IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED

Today’s song of the week is “Cattle and Cane” by the Australian group, The Go-Betweens.

The song lyrics were written by Grant McLennan about the loss of his father to a heart attack when Grant was just 4 years old, and his family’s subsequent return home to a rural Queensland Australian farm from his English birthplace.

The stutter step rhythm (11/4 time?) and acoustic guitars meld perfectly with the somber lyrics and beautifully understated vocal.

I recall a schoolboy coming home
Through fields of cane
To a house of tin and timber
And in the sky
A rain of falling cinders
From time to time
The waste memory-wastes

I recall a boy in bigger pants
Like everyone
Just waiting for a chance
His father’s watch
He left it in the showers
From time to time
The waste memory-wastes
And the waste, memory-wastes

I recall a bigger brighter world
A world of books
And silent times in thought
And then the railroad
The railroad takes him home
Through fields of cattle
Through fields of cane
From time to time
The waste memory-wastes
And the waste memory-wastes

Spoken:
I recall a saying
A reply
A pain once had
From time down to mine
That time was bad
Until I knew where I was
Alone and (so) far from home

Further, longer, higher, older

This performance is in perfect balance. The wordless backup vocals after the second verse, the bass melody in the break and the spoken word verse all effectively complement the song’s melancholy.

Sadly, like his father, McLennan suffered an untimely death by heart attack at the young age of 48 in 2006.

That hits a little too close to home for me.

Enjoy… until next week.

My friend Angela posted a link to a listicle about things New Yorkers who are older than 40 have done.

I’m older than 40, and I’ve done most of them, except for go to Max Fish. It seems.

But No. 11 on the list references the spectacular desolation of lower Manhattan back in the 60s and 70s. I loved walking around that neighborhood in those days, and then I heard this Jonathan Richman song, which gets it completely right.

Heard this on my Pandora and got arrested.

Since I was able to retire first of this year, I have been playing a lot of golf, upwards of 3-4 times a week, either doing nine, 18, or just hitting the range and putting green for a spell in the lovely spring sun.

It is funny, since I played a lot between the ages of 12-21, but then quit after an argument within the group I was playing. The issue never involved me personally, but I was disgusted that the game I thought we played for fun would erupt into near violence.

Well, as an older (and theoretically) wiser human, I started playing again, looking for some exercise, some time outside, and also something I could work on and hopefully improve (plus per our Remnants Friend, Jeff Erickson, of Rotowire, I can play with other friends Jason Grey and Joe Sheehan this November when we all converge upon the AFL).

So, I have been trying to muster all my patience and Zen in playing this extremely aggravating and at the same time satisfying game where we chase a little white ball around 6000 yards for five hours, or so.

It is tough. You have to have an easy swing, and keep your eye on the ball, which is no small trick when the sphere is down there, dormant, sneering, begging you to knock the shit out of it.

Anyway, there are no courses near where I live save a country club that costs a zillion dollars to join, so I have about a 20-30 minute drive, irrespective.

As a result, I seem to really enjoy playing CD’s in the car that I really love, and when I say love, I mean the entire album, start to finish.

For some reason this fine May day, I feel compelled to share my favorite cut from Pink Floyd’s Animals disc, which just spaces on, with some killer David Gilmour riffs and a nice little philosophical breakdown (which includes a quasi digitized recital of The 23rd Psalm) . Also, the Floyd are another band that gets little attention here at the Remnants, it seems, and that is not right, for they were (I saw them twice) a terrific collective.

The reason Animals made it to my fave list for the band is though I do think it is a really fun and listenable disc, shortly after the vinyl was released I had my first trip to Europe. I spent a few days in London with my Aunt and Grandmother, and then headed off to the continent for some adventures (note this was the same trip where I first heard the Pistols, as the punk movement was just taking off).

Anyway, I spent three weeks messing around in France and Holland and the BeneLux countries, and was returning back to London to spend my final 10 days with my family and really check out London. I took a night boat from Hook von Holland, and landed back in England in the early morning, and we then took the train into town proper.

I was travelling with some kids (I was 25 then, and they were about my age): a couple of Americans, a Dutch girl, and a boy from Sweden.

As we approached the city, the Swedish kid calls out, “Annimaaalls.” We looked perplexed, and he repeats, “Annimaaalls,” and points out the window, and he is pointing at the giant power plant/building/whatever it is that is on the album cover with the four giant smokestacks pictured above.

Funny the things we remember, and forget, but that memory is clear beyond belief. And, Sheep is really a great cut, and particularly good for getting the golf Zen.

I hate propaganda. I hear it every day, Left and Right. I hate it even more in music. I’m not talking about making a political point in a song. That has been done artfully countless times. I’m talking about attempts to beat me over the head with blatant half-truths (at best). “We are the World” stands to this day as the worst ever, but that atrocity came about only in response to the bevy of Brit pop stars who made a children-starving-in-Africa video that was actually a good song: “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”

Yeah, it’s a good song in its reverbed sappy way, but it contains what is perhaps the most fucked up line I’ve ever heard: “Tonight thank God it’s them instead of you.” Wow. That’s what you want me to do, o celebrity saints? This is a morality I am to embrace? Let’s just hope the masses didn’t take you up on it.

But I rant. I like the Clash’s political rants, because although they are no doubt of the Left, at least they rail against the government too. That’s good enough for me. And anyway, I don’t ague that the Left doesn’t have some legitimate gripes. It’s what they want to do about them that bothers me. Always, every single time, they rob us or force us to do their will, or both. I am morally opposed to theft and forcing others to do my will, making exception only for my children when they were (are) children. Indeed, the irony has been forcing the little dears to think for themselves. I grant the Left this one good argument against freedom: people don’t want it. They want to be told what to do and think. This was, you may recall, a major argument in favor of slavery down through the centuries. Now that’s irony.

The following song is not propaganda at all, it’s straight description and damned good description. And of course the lyrics are only one facet of the song, even the icing on the cake. I don’t think the world appreciates Mick Jones as a singer. His singing makes Janie Jones and Complete Control and Remote Control and Safe European Home to name only a few. I think this one is among their very best.

This isn’t as good as I thought it would be, but we’ve discussed this stuff before, so it probably belongs on the site:

People ask me: hey Gene, how come you never play anything nice, and easy? But there’s just one thing: we never, ever, do nothing nice, and easy. We always do everything nice, and rough. But we’re gonna take the beginning of this song and do it…rough. Then we’re gonna do the end rough. Yeah, that’s the way we do Think, It Ain’t Illegal Yet.

Here’s the link:

I have a friend whose wedding song was this song. At his first wedding. Not at the second. Awkward.

I think this cut is just one measure of why Marvin Gaye is so great. It’s a weak and awkward song with a decent groove and catchy chorus. Marvin makes it sound classic, like he did the National Anthem (using a similar approach).

Now this has little of the 50’s element but lots of that rocking sadness. It’s a shitty world when their songs aren’t all over the radio. This is new too, 2011 anyway.