A Thousand Shades of Twilight

The saddest songs in the world #6 - 'Burst Noel' by Malcolm Middleton

 

(Image from Australasian Post, June 29, 1972. Photographer unknown)

No one can quite do bleak like the Scottish. I find this seasonal little song by Malcolm Middleton (ex-bedsit miserabilists, Arab Strap) so bleak that it cheers me up. He must have been well-pleased when he came up with the 'season greeting' pun, 'greeting' being a Scottish word for crying.

I have been a Christmas Orphan of sorts for years, my whole family having stealthily fled interstate over the years. I am still resisting the urge to take that personally. I looked around one day, and suddenly no one was there but me, bleating in my bedraggled Christmas Crown. I have, therefore, long depended on the kindness of strangers at this time of year. The one time I really felt it most keenly, was the Christmas of 1994 which I spent in Edinburgh.

I thought I would remember the minutest detail of that Christmas for ever, because it was the only one I spent outside Australia. I am, however, struggling to remember the details of what we ate, or wore, or drank. I do know that I spent it with a lovely Glaswegian girl called Carol with whom I worked at a cafe. She was quite a person - amusing, tough, and unfailingly elegant in her crisp white shirts, pearls and platinum blonde movie star hair. She was cool. Cool as in 'unflappable'. There was always a bit more distance between us than my oversharing self was used to, but that was fine. She had been through a lot for a girl in her 20s, and she could be politely wary. Or maybe she thought I was a sheltered, oversensitive Australian drip, but had no one else to spend Christmas with. Anyway, we survived Christmas together. What I remember is the fact that everyone else seemed to have left town for Christmas, her apartment block was so empty, quiet, and the streets seemed to be deserted. I cannot remember if her sister put in a cameo appearance, or was there for the whole time, or not at all. We joked about how sad were were buying our turkey roll from the supermarket. We had to make a special trip on a bus to find that turkey. We ate stale food pilfered from the cafe, I am sure of that, because we both had not much money. The walls of her apartment were a warm deep red, which makes sense in that climate. I crashed on the couch and as I staggered homewards the next day it snowed for the one and only time I remember of that freakishly mild winter. I was so excited that I began touching cars just because they had snow on them. I look back on that morning as one of the last days of wonder. I felt like I was alone in the world, but that was not such a bad thing. I did feel kind of free or something.

Things got pretty darn conventional after that.

Burst Noel

Last year I got knives for Christmas

Stayed at home and no one missed us

Lying on the bathroom floor

I don’t want to ho-ho-ho no more

No one knows that I’m not well

As I stare in awe at this burst Noel

Lights burning from the street in

I know I’ll spend this season greeting

When good King Wenceslas looked out

Everything was fucked and I was just about

To carve the turkey and watch Eastenders

Because they’re my friends and my friends are strangers now

The saddest songs in the world #5 - 'Tesla's Hotel Room' by The Handsome Family

 

Now, those of you familar with the songs of Rennie and Brett Sparks will be aware that they are often of a rather melancholy nature. But this song is particularly sad because it has its basis in the true story of the extremely handsome and extremely unusual Serbo-Croatian inventor, Nicola Tesla. Behind those smouldering peepers lurked the unique brain of a genius.

According to legend, he was born on the dot of midnight during an electrical storm.

Here's three sad facts about the life and times of Nicola Tesla gleaned from Wikipedia. They shed light on some of the lyrics below:

1. Tesla experienced blinding flashes of light often accompanied by visions. Upon simply hearing a single word, he would envision the item described by that word in excruciating detail.

2.  Tesla worked for Thomas Edison redesigning the latter's inefficient engines. Upon asking for the $50,000 he had been promised, Tesla was told by Edison that he clearly didn't understand the American sense of humour. He never saw the money. Tesla ended up digging ditches. For the Edison company.

3. He was obssessed with the number three, had an aversion to jewelry (particularly pearl earrings), and he did not like touching round objects or human hair. There was only one true love in his life. She was a pigeon.

Killer line: He couldn’t stand the touch of hair or of skin but stroked feathers gently on trembling wings
In the last days of wonder
When spirits still flew
where we sat holding hands
In half-darkened rooms

Nicola Tesla
In the hotel New Yorker
nursing sick pigeons
by the open window

dreamed of a death ray
To disintegrate matter
detected Morse code
From faraway planets

he couldn’t stand the touch
of hair or of skin
but stroked feathers gently
on trembling wings

and drew plans for a camera
To photograph thoughts
Vacuum tube lights
Wireless phones

In the last days of wonder
When spirits still flew
Round bubbling test tubes
In half-darkened rooms

Edison and Westinghouse
in silk brocade
ate oysters Rockerfeller
with French champagne

But Tesla grew thin
eating only saltines
going days in his lab
Without any sleep

dreaming of  god
as an X-ray beam
he was hit by a cab
while crossing the street

lying on his bedspread
he struggled to breathe
the light bulbs exploded
the air filled with wings

In the last days of wonder
When spirits still flew
Tesla vacated
his half-darkened room
 

The saddest songs in the world #4 - 'These days' by Nico

 

(Image from Amateur Photographer 11 November 1964 by Mike Davis)

Poor Nico was apparently not well-pleased with the attempts to turn her into an Existentialist Mary Travers (!) (as the original liner notes suggest) on Chelsea Girl. It is true that she would later surround herself with musicians who were a little more sympathetic to her particular brand of grim Teutonic fun. But I think the way her old-before-its-time voice is pitted against the pretty guitar and strings in this recording of Jackson Browne's song is most affecting. There's something wilful, slightly foolish, yet ultimately heroic about her vocal, which teamed with the maudlin regret of the lyrics, gets me every time.

Killer line: Please don't confront me with my failures, I had not forgotten them.

I've been out walking
I don't do too much talking
These days, these days.
These days I seem to think a lot
About the things that I forgot to do
And all the times I had the chance to.

I've stopped my rambling,
I don't do too much gambling
These days, these days.
These days I seem to think about
How all the changes came about my ways
And I wonder if I'll see another highway.

I had a lover,
I don't think I'll risk another
These days, these days.
And if I seem to be afraid
To live the life that I have made in song
It's just that I've been losing so long.

I've stopped my dreaming,
I won't do too much scheming
These days, these days.
These days I sit on corner stones
And count the time in quarter tones to ten.
Please don't confront me with my failures,
I had not forgotten them.

The saddest songs in the world #3 - 'Travelling light' by Tindersticks

Stuart Staples sounds as if he was born under a lugubrious star. In 'Travelling Light', he updated the old Nancy and Lee formula with Carla Torgerson from The Walkabouts. One of the reasons that Nancy and Lee worked so well together was the combination of the deluded drifter type (usually Lee) with the Voice of Reason-ed Foil (usually Nancy)(Would you question a Sinatra? I sure as heck wouldn't.)

The thing that I find sad about this song is the fact that the male protagonist thinks that he travels light, but he clearly doesn't, and goes to great lengths to hide that fact.There's something sort of truthful about it. I've seen it before.

But, as befits the genre, the Foil has the last word. She tells him in no uncertain terms: You don't travel light.

Killer line:Well it comes with the hurt and the guilt, and the memories
If I had to take them with me I would never get from my bed

Lyrics:
Him: There are places I don’t remember
There are times and days, they mean nothing to me
I’ve been looking through some of them old pictures
They don’t serve to jog my memory
Her: I’m not waking in the morning, staring at the walls these days
I’m not getting out the boxes, spread all over the floor
I’ve been looking through some of them old pictures
Those faces they mean nothing to me no more

Him: I travel light
Her: You travel light
Him: Everything I’ve done
Her: You say you can justify, mmm you travel light

Him: I can’t pick them out, I can’t put them in this saddle bag
Her: Some things you have to lose along the way

Him: Times are hard, I’ll only pick them out, wish I was going back
Her: Times are good, you’ll be glad you ran away

Him: I travel light
Her: You travel light
Him: Everything I’ve done
Her: You say you can justify, mmm you travel light

Her: Do you remember, how much you loved me?
You say you have no room in that thick old head
Him: Well it comes with the hurt and the guilt, and the memories
If I had to take them with me I would never get from my bed
Her: There’s a crack in the roof where the rain pours through
That’s the place you always decide to sit
Him and her: Yeah I know I’m there for hours, the water running down my /your face
Her: Do you really think you keep it all that well hid?
Him: No but I travel light
Her: You don’t travel light
Him: Everything I’ve done
Her: It’s just a lie, you don’t travel light
Him: I’m travelling light
Her: No you don’t travel light
Him: I travel light
Her: No, no, you don’t travel light
Him:I’m travelling light
Her: You don’t travel light

(image adapted by me from an old country compilation record called 'Release Me')

The Saddest Songs in the World #2 - "Lush Life" by Billy Strayhorn, sung by Sarah Vaughan

(Painting by Charles Zingaro in "Your Bible and You")

Given that I am meant to be starting a bit of a health kick as of tomorrow, which means cutting down on the thrills and cheap liquor, I thought it was an appropriate time to include one of my all time favourite songs, 'Lush Life'.

It's a masterful song, especially the way in which the music follows the lyrics. Perhaps this is evidence of Billy Strayhorn's Classical background - in every sense of the word, it is an "art-song". It sounds like Billy had a pretty troubled life, having an abusive alcoholic father, being gay and black in a homophobic, racist time. So I think he knows of what he speaks.

As much as I love Sarah Vaughan, this isn't my favourite version of the song. I have a wonderful version of Blossom Dearie performing it live, unfortunately only on vinyl ("Needlepoint Magic"). She prefaces it in her typically dry manner by saying: "It's a very sad song and it took me 11 years to learn. It's very difficult to play and even harder to sing. And on top of that, it's sad." She giggles and then launches into a restrained, thoughtful and heartbreaking rendition. I love the way she swells the line "I'll live a lush life" before the song peters out as if she never was there at all. Like a moth in our memory. But that's Blossom Dearie.

Killer lines: "where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life to get the feel of life from jazz and cocktails" and "Ah, yes I was wrong. Again I was wrong."

The use of the word "again" adds so much.

I used to visit all the very gay places
Those come-what-may places
Where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life --
To get the feel of life
From jazz and cocktails.

The folks I knew had sad and sullen gray faces
With distingue traces
That used to be there -- You could see where they'd been washed away
By too many through the day
Twelve o'clock tales

Then you came along with your siren song
To tempt me to madness...
I thought for a while that your poignant smile
Was tinged with the sadness...
Of a great love for me.
Ah yes, I was wrong.
Again, I was wrong.

Life is lonely again,
And only last year, everything seemed so sure.
Now life is awful again,
A trough full of hearts could only be a bore.

A week in Paris will ease the bite of it
All I care is to smile in spite of it

I'll forget you, I will
While yet you are still
Burning inside my brain
Romance is mush
Stifling those who strive
I'll live a lush life in some small dive
And there I'll be, while I rot with the rest
Of those whose lives are lonely too.

The Saddest Songs in the World #1 - '$1000 Wedding' - Gram Parsons

Here's a mysterious photo I found at the Boatshed Market, which brought to mind the weepy Gram Parsons song (from the classic album "Grievous Angel") included above. I think it's to do with the way that the woman is looking off into the distance while the man stares at the camera. It's also the way he's gripping her as if he's trying to stop her from floating away.

As much as I like his music, I've always been a bit uneasy with the fact that Gram Parsons was a poor little rich kid slumming it in the country music scene. It sounds like he was a bit of a prat of a person. But if I was to hold that against a musician, I wouldn't be listening to anything. There was no doubting his sincere love for traditional country music and the sadness at the heart of it.

I like this song because it tells a big, tragic story in a few short verses. And while there's something undeniably hammy about it, there's also something about the line "it's been a bad, bad, day" which I always find quite affecting.

One to cry into your beer to...

It was a thousand dollar wedding

Supposed to be held the other day

And with all the invitations sent, the young bride went away

when the groom saw people passing notes not unusual, he might say

but where are the flowers for my baby

I'd even like to see her mean old mama

and why ain't there a funeral, if you're gonna act that way

I hate to tell you how he acted when the news arrived

he took some friends out drinking and it's lucky they survived

well, he told them everything there was to tell there along the way

and he felt so bad when he saw the traces

of old lies still on their faces

so why don't someone here just spike his drink

why don't you do him in some old way

supposed to be a funeral, it's been a bad, bad day

the Reverend Dr. William Grace was talking to the crowd

all about the sweet child's holy face

and the saints who sung out loud

and he swore the fiercest beasts

could all be put to sleep the same silly way

and where are the flowers for the girl

she only knew she loved the world

and why ain't there one lonely horn and one sad note to play

supposed to be a funeral, it's been a bad, bad day

ooh, supposed to be a funeral, it's been a bad, bad day.

PS It's always mystified me that he sings "It's supposed to be a funeral"..I always thought the point was that he was saying it was supposed to be a wedding, but it felt like a funeral. But perhaps I'm just missing something. As I do.