Monthly Archives: November 2017

601. losing faith in words

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“Peter Hammill  (aka the Jesus of Angst) is probably not a good choice for listening to while high on LSD. But we did it anyway any number of times. I remember Losing Faith in Words popping up once at exactly the right moment once, because words were indeed failing and I was trying to force the issue, which only ever makes things worse in the psychedelic realm, the reality barrier being revealed to be onion-like – peeling away in fractal layers. Stop it, counseled the song! You can’t win at this. And then some ambient Brian Eno got put on and I focused on my breathing.” (Philip Random)

peterHAMMILL-1980

602. blue

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“There’s not enough Joni Mitchell on this list. It’s true. But it’s all there in the guidelines. If I didn’t own it on vinyl by August-4-2000, it didn’t qualify. And as of that date, all I had was Blue. Which tends to satisfy the if-you-can-only-own-one-Joni-Mitchell-album-it-should-be-Blue club, but why the hell would you only limit yourself to one? That’s just dumb (he said, looking his younger self in the mirror).” (Philip Random)

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603. pretty soon there’ll be nothing left for everybody

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“A smoothly apocalyptic little ditty from that latter part of Harry Nilsson‘s career when folks had pretty much written him off – all that boozing and drugging and hanging with John Lennon (among notable others) having blown his once beautiful voice to smithereens. And he was wrong about the future, too, how we were running out of air, and oceans, and pills and trains of thought even. But for whatever reason, I do like the song. Because, paradoxically, it gives me hope. Because if it didn’t happen in 1975, then why’s it going to suddenly happen now? Or something like that.” (Philip Random)

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604. For Calvin + his next two hitchhikers

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“Everybody’s got that Frank Zappa track which, for whatever reason, hooked them into realizing, holy sh**, this guy’s way more than just a hippie weirdo with a dirty sense of humour. For me, don’t ask me why, it was For Calvin and His Next Two Hitchhikers. Maybe it was the relaxed yet deranged bigness of sound, because The Grand Wazoo was definitely a big sounding endeavor. Maybe it was the oddly incomplete story being told concerning the two dudes in the back of the car. Where did they come from? Where did they go? Did they find a sandwich? Did they eat it in the dark? And why do I care? Maybe it was that leakage from the drain in the night. Early 1980s sometime. There were probably psychedelics involved.” (Philip Random)

zappa-1973

605. just like Tom Thumb’s blues

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“The people I feel sorry for are the ones who try to make definitive sense of a Bob Dylan lyric, particularly the stuff from his pre-motorcycle-crash-peak-amphetamine (and whatever else) period. I mean, take the first two lines of Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues. When you’re lost in the rain in Juarez and it’s Eastertime too – And your gravity fails And negativity don’t pull you through. You can go anywhere from there. Or nowhere. Which is the whole point, of course. Maybe. What I mean is, I first heard it when I was maybe fourteen, three decades ago now, and I’m sure I’ve heard it hundreds of times since, but I still couldn’t tell you what any of it’s actually about. Not a single line. And I don’t care. It takes me regardless, maybe nowhere at all. And if you don’t get the appeal in all that, then there’s someone you need to meet. His name is Mr. Jones.” (Philip Random)

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606. revolution blues

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As the story goes, Neil Young had a peripheral connection to Charles Manson. They weren’t exactly buddies, yet there was a sort of passing amity that perhaps could only have existed in the old hippie days of 1960s Los Angeles, the weird scenes up Laurel Canyon in particular. That was before all the slaughter, of course. After which Mr. Young found a way to get his impressions into at least one song, in particular the part about getting armed to the teeth, hopping into dune buggies, then swarming down the canyon, exterminating everyone they saw, particularly all the hippie rock star types who hadn’t let Chuck join their club. Which was a scheme that he never got around to executing. There were a bunch of those.

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