A more somber month there could not be... we are on the downhill slide. Gordon Lightfoot captures the feel of this month very well with a quite popular song from years ago that is very well known...
A lesser known song from a much lesser known artist is one of my favorites... it takes me back to a day when I was 6.
A cello and slide guitar create a hollow whining windy sound... This is by Greg Brown and the song is
"BRAND NEW '64 DODGE"
Money comes out of Dad's billfold.
Hankies come out of Mom's purse.
The engine hardly makes a sound
even when you put it in reverse.
It's got a push-button transmission,
hardtop convertible, 4-door.
It's November of 1963
and the brand new Dodge is a '64.
Brand new Dodge.
And we're rolling slow down Main Street -
the asphalt and gravel crunch.
Church is finally over
and we're going to have our Sunday lunch.
And then I will play football
with my buddies down in park.
Later I'll dream about my girlfriend
as I lie alone in the dark.
As I lie alone.
She's got short red hair and blue eyes
and her swimsuit's also blue
and her little brother is retarded,
but Jesus loves him, too.
And Jesus loves our president,
even though he is a Catholic.
There's a lot for a boy to think about
as he walks along the railroad tracks.
As he walks along.
And my sister won't get carsick
'cause we're going only half a mile
and the car still has that new car smell
and dad looks like he might smile
and the world is big and full of Autumn
and I'm hungry as can be
and we're in our brand new '64 Dodge
November of '63
November.
Greg Brown has a voice like an asphalt truck on a gravel road.
The deep softness of it sounds like a Bear is speaking to you from inside a cave.
When he whispers the last line of this song the temperature of the room drops 10 degrees and the goosepimples fire right up.
He is an Iowa boy and the son of a Preacher.
This is from "The Poet Game" and I believe it won an Grammy.
He is an Artist's Artist.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
NOVEMBER
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10 comments:
I love songs with a poetic soul....today's lyrics often leave much to be desired!!! good choice (and I thought I was the only one who remembers Gordon Lightfoot.....:)
BTW - I want to go back and 'post' a few of your menus with their respective companion fantasy wear for an 'unveiling of foot and food' or something like it tomorrow (Friday)......do I have permission? I'll make sure and reference your blog - I'm adding its link to mine today.....Hoping this works because blogger going down last weekend seems to have disabled my html function on writing posts.........!! Give me a name for the menus: otherwise I'll do something stupid like Steve's Menus........LOL!
thanks cowboy,
-rdg
LOL.......Ok never say I didn't give you first dibs!!!!!!
-rdg
DONE!! Check it out, Steve......though blogger still wouldn't let me format spaces between lines @@##%%*blogger!!!!
-rdg
ps - thought the title was catchy - a play on your blog title and getting commentary in our 'mailboxes'....!
Hmmmm..don't know it but being a folkie type Canadian, I know most of Lightfoot's stuff. (He is singing in Toronto still!)I used to use The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald to teach Gr. 7's. It always painted that dreary, cloudy windy picture of Nov. perfectly. I'm surprised an American would know and speak of him. Thanks!
(We have a light covering of snow from last night! About an inch! Yikes! here we go!)
my post is poorly written enough to lead ya'll to belive that Lightfoot wrote the song I have presented... it is Greg Brown's song...
RDG, we will have some fun whether anyone gets it or not. Its our rodeo.
Mom, we do get Lightfoot in the states you know... we also get Loreena Mckinnet and Jerry Harrison and the Crash Test Dummies and Cowboy junkies i'm leaving out a lot here... you might be interested to know that in Fort Worth we had Two franchises of 'The Keg and Cleaver"...I used to manage one and had B.C. boys come down to stay for a few months and work...I'd put em in the spare room...
My god those guys could drink! There was one from outside Calgry that Looked like he was part wolf...sable looking hair and Ice blue eyes... he did very well down here with the ladies... in fact, I think he left something behind. That kid is 26 now.
Liked the poetry choice - really conjured up childish images, child points of view. Your next post followed on from it well. Nice one!
Yeah, I knew that wasn't Lightfoot's song and yah for you for knowing so many of our musicians! We have some pretty talented people. The Guess Who was a great band and you just gotta love Burton Cummings' powerhouse of a voice!
mOI- I left out one of my favorites- Bruce Cockburn, another artist's Artist...i even started a post with a line from him...see 'these things will happen in time"
to me, Greg Brown sounds like a folky Leonard Cohen. Leonard being so cerebral. That day that you speak of, that day, that moment in time when we were six years old, sometimes I just hear the date and I get anxious and choked up and have to work at controlling my breathing, I wonder do people who weren't six years old handle it better, you know like those who were a bit younger or a bit older?
Yes, Mr. BH, you've certainly done it again, evoking all these powerful memories. Even The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is powerful. My dad was from Duluth, we visited his relatives on Superior, saw the ships in the locks. My dad was in the Navy, served on a big ship, the USS Kitty Hawk, he even died from mesothelioma, that bony hand that reaches out from Davy's locker to bring the sailors to the deep.
November. What good can come of it?
HI KIM!
I have been seeing all your comments and appreciate them.
I like Leonard Cohen too, I like those kind of voices.
I guess by now you have probably founf the post I have done about the day Kennedy died. Brown captures the feel of it so well just by the way he whispers "november" at the end of the song , so deep, so dark.
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