Prickly Goo

Disgustingly Vague

Filed under ‘music’

This too shall pass

The phrase ‘This too shall pass’ just jumped into my head, so I decided to look up its meaning online. Wikipedia describes it as ” a proverb indicating that all material conditions, positive or negative, are temporary.” It instantly made me think of the Buddhist concept of impermanence.

One of its most well-known uses was in a speech by Abraham Lincoln

It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: “And this, too, shall pass away.” How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! — how consoling in the depths of affliction!

Which is a great way of expressing the meaning and power of the saying. In happy times it reminds you that they will not last for ever, and in sad times, likewise.

In Buddhism, impermanence is a central idea. Nothing is permanent in our world, everything arises and passes away and is always in flux, and indeed, our suffering, misery and dissatisfaction comes from the fact that we desire and strive for things to be permanent – when they cannot be.

Interestingly, there is more to the Lincoln quote, where he unfortunately misses the point:

And yet let us hope it is not quite true. Let us hope, rather, that by the best cultivation of the physical world, beneath and around us; and the intellectual and moral world within us, we shall secure an individual, social, and political prosperity and happiness, whose course shall be onward and upward, and which, while the earth endures, shall not pass away.

He still strives for the comfort of something that can be eternal and ever lasting – when nothing ever will be. This is the conflict that causes suffering, we will always be disappointed when what we hope will last forever dissolves. He wishes for a ‘prosperity and happiness’ that will always continue and grow, in a world where everything is always changing and breaking down.

Indeed, looking back in a modern light, isn’t this quest for an always ‘onward and upward’ prosperity what is getting the world in so much trouble?

Alas – happiness and prosperity definitely pass. But so too shall austerity and depression.

All things must pass – as George Harrison once sung.

The Sun

Divide and conquer, on the road we grow stronger/
Every situation you create will make us thoughtful/
Freedom’s what we long for/
Our pain and our soul/
All captured by a reel as our story is told/
So our future generations can express and unfold/
In modern societies as we’re nearing our goals/
Emcees will be the vessel, as long as they don’t aim/
The minds of our youth toward material gains/
If this starts to happen then you’ll turn towards the captain/
That’s where you’ll find me checking in ready for action/
Solar generated, cultivated by the sun/
Just follow your call and when your missions are done/
Then wander …/

Mr. Lif “The Sun” from “I Heard It Today”

Gay Byrne Vs The KLF

For some reason The KLF popped into my head earlier. I was musing on Twitter about how great they were when Caesar Lopez sent me a clip of the duo on The Late Late Show discussing with Gay Byrne their burning of one million pounds. The interview is fascinating – Gay Byrne is clearly mystified by the duo and their action, even going so far as to call them ‘weird people’.

It threw up some really interesting points. Byrne, speaking on behalf of the shocked and appaled citizens of the world, argues that they could have given the money to charity. Bill Drummond makes two excellent retorts – firstly, if they had of spent the money on ‘swimming pools and Rolls Royces’ people wouldn’t have been upset, which Gay Byrne concedes. The act of destroying the money is wrong – but spending it on superflous luxury items instead of helping the needy is not. This exposes an amazing hypocrasy.

The second point Drummond makes is even more interesting. I’ve written before about the disconnect we have between money and wealth. We have mistaken money for wealth; money is a symbol, whereas wealth are the actual resources we have and can use to improve our lives. Drummond:

Us burning that money doesn’t mean there are any less loaves of bread in the world, any less apples, and less anything. The only thing that’s less is a pile of paper.

Byrne retorts, saying there could have been more bread and apples. Drummond repeats that they did not destroy any tangible goods.

Byrne and the audience do not buy (or understand?) his line of thinking.

Joe Elliot of hair-rockers Def Leppard butts in, saying “I used to talk like that when I was 16″, and the audience also wade in with hostility, and there is a general air of bewilderment. There is also a great moment where Byrne asks “Why are you here?” to which he is answered “Because you invited us….” (It’s really worth watching…some great moments)

I never really understood the K Foundation burning the million pounds until this point. And as I watched it, I kept thinking of Alan Watts’ arguments about wealth and money

What wasn’t understood then, and still isn’t really understood today, is that the reality of money is of the same type as the reality of centimeters, grams, hours, or lines of longitude. Money is a way measuring wealth but is not wealth in itself. A chest of gold coins or a fat wallet of bills is of no use whatsoever to a wrecked sailor alone on a raft. He needs real wealth, in the form of a fish rod, a compass, an outboard motor with gas, and a female companion.

Maybe it was a really foolish act, but at the very least it gets people talking about something which is never really talked about, and now more than ever needs to be – our relationship with money and our concepts of what money really is.

Beauty

See my elegance, dining on the periodic table called developments
The universe designs my intelligence
Drop science down a bottomless pit
Run swift through a handstand on pyramid tips

Beauty – from Edan’s “Beauty and the Beat”

Meta-music

Last year Jay-Z released his latest album “The Blueprint 3″. Whilst most of the album was a particularly pop-sounding affair, he kicked off proceedings with one of his most hard-hitting singles ever, “D.O.A (Death of Autotune)” The title gave the impression that the track was going to be a violent denouncing of the ubiquitous Autotune software that has infected popular music lately. But its not. The song is about how good the song is. The song you are listening to. In its lyrics, Jigga catalogues how great the song you are currently listening to is.

This is anti autotune, death of the ringtone,
This ain’t for iTunes, this ain’t for sing alongs

This sets off the tone for the song. He then opines:

My raps don’t have melodies

Which would explain Rhianna’s appearance on the album. I digress.

He also humbly predicts less than stellar success. For the song you are listening to.

This ain’t a number one record

And so the song continues, continuously self-referencing itself. Which led me to consider the genre of the meta-song, songs that in their own lyrics refer to them selves, a kind of sonic Mobius Strip.

So, what other songs can we include as musical snakes eating their own tails? Take Public Image Limited’s “This is not a Love Song”, whose chorus simply repeats this edict over and over. This. Is. Not. A. Love. Song. This is a particularly curious example. The song is about not being about something else. Its a surprise you can hear anything at all.

Then we have Elton John’s “Your Song”. This tear-jerking ballad is about that very same tear-jerking ballad. Elton very nearly tears a hole in the time space continuum with this one.

My gift is my song and this one’s for you

In fact, the recipient of this song would not be out of place feeling a little bit short changed. You have the special honor of being gifted a song by two of the worlds greatest love song writers, and they spend half of it telling you they have written a song for you. Cheers lads. They even suggest:

And you can tell everybody this is your song

“Hey everyone, Elton John and Bernie Taupin wrote me a song!” “Sweet, what’s it about” “well, erm, its about how they wrote me a song” “Oh”

The final exhibit of meta-music I want to talk about is Carly Simon’s 1972 classic “You’re So Vain”. The song has enjoyed legendary status due to the debate over who the song is directed to. I think the most interesting thing about this song is that in referring to itself in such a manner it outs itself as the biggest lie in musical history. Carly sings herself into a paradox. By scornfully berating the mystery ex-lover for thinking the song is about him, Simon makes the song about him. Thus, the phantom target’s vanity should not be in question, Carly’s Ouroborous has swallowed itself. The result is a song that is about someone but that person shouldn’t think the song is about them.

I would like to see more appreciation for the post-modern marvel that is the meta-song. Any more examples?

How I Got Over

The new album from The Roots “How I Got Over” is out, and its very good. A noticeable shift in mood from their previous two sees the crew at least sonically soften things up. “Game Theory” and “Rising Down” were hard albums, recorded during the Bush era, and “How I Got Over” reflects the bands feelings post-Obama. Which isn’t too say its all happy-clappy, there is still a distinct feeling of melancholy running through the 12 tracks, but theres definitely a feeling of hope expressed in songs like “The Day”, “Right On” and “The Fire”. The despair of the Bush-era is gone (almost), and this is also reflected in the production which harks back to their earlier jazzier roots, and less of the Public Enemy-like sounds of their previous two efforts. That said, one of the strongest cuts is the raw futuristic rhymefest that is “Web 20/20″.

Here are two songs from it, the first is probably my (current) favourite on the album, the John Legend featuring “The Fire”

And the title track (with video) “How I Got Over”

Definitely worth checking out.