In The Sun (Free Acoustic Couch Rehearsal with Michael Stipe)
Joseph posted this text, this song and this poem the day after the terrorist attacks in France in November 2015.
In this world where everything sometimes seems to be nothing but darkness, it is music that heals and saves.
It's interesting that this attack happened in a venue whose soul purpose is to bring forth that light.
And those that were attacked were simply trying to celebrate love of life and rock n roll.
I think it was no accident that those forces of evil chose that type of place and event.
A place of expression and freedom.
A place designed to allow people to worship (in a way) spirit.
When you think about it, places like this are churches in a way.
And for all of us (and there are many) who are saved by music, a dark cloud has descended.
It's design is to keep us locked in and afraid and away from the music.
I think we all feel somewhat helpless in these situations.
I know I do.
But I do have music to offer.
A little more light coming up against the dark.
In that spirit here's my song In The Sun recorded as a duet with Michael Stipe.
It originally was part of an EP he made to help New Orleans during Katrina.
Hope it someway it helps and that none of us cave into fear.
Sending all my love to Paris.
Photo by @billdobrow taken last time we were in Paris.
Where I found a door and was inspired to paint it in my hotel room by the endless voices of freedom, rebellion and creation that always echoes off the street there.
In The Sun (w Michael Stripe) - MP3
I am a hallucination
Of a warped perspective
twisted in madness
And a superficial syringe
Shooting into the veins of Christ
A hallowed sacrificial goat
Flows from me
As dose the blue jay on a warm mountain sun
As does a snake
Looking into swallow rats in the dark
As does the minnows
And the magic of tricksters in Vegas
Singing to the almighty disguised as Elvis
On cocaine and hookers
Bring back Bartholomew
Bring back Coltrane's dirty notes
Trying without succeeding to tame his unhinged music
By remaining faithful to his godfather The Duke.
And put your dukes up
From me the boxer
Fights blank warlords in blue desserts
Whispering of the mighty trains
Whose inventors died beneath the tracks.
Their bodies
Tattered and torn in the sinews of metal
The pigs of industry
Whiffing their big husks about
As they storm cities
Giant as Godzilla size
Eating the assholes out of all of us. The grime of the city only protects us for so long
Before it takes us in and makes us its slave. We our monitored here
Our lives which were once impossible
Are even more so now.
We are headed into a planet on fire with storms so powerful
That even Coltrane's mind
Is a placid place for meditation by comparison.
We are a doomed species.
And we have undone ourselves.
We have let our passed sins
Become greater still
And greater still again
Until now
Even the best of us in our heart of hearts
Knowing what we know about humanity
Have little hope that this world full of loons and vampires
Has any real chance
Of putting the flame of this ignorance which is burning us alive
Anywhere close to out.
But bankrupt though we are
Doomed as we maybe always have been.
This night driving down the cool highway listening to Coltrane with the window in the Cadillac rolled halfway down
Smoking a spliff in the wind of a double tequila
Heading to New Hampshire
There is actually nothing at all wrong with anything. Everything is also as perfect as it could possibly be.
Who can't after all get behind
Living this kind of gamble
Between life and death all the time.
Holding onto the blue prints of Saigon
And the window map of a heart surgeons ambition
Across the chest of a rodent.
Break our backs or let us fly
This life is anything but fair.
We all stand around
Like hallowed out tombs for mercy
And yet we laugh and smile and fuck and get drunk
And do all the good things
That celebrate our doom here
On this most beautiful of places.
Listen to Nina Simone sing
Ooh child things are gonna get easier
Ooh child things'll get brighter
And it's all you need.
Sometimes. It's all you need.
