immediately by catching Coldplay at the end of Later Live .... with Jools last night. Behind it lies their appearance at Glastonbury this year, & a close acquaintance with what I hesitate to call their oeuvre, acquired unwillingly while working in retail, in a shop that sold music to be exact. My time in retail coincided closely with Coldplay's rise to prominence. I vividly recall Parachutes gradually becoming a bigger & bigger hit. All their subsequent albums were played *cough* extensively in the shop. So I know whereof I speak.


Of all the bands that have high reputations, Coldplay seem to me to deserve theirs the least. The appeal of Coldplay eludes me, especially given their level of success, which I find almost inexplicable. It's not that I can see they are good in some sense but just not to my taste; I don't admit that they're good at all.

Coldplay seem to me the dullest band in the world. Here's another song exactly like the last, which was rubbish, with no memorable melody & indifferent lyrics. Even their name itself - Coldplay. What does that mean ? A dull label for dull contents. Vacuous, thin, vague, pointless, hollow.

The only reason that I can think of for their success is that many people must want 'music' that is unchallenging, easy, substanceless, that doesn't upset them or invite them to think. Coldplay are the Indy-stadium eqivalent of Mantovani or James Last.

One of the tests of quality in Art is, "Would the world be a poorer place without it ?" Coldplay emphatically fail this test. If they had never existed, nothing would have been lost.

The Opening of 'Tous Les Matins du Monde'

(The following is a transcription* of the monologue from the opening of the film Tous Les Matins du Monde, written by Alain Corneau & Pascal Quignard. It is delivered by Gerard Depardieu, playing the French composer Marin Marais (1656-1728) in old age. Marais was a very important Court musician at this time, and is supervising a lesson with a large group of students .... he becomes impatient with what he appears to regard as the nonsense being talked by the sub-instructors, who are actually taking the lesson .... he calls for a viola da gamba & plays the start of a piece of music ... then he orders the shutters to be closed, & in almost-darkness he begins to reminisce about his own teacher, Monsieur de Sainte Colombe .... he appears completely transported, lost in memory, & says :)


Austérité. Il n'était qu'austérité et colère. Il était muet comme un poisson..... Je suis un imposteur [murmurs of dissent from the students], et je ne vaux rien [louder murmurs] .... J'ai ambitionné le néant, j'ai récolté le néant; du sucre, des louis, et la honte .... Lui, il était la musique. Il a tout regardé le monde avec la grande flamme du flambeau qu'on allume au mourant. Je ne suis pas venu au bout de son désir .... J'avais un Maître. Les ombres l'ont pris. Il s'appellait Monsieur de Sainte Colombe ....


Austerity. He was nothing but austerity & anger. He was mute like fish .... I am an impostor [murmurs of dissent from the students], & I'm worthless [louder murmurs] .... I aspired to nothingness, I reaped nothingness; some sugar, some gold coins, and shame .... As for him, he was music itself. He always looked at the world under the great flame of the torch that is lit for the dying. I didn't live up to what he wanted for me .... I had a Master. The shadows took him. He was called Monsieur de Sainte Colombe ....



* Since this is a transcription there may well be errors in the grammar.