Great Exudations

Dead Can Dance is an Australian duo that formed in 1981. Their music was described as “ethereal goth” in the early days but gradually evolved/expanded to include numerous worldly (and otherworldly?) influences, including African polyrhythms, Gaelic folk, Middle eastern, Gregorian chant, etc. I have an old friend who likes them, and that may be as close as I get. But I’m hoping to carve out the time for a deep dive. I think it’s good to keep some things in front of you. Most of all, death.

The band commented on their name and first self-titled album (per Wikipedia): “To understand why we chose the name, think of the transformation of inanimacy to animacy. Think of the processes concerning life from death and death into life. So many people missed the inherent symbolic intention of the work, and assumed that we must be ‘morbid gothic types’.”

Don’t be like R. Long, here. Because it’s more like R. Lame. Severely anemic in style and completely lacking in the bold expressiveness of his/her fellow taggers (I wonder what percentage of street artists are women and also how we might “raise awareness” about them). Yes, there’s that skinny swoosh that tracks back from G to R. But, then, why not connect those two letters? Take steps, friend. Take steps. Up your game. Find your voice and declare it loudly-proudly to the world. There are few things sadder than poorly executed graffiti. And there’s a lesson in this for each of us: Don’t be R. Lame…

ADDENDUM:

It seems that our friend R. Lame may be trying to up his/her game. While we can’t be certain this isn’t an impostor to the “Talentless Mr. Graffiti,” as it’s all caps, a bit generic in font and gone is the swoosh. But perhaps we are seeing signs of evolution in this artist. Recall that Rothko and Pollock also struggled to find their signature styles. I might have to cover my short position on R. Long.

It was my habit over the early to middle COVID days to capture images of abandoned masks in their myriad shapes and colors, as well as their variation in condition and repose. It was also my habit to share some of these in group texts with friends, which was generally encouraged, or at least well tolerated. Several friends responded with excellent images of their own from different parts of the country (one of which was shared previously and more to come!), and we amassed quite a documentary collection. But there was one friend, named Betsy, who responded in the most remarkable way. She would, literally in just a few minutes, fire the image right back at me and deliciously illustrated. It was a talent I had no idea she possessed. And I very much love how people you have known for decades can still surprise you in this way. How we can fully amaze each other with unseen abilities and passions.

I genuinely feel that for many of us, it is collaboration we seek. The pursuit of some shared idea, even if not exactly by the initial design. Each person contributing to a well-executed vision, whatever the cause — basketball, music, combining words and illustration, comedy, the kitchen, a start-up company, etc. The opportunity to add to something larger than ourselves. The chance to surprise and surpass the expectations of our friends and peers, as well as our own. To be able to say proudly in the end, “we did it.” And maybe just as good or better: “we did this and failed… but it led us to this other thing that was a resounding success!”

Next we might bring these characters to life with names and backstories… or drop them in medias res into a poem or a song. Maybe we can build an entire world around them. Or else not. We can always just admire them as they are and consider what unobserved possibilities we might be walking past every day. And, so, what are you working on? Perhaps someday we might collaborate!

Paul Simon is one of my favorite songwriters. His lyrics are witty and surprising and touching and so often near the bullseye. “Graceland” was released in 1986 to enormous success, and rightly so, winning Album of the Year in 1987. He had bucked the ongoing cultural boycott of South Africa that was implemented in protest to apartheid, and he was roundly upbraided for it. Other artists and politicians called the project “colonialist” and “opportunistic” and tacitly supporting of the apartheid regime. There were accusations and death threats, which go with the territory. Time has proven those critics wrong by most accounts, and to my mind. He paid the South African musicians multiples of their usual rate, shared songwriting credits (though apparently Los Lobos felt robbed of “Myth of the Fingerprints”), and introduced the larger world to musicians like those in Ladysmith Black Mambazo. I saw them live at Merriweather Post Pavilion on that tour and it was a terrific show. A triumph of art and collaboration over politics, and in a small way he shone a light on those very disparities and on the beauty of the native African music. I particularly like the fact that Simon was first exposed to those sounds on a loaned cassette from fellow singer-songwriter Heidi Berg (per Wikipedia). The bootlegged recording featured mbaqanga music from Soweto that he enjoyed for its bright and happy quality (#4/Lydian mode, perhaps). It has to start somewhere and often it’s with another person (an emerging theme that we will explore further down the road).

But what I wanted to talk about is bad lyrics. Or rather, in this case, misunderstood lines that turn out to be great. From the start I was a big fan of the album but never really liked the opening salvo of the title track (above). I mean, c’mon, a “national guitar”?? What hokem! Paul, you can surely do better than that. Every time I heard it I would cringe a little. Until decades later when I had started taking music lessons and realized that he was surely referring to the National brand of guitar (formerly National String Instrument Corporation, founded in LA in 1927) and their iconic shiny steel resonator guitars (below). Ah-ha!!

The lyric works well for me now as a double entendre, though not nakedly without this more specific reference. It just needed a capital letter, which of course you cannot hear. I have the vinyl in storage and will check the liner notes to see how this was officially handled. How wrong I was to doubt the great Paul Simon. And I wonder how many people actually get this reference. I’m pretty sure that Mark Knopfler did.