Friday, July 11, 2008
Thursday, July 3, 2008
I stepped out from under the carport, jumped into my automobile, put the key in the ignition, and the car started on the first attempt. It’s the small pleasures that make the day a success. As I pulled out onto the toll road I flipped on the stereo and out through the car speakers flowed my latest obsession, “I fell in Love with (Another Man’s Woman)”.
I listen to music constantly and I feel as if there is a movie sound track running inside my head, so it’s always nice when a new song is added to the rotation. I enjoy the craft of singer/songwriters and the way they meld music with words molded and twisted to fit into lyrical prose.
While driving, although focused on the task, there is a certain freedom you achieve while cruising and music helps that feeling along. I mostly groove on the lyrics-don’t get me wrong the music is important too-but it’s the words that drive me to the mountains.
You can hear certain lyrics or bits of a song that give you a connection, one that takes you to a different place, a moment in time and then back again. Some songs that deliver me to special places are for instance “Tangled up in Blue” by Bob Dylan(1), which delivers me to a time before the song on the avenue of Rehoboth Beach(2) in 1972. Another one is “Late for the Sky” by Jackson Brown(3). I first heard that song while hitchhiking to the beach and every time I hear it, I step again on that same blacktop(4).
All this brings into context my feelings of the new song by Carbon Leaf, “I Fell in Love with (Another Man’s Woman)”. I first heard the song in October(5) of 2007 and I felt that it was a huge departure from the music the band had been performing for the past couple years. It wasn’t that it caused a mind-changing lyrical manifesto with blows the world up lead licks, but it was special. Everybody in Carbon Leaf had a voice in the song. You can see the passion in their eyes, the way they moved on stage, and it was the connection, the point where you see that they believe. You can hear the truth in the song and it is written from the heart, their heart.
Men composed the song, performed the song, and more than likely men were meant to pay attention to the song. Masculinity tends to not allow us to show emotion, so it is rare to have a song performed that shows our vulnerability and weaknesses. Men do feel pain or rejection and this composition describes in metaphor the censure we endure.
I now know this song is on the new record and I have made a slideshow using my photographs of the band and the audio tracks of the song. My idea is to use only images from this song from all the shows where I’ve heard it performed. Carbon Leaf’s (6)Barry Privett will at that moment in the lyrics where woman is mentioned, gestures towards a female in the crowd and this causes much excitement.
At first glance, the lyrics tend to blame women for the problems in love. The lyric, “Well, its no surprise that nothing rhymes with woman”, certainly this points that way, but in reality the words are directing attention to men, realizing that it is we who as men can not help loving every woman. In the end because of this tendency, men often are finding themselves with no one to love, cast out to wander alone.
Another Man’s Woman (7)
I fell in love with another man's woman
Another man's woman has got a hold on me
I'm on my knees I cannot see
She came out of the sun just like a deity
She came out of the corner she is melting me
I fell in love with another man's woman
Another man's woman has got a hold on me
She's swarming in my head just like a buzz of bees
She's hit me like a cyclone on the seven seas
She came in from the rain and she's drowning me
I drifted marooned on a splinter at sea
Washed up in the dessert and there's nothing to drink
Well, it's no surprise that nothing rhymes with "woman"
I drifted marooned on a splinter at sea
Washed up in the dessert and there's nothing to drink
Well, oh Lord I'm sure you're bored of forgiving me
Don't you see, I fell in love with another man's woman
Another man's woman has got a hold on me
A match in the rain a moth to the flame
A trouble-seeking ya-hoo with a penchant for pain
A double-decker bus in trouble I'm in the way
I fell in love with another man's woman
Another man's woman has got a hold on me
I painted over truth with my tear-stained lies
I took all of the honey till the honeycomb's dry
These fantasies would make a dead man rise
I drifted marooned on a splinter at sea
Washed up in the dessert and there's nothing to drink
Well, it's no surprise that nothing rhymes with "woman"
I drifted marooned on a splinter at sea
Washed up in the dessert and there's nothing to drink
Well, Lord I'm sure you're bored of forgiving me
Well, Lord I'm sure you're bored of forgiving me
Well, Lord I'm sure you're bored of forgiving me
1 http://www.bobdylan.com/#/songs/tangled-blue/
2 http://www.rehoboth.com/
3 http://www.jacksonbrowne.com/discography/album/late-sky
4 http://todaylikeyesterday.blogspot.com/2008/03/song-in-my-head.html
5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm6Cx5IKQJU
6 http://www.carbonleaf.com/
7 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p1PuXhfMIY
I listen to music constantly and I feel as if there is a movie sound track running inside my head, so it’s always nice when a new song is added to the rotation. I enjoy the craft of singer/songwriters and the way they meld music with words molded and twisted to fit into lyrical prose.
While driving, although focused on the task, there is a certain freedom you achieve while cruising and music helps that feeling along. I mostly groove on the lyrics-don’t get me wrong the music is important too-but it’s the words that drive me to the mountains.
You can hear certain lyrics or bits of a song that give you a connection, one that takes you to a different place, a moment in time and then back again. Some songs that deliver me to special places are for instance “Tangled up in Blue” by Bob Dylan(1), which delivers me to a time before the song on the avenue of Rehoboth Beach(2) in 1972. Another one is “Late for the Sky” by Jackson Brown(3). I first heard that song while hitchhiking to the beach and every time I hear it, I step again on that same blacktop(4).
All this brings into context my feelings of the new song by Carbon Leaf, “I Fell in Love with (Another Man’s Woman)”. I first heard the song in October(5) of 2007 and I felt that it was a huge departure from the music the band had been performing for the past couple years. It wasn’t that it caused a mind-changing lyrical manifesto with blows the world up lead licks, but it was special. Everybody in Carbon Leaf had a voice in the song. You can see the passion in their eyes, the way they moved on stage, and it was the connection, the point where you see that they believe. You can hear the truth in the song and it is written from the heart, their heart.
Men composed the song, performed the song, and more than likely men were meant to pay attention to the song. Masculinity tends to not allow us to show emotion, so it is rare to have a song performed that shows our vulnerability and weaknesses. Men do feel pain or rejection and this composition describes in metaphor the censure we endure.
I now know this song is on the new record and I have made a slideshow using my photographs of the band and the audio tracks of the song. My idea is to use only images from this song from all the shows where I’ve heard it performed. Carbon Leaf’s (6)Barry Privett will at that moment in the lyrics where woman is mentioned, gestures towards a female in the crowd and this causes much excitement.
At first glance, the lyrics tend to blame women for the problems in love. The lyric, “Well, its no surprise that nothing rhymes with woman”, certainly this points that way, but in reality the words are directing attention to men, realizing that it is we who as men can not help loving every woman. In the end because of this tendency, men often are finding themselves with no one to love, cast out to wander alone.
Another Man’s Woman (7)
I fell in love with another man's woman
Another man's woman has got a hold on me
I'm on my knees I cannot see
She came out of the sun just like a deity
She came out of the corner she is melting me
I fell in love with another man's woman
Another man's woman has got a hold on me
She's swarming in my head just like a buzz of bees
She's hit me like a cyclone on the seven seas
She came in from the rain and she's drowning me
I drifted marooned on a splinter at sea
Washed up in the dessert and there's nothing to drink
Well, it's no surprise that nothing rhymes with "woman"
I drifted marooned on a splinter at sea
Washed up in the dessert and there's nothing to drink
Well, oh Lord I'm sure you're bored of forgiving me
Don't you see, I fell in love with another man's woman
Another man's woman has got a hold on me
A match in the rain a moth to the flame
A trouble-seeking ya-hoo with a penchant for pain
A double-decker bus in trouble I'm in the way
I fell in love with another man's woman
Another man's woman has got a hold on me
I painted over truth with my tear-stained lies
I took all of the honey till the honeycomb's dry
These fantasies would make a dead man rise
I drifted marooned on a splinter at sea
Washed up in the dessert and there's nothing to drink
Well, it's no surprise that nothing rhymes with "woman"
I drifted marooned on a splinter at sea
Washed up in the dessert and there's nothing to drink
Well, Lord I'm sure you're bored of forgiving me
Well, Lord I'm sure you're bored of forgiving me
Well, Lord I'm sure you're bored of forgiving me
1 http://www.bobdylan.com/#/songs/tangled-blue/
2 http://www.rehoboth.com/
3 http://www.jacksonbrowne.com/discography/album/late-sky
4 http://todaylikeyesterday.blogspot.com/2008/03/song-in-my-head.html
5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm6Cx5IKQJU
6 http://www.carbonleaf.com/
7 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p1PuXhfMIY
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