In this episode of the Head The Gong Podcast, I notice that the path upon which I’ve been traveling for the past twenty years or so just might be a loop. Maybe I’ll pay better attention this time around.
Stuff referenced in this podcast:
HTG Podcast #2: Waiting for the Miracle
In this episode of the Head The Gong Podcast, I ramble on about the concept of “Waiting for the miracle” and how it has inspired my creative process for years. Topics include:
- My discovery of Henry Miller
- Miller’s classic novel, Tropic of Cancer
- Neutral Milk Hotel’s, Two Headed Boy Part 2
- My song, “Waiting for the miracle”
Below are some of the media referenced in this episode:
Waiting for the miracle… (Blog post)
Neutral Milk Hotel – Home
I was surprised to learn recently that Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel released a box set that includes a bunch of previously unreleased tunes (I don’t get out much). I’ve heard my share of bootlegs over the years, but some of the stuff that’s surfaced on YouTube recently is new to me, including studio versions of Oh Sister and Little Birds, as well as a blistering tune called Home. I’m determined to learn all three of these songs, but I can’t figure out the second line of Home (and no one has yet posted the lyrics online, that I can find). “Tender tidings” doesn’t seem correct, but I just can’t parse it out. If anyone clearly understands what Mangum says here, let me know, and I’ll buy you copy of the boxed set. I’m kidding of course. You think I’d drop like, a hundred bucks or whatever the hell it is, on you?!?! Come on now. I can’t afford it myself, and besides, I don’t even have a turn-table. But damn, the thing looks pretty cool and I do want it! Anyway, here are the lyrics to Home, as far as I can tell:
Home – where you can hold your hands together all you please
Won’t erase the tender tidings you endured
You’re just another family member on their knees
Just a social work statistic out the door
They beat against the tender sightings of your soul
With all those pretty little hammers of control
Where they are tonight well you will never know
But I swear that I will find them now
More – it’s more than just a simple question of decay
More than all those fists than beat into your door
It’s more than all the shrinks that told you you’re okay
It’s more than anything that I have waited for
They beat against the tender sightings of your soul
With all those pretty little hammers of control
And if they even can remember I don’t know
But I swear that they’ll remember now
Home – it’s just another word you’ll always push away
Just a memory you wear outside your clothes
And it will burn down into cinders and some day
They will burrow down to their parental holes
They beat against the tender sightings of your soul
With all those pretty little hammers of control
And if they’ve ever paid a price well I don’t know
But I swear that they will pay one now
The Swell Season
Every once in a while I stumble upon a new artist who catches me by surprise and sneaks into my heart. That’s what happened this weekend as I spent hours listening to, watching and reading everything I could find having to do with The Swell Season. Actually it all started last week, when I was tipped off that some band I never heard of did a nice cover of Neutral Milk Hotel‘s “Two-headed boy”:
The Swell Season covers Neutral Milk Hotel
I was more than a little impressed, and so this weekend decided to check these cats out. Apparently this duo of Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová starred together in a little independent movie called Once that made quite a big splash in the U.S. the year I was living in relative isolation in rural Mexico. In any event, I had simply never heard of The Swell Season, and so for me they were a totally new discovery. I haven’t had time to rent the movie yet, but I’ve been blown away by their music and their whole vibe in general. Of course Markéta has me completely under her spell, but really it’s Hansard with whom I feel a special kindred-spirit type of connection. His eloquent descriptions of his creative process are uncannily familiar, as if we’ve been to the same place, drank from the same well, seen through the same eyes. He’s also just turned 40, and I’m mere three months from the same milestone. Part of me is looking for validation that the creative well doesn’t have to dry up as I let go of my youth. For whatever reason, I’m incredibly inspired by the two of them, and feeling grateful to have discovered them at this point in time.
In These Arms from banjo bandstand on Vimeo.