Henry Rollins

Pic from smh.com.au

Speaking of Henry Rollins…imagine getting this in your inbox. Blimey.

“For a while today, I hated you. I hated you for being so beautiful and real. I hated you for waking up at night to find your arms around me. I hated your honesty and the way you make people relax when you are around them. I hated you for loving me unconditionally. You have called me on years of cheap emotion and cruelty that came from my fears. When you look at me and smile I no longer feel scared or feel the need to run out of the room gasping for air. You don’t make me feel like life is a waste of time and that all you get is cold sweating, dark moments in small rooms all over the world, spending time with other desperate characters who are tearing the path across the night skies of desolation. Could you believe that I didn’t know what to do with your slow, warm affection? Could you believe I was scared by your endless giving giving giving? It took me a while to be able to feel welcomed by your strength that never shows off, never brags, but just nourishes and makes time stop. The feeling of hatred passed in the time it takes for an eye to twitch, and I realized that I have to take care of myself because I belong to someone. Someone is thinking of me right now. I never doubt it. I know you will always be there. Yeah, I’m in my room somewhere. It’s freezing outside and I am exhausted. Too many things to do. Too many people to answer to all the time. From here I think of you. My body is wracked in pain and I am burning with fever. A lot of men want a woman to mother them. They get with a woman and all they do is regress to the point where you might think he might not be capable to take care of himself at all. I don’t want another mother. I want a woman. I want to rise to the occasion. I want to learn and bask in your glow. I want to protect you and do whatever I can to give you strength. There is no twist to this. I am not about to blow my brains out. You have not cut me up like others have. It’s just this. I want to love you with everything in me. I need your help because I don’t know anything about it. I am suspicious and ready to leave and hit the cold road for the frozen dawn. I am just going to trust you with everything in me. I see now that it’s the only reason to be here. After kissing you, I cannot remember what it was like to kiss any other woman. At this point I am not sure if I ever have.”
~Henry Rollins

why aren’t you watching this ?

Another genius lyric by Paul Kelly. Like his equally brilliant song If I Could Start Today Again, it is what we don’t know – or aren’t told – that makes this story so universal.

We were driving back from the country one night
Mum and dad up the front and the rest of us snug and tight
My kid brother grizzled for a little minute
‘Til my big sister told him he’d better quit or die
It had been a long day in the countryside
Playing with the cousins on my mother’s side
The sound of the radio closed our eyes drifting over the seat
And then I fell asleep

I don’t know what woke me up
Maybe a country song or a big truck passing by
I could hear my mama and papa talking
Papa said something then mama began to cry
No more words then, just soft sobs and my head began to throb
I just lay there playing dog breathing slow and deep
They thought I was asleep
They thought I was asleep

It seemed forever ‘til the sobbing stopped
Then they talked for a little while but just too soft to hear
Daddy kept looking at the side of her face
One hand on the wheel and one hand stroking her hair
The headlights shining from the other way
Showed tears on the cheeks of daddy’s face
I prayed for Jesus to send his grace
And all our souls to keep
Back then I believed
They thought I was asleep
The night was dark and deep
How I wish I was asleep

Read more at http://www.songlyrics.com/paul-kelly/they-thought-i-was-asleep-lyrics/#qlhJhW4DZxHW5wdA.99

The Wind That Shakes The Barley sung by Lisa Gerrard (post by Nasty Nigel)

Well it is St Patrick’s Day in Melbourne and the recent hot spell has thankfully subsided for now and the weather is appropriately drizzly and reflective. There are dozens of Irish songs I love but this is one of my favourites. I haven’t seen the Ken Loach film that shares the title. Have you?
Here is the link to the song “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p2g2WuGXwE”
The not always reliable Wikipedia says this about the song:

“”The Wind That Shakes the Barley” is an Irish ballad written by Robert Dwyer Joyce (1836–1883), a Limerick-born poet and professor of English literature. The song is written from the perspective of a doomed young Wexford rebel who is about to sacrifice his relationship with his loved one and plunge into the cauldron of violence associated with the 1798 rebellion in Ireland.^[1] The references tobarley in the song derive from the fact that the rebels often carried barley or oats in their pockets as provisions for when on the march. This gave rise to the post-rebellion phenomenon of barley growing and marking the “croppy-holes,” mass unmarked graves into which slain rebels were thrown, symbolizing the regenerative nature of Irish resistance to British rule.^[2]“

And it is kind of nice to know that the song is performed by a former Melbournian…Wiki (short for Wikipedia -not inferring any link to pagan witchery) provides some biographical detail
“Lisa Gerrard was born on 12 April 1961 in Melbourne and grew up in the suburb of Prahranwith her Irish immigrant parents. Speaking about her upbringing she has said that she grew up with “Mediterranean music blaring out of the houses” and that this influenced her music, particularly on later Dead Can Dance albums and in her solo and collaborative works.^[1]“

I think we can all agree the lyrics to this song are incredibly powerful and moving

I sat within a valley green

I sat me with my true love

My sad heart strove to choose between

The old love and the new love

The old for her, the new that made

Me think on Ireland dearly

While soft the wind blew down the glen

And shook the golden barley

Twas hard the woeful words to frame

To break the ties that bound us

But harder still to bear the weight

Of foreign chains around us

And so I said, “The mountain glen

I’ll seek at morning early

And join the brave United Men

While soft winds shake the barley”

While sad I kissed away her tears

My fond arms ’round her flinging

The foeman’s shot burst on our ears

From out the wildwood ringing

A bullet pierced my true love’s side

In life’s young spring so early

And on my breast in blood she died

While soft winds shook the barley

I bore her to some mountain stream

And many’s the summer blossom

I placed with branches soft and green

About her gore-stained bosom

I wept and kissed her clay-cold corpse

Then rushed o’er vale and valley

My vengeance on the foe to wreak

While soft winds shook the barley

But blood for blood without remorse

I’ve taken at Oulart Hollow

And laid my true love’s clay-cold corpse

Where I full soon may follow

As ’round her grave I wander drear

Noon, night and morning early

With breaking heart when e’er I hear

The wind that shakes the barley

Lil Johnson & Black Bob – Press My Button, Ring My Bell (1932) posted by Nasty Nigel

“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQxAaOItSCU”

My man thought he was raising sam,
I said, “Give it to me baby, you don’t understand
Where to put that thing,
Where to put that thing,
Just press my button, give my bell a ring!”

Come on, baby, let’s have some fun,
Just put your hot dog in my bun,
And I’ll have that thing,
That thing-a-ling,
Just press my button, give my bell a ring.

My man’s out there in the rain and cold,
He’s got the right key, but just can’t find the hole.
He says, “Where’s that thing?
That thing-a-ling?
I been pressin’ your button, and your bell won’t ring!”

Spoken: Beat it out, boy! Come on and oil my button! Kinda rusty!

Now, tell me daddy, what it’s all about,
Tryin’ to pinch your sparkplug and it’s all worn out,
I can’t use that thing,
That thing-a-ling,
I been pressin’ your button, and your bell won’t ring!

Hear my baby, all out of breath,
Been working all night and ain’t done nothing yet.
What’s wrong with that thing?
That thing-a-ling,
I been pressin’ your button, and your bell won’t ring.

Hear me, baby, on my bended knee,
I want some kind daddy just to hear my plea,
And bring me that thing,
That thing-a-ling,
Just press my button, give my bell a ring.

I dressed Ziggy Stardust

Samira Ahmed explores the impact of David Bowie on young Asian women in the UK. For these young women, the thin white duke’s genderbending, exotic dress, identity shifts and alien other worldliness was inspirational to the children of migrants. Yet he was a nicely spoken urbane young man a mother could approve of. The obsession with Aladdin Sane or Ziggy Stardust for these women as they recount their emotional connection makes for a really great piece of radio. Have a listen.

BBC iPlayer-I Dressed Ziggy Stardust

BBC Radio 4 – I Dressed Ziggy Stardust

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01r91qk