Sunday's poem: Nirvana by Charles Bukowski

Nirvana
by Charles Bukowski

not much chance,
completely cut loose from
purpose,
he was a young man
riding a bus
through North Carolina
on the way to somewhere
and it began to snow
and the bus stopped
at a little cafe
in the hills
and the passengers
entered.
 he sat at the counter
with the others,
he ordered and the
food arrived.
the meal was
particularly
good
and the
coffee.
the waitress was
unlike the women
he had
known.
she was unaffected,
there was a natural
humor which came
from her.
the fry cook said
crazy things.
the dishwasher.
in back,
laughed, a good
clean
pleasant
laugh.
the young man watched
the snow through the
windows.
he wanted to stay
in that cafe
forever.
the curious feeling
swam through him
that everything
was
beautiful
there,
that it would always
stay beautiful
there.
then the bus driver
told the passengers
that it was time
to board.
the young man
thought, I’ll just sit
here, I’ll just stay
here.
but then
he rose and followed
the others into the
bus.
he found his seat
and looked at the cafe
through the bus
window.
then the bus moved
off, down a curve,
downward, out of
the hills.
the young man
looked straight
forward.
he heard the other
passengers
speaking
of other things,
or they were
reading
or
attempting to
sleep.
they had not
noticed
the
magic.
the young man
put his head to
one side,
closed his
eyes,
pretended to
sleep.
there was nothing
else to do-
just to listen to the
sound of the
engine,
the sound of the
tires
in the
snow.

“Nirvana,” by Charles Bukowksi is an evocative and affecting poem about a young man  'on the way to somewhere' who whilst travelling through North Carolina on a bus finds in the quaint strangeness of a local diner a respite from the struggles and confusion of his  own life.

 

The poem speaks to the experience of the traveller away from home who finds solace in the moment; the significance of which is not shared by others with whom he is travelling on the bus.

Tom Waits considered Bukowski something of a father figure. 

 

Waits and Bukowski were both Southern Californians. Waits observed once that Bukowski “seemed to be a writer of the common people and street people, looking in the dark corners where no one seems to want to go.”

 

A performance of the poem by Tom Waits is below.

A short film by Patrick Biesemans based on the Bukowski poem is here.

 

Tom Waits contemplates the eternal mystery: The Ballad of Georgia Lee

"I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things"  Tom Waits

For me there is no more powerful Tom Waits song than Georgia Lee, a song from his 1999 CD Mule Variations, which is arguably his finest CD. The song very nearly was dropped from the CD, but Wait's teenage daughter apparently convinced him to include the song on Mule Variations.

Written by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan  the song tells the true story of 12 year old Georgia Lee Moses, whose body was found off of Highway 101 just north of San Francisco in 1997.  Her murderer was never caught.

I always find the song deeply affecting, like no other song. It is a combination of the tragic story, the stark instrumentation, Waits and Brennan's haunting lyrics and Waits's remarkable vocal delivery. And it is a song that asks profound political and spiritual questions.
 
 The extract below is from a piece I wrote about the song in September 2009.

Tom Waits's 1999 CD Mule Variations is one of those CD's that I play over and over. It is an album of songs of such richness and depth about human experience, human frailty and human suffering, all sung and played with the unique style, voice, originality and musicality that is a feature of Waits body of work.
One song is perhaps the the most startling, achingly sad and affecting songs I have heard. The slow ballad Georgie Lee tells the true story of a 12 year old girl who was found murdered by the side of the road near Waits home. (the full story behind the events that inspired the song and its creation and subsequent events can be found here).

The song begins:

Cold was the night and hard was the ground
They found her in a small grove of trees
And lonesome was the place where Georgia was found
She's too young to be out on the street

In the chorus that follows and is repeated through the song Waits poses the unanswerable question

[Chorus]
Why wasn't God watching?
Why wasn't God listening?
Why wasn't God there for Georgia Lee?

Georgia Lee is a despairing song of desolation, but one of such compassion- for the young girl, for her mother, and for all of us who witness and feel suffering in the world and ask ourselves how can that be. Waits's work is infused with compassion. In all his songs there is such compassion for his characters
But here is Waits's genius. It is also a song of contemplation about some of the eternal mysteries- if god exists why does he allow such terrible things to happen? How are we all implicated in the death of a child? How could "we" allow this to happen?

Georgia Lee

Cold was the night and hard was the ground
They found her in a small grove of trees
And lonesome was the place where Georgia was found
She's too young to be out on the street
Why wasn't God watching?
Why wasn't God listening?
Why wasn't God there
for Georgia Lee?
Ida said she couldn't keep Georgia from dropping out of school
I was doing the best that I could
Oh, but she just kept running away from this world
These children are so hard to raise good
Why wasn't God watching?
Why wasn't God listening?
Why wasn't God there
for Georgia Lee?
Close your eyes and count to ten
I will go and hide but then
Be sure to find me, I want you to find me
And we'll play all over
We'll play all over
We'll play all over
again
There's a toad in the witch grass, there's a crow in the corn
Wild flowers on a cross by the road
And somewhere a baby is crying for her mom
As the hills turn from green back to gold
Why wasn't God watching?
Why wasn't God listening?
Why wasn't God there
for Georgia Lee?
Why wasn't God watching?
Why wasn't God listening?
Why wasn't God there
for Georgia Lee?

Written by: Tom Waits and Kathleen Waits-Brennan
Published by: Jalma Music (ASCAP), © 1999
Official release: Mule Variations, Anti Inc., 1999
Arrangements and lyrics published in "Tom Waits - Mule Variations" (Amsco Publications, 2000)

Tom Waits, radical compassion and negative capability

"We all need to be reminded that the folks who need help getting back on their feet are all members of our family" Tom Waits

"I love beautiful melodies telling me terrible things" Tom Waits

Tom Waits's music is not for the fainthearted. His darkly poetic lyrics, his voice and use of instrumentation challenge the listener's assumptions. Waits is both social observer and social commentator.

Tom Waits's songs evoke and reflect a deeply felt compassion, what I call radical compassion- a way of seeing the world and seeing events and experiences from someone else's perspective, with a perspective that encompasses their views of the situation, past, present and future. Radical compassion is neither feigned nor manufactured and involves the imperative to act in the face of injustice and suffering.

The song Never Let Go appears on Waits 3 CD set Orphans. Released in 2006 Orphans contains 30 new songs and 24 rare songs. Never Let Go is one of many gems on the CD and like many of Waits songs, is grounded in the fragility and cycles of everyday life.

The song starts out as a slow ballad with piano introduction and Tom Waits singing in his characteristic growl: 

Well, ring the bell backwards and bury the axe
Fall down on your knees in the dirt
I'm tied to the mast between water and wind
Believe me, you'll never get hurt
Now the ring's in the pawnshop, the rain's in the hole
Down at the Five Points I stand
I'll loose everything
But I won't let go of your hand

But the song morphs into something more fierce as a snare drum and rolling bass kick in, turning a slow ballad into a plaintive dirge, a song of grace in the face of the mysteries of life and the grit and grime of the world we inhabit.

Waits's song speaks to the mysteries of love and evokes the devotion we all feel for those we love and have loved, those who have touched our lives and those who have passed on.

The song, like much of Tom Waits's music, seems to exemplify what the poet John Keats described as negative capability:

"when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason"

Negative capability describes a capacity for accepting uncertainty and the unresolved. It requires the ability to suspend judgement and allow the mysteries and realities of daily living to be present, whilst also being able to walk in the shoes of others. It is associated with a profound capacity for empathy and lack of self consciousness.

Intellectual endevour and artistic and creative expression- in the form of a photograph, a book, a movie, a poem, a song, an idea, an object- all have the potential to be vehicle for expression of negative capability.  The song Never Let Go, like so many songs on the Orphans CD, is such a vehicle.

Waits understood the power of the song Never Let Go when he allowed it to be used in a campaign to raise awareness of the extent of hunger among children and families in the US (see the quote that starts this piece). Waits has always steadfastly refused to allow his music to be used in any commercial or product advertisement. Never Let Go was the exception. A clip of the song can be found here.

Never Let Go
Well, ring the bell backwards and bury the axe
Fall down on your knees in the dirt
I'm tied to the mast between water and wind
Believe me, you'll never get hurt
Now the ring's in the pawnshop, the rain's in the hole
Down at the Five Points I stand
I'll loose everything
But I won't let go of your hand
Now, Peter denied and Judas betrayed
I'll pay with the roll of the drum
And the wind will tell the turn from the wheel
And the watchman's making his rounds
Well, you leave me hanging by the skin of my teeth
You can send me to hell
But I'll never let go of your hand
Swing from a rope on a cross-legged tree
Signed with the one-eyed Jack's blood
From Temple and Union, to Weyley and Grand
Walking back home in the mud
Now, I must make my best of the only way home
Marley deals only in stones
I'm lost on the midway, I'm reckless in your eyes
Just give me a couple more throws
I'll dare you to dine with the cross-legged knights
Dare me to jump and I will
I'll fall from your grace
But I'll never let go of your hand
I'll never let go of your hand
I'll never let go of your hand

Written by: Tom Waits and Kathleen Waits-Brennan
Published by: Jalma Music Inc. [?], © 1992

Music over Xmas

The origins of this blog's title

Many people have asked about the title of this blog. Tom Waits fans will know that it is from the title of his 2000 song Diamond in Your Mind co-written with his wife Katherine Brennan.

I have no idea what the song is about but I just love the title, tune, lyrics and atmosphere of the song.

Here is live version of Tom Waits and the Kronos Quartet performing the song at a concert Healing the Divide in honor of the the Dali Lama.

The soul singer Solomon Burke also does a great version of the song on his album Don't Give up on Me. A live version by Solomon Burke is here.

Diamond in Your Mind

copyright Tom Waits & Katherine Brennan

I shook the hand of the president and the pope in Rome
I've been to parties where I've had to be flown
They said everything was sacred, nothing was profane
And money was something that you throw off the back of trains

Oh always keep a diamond in your mind
You gotta always keep a diamond in your mind
Wherever you may wander
Wherever you may roam
You gotta always keep a diamond in your mind

Steam of the gravy with little fried pearls
Floating like a necklace on a beautiful girl
Johan says thanks to the food and land
And oh so ever grateful for God's on my hands

Oh always keep a diamond in your mind
Always keep a diamond in your mind
Wherever you may wander
Wherever you may roam
You gotta always keep a diamond in your mind

She's got the milk of human kindness and the fat of the lamb
Scared like a baby, well she drives like a man
She lives outside of Natchez where she operates a crane
She's like a wrecking ball no longer connected to the chain

Oh Zerelda Samuel said she almost never prayed
Said she lost her right arm, blown off in a Pinkerton raid
Then they lashed her to a windmill with old 3-fingered Dave
Now she's 102 drinking mint juleps in the shade

Everybody, always keep a diamond in your mind
You gotta always keep a diamond in your mind
Wherever you may wander
Wherever you may roam
Your gotta always keep a diamond in your mind

Always keep a diamond in your mind
Always keep a diamond in your mind
Wherever you may wander
Wherever you may roam
Your gotta always keep a diamond in your mind

Always keep a diamond in your mind
Always keep a diamond in your mind
Wherever you may wander
Wherever you may roam
Your gotta always keep a diamond in your mind

Always keep a diamond in your mind
Always keep a diamond in your mind

Current listening: Bill Frizzel and Tom Waits

Tom Waits and Bill Frisell both have an uncanny ability to "inhabit" the songs they play . To me they are musical craftsmen, who have honed their art over long careers. Their music conveys a distinctive emotionality and expresses a sense of wonder and gravitas at the world.

In Wait's case it is the atmosphere he crafts, a combination of his voice, instrumentation and performance style, and the power and artistry of his lyrics. Frisell invests his acoustic and electric guitar with a distinctive "human" voice, that like Waits, is uniquely his.

The best of Bill Frisell Vol 1: Folk Songs, which draws from his various solo works, is one of my favourite CDs of 2009. Instrumental albums by guitarists can be one dimensional, sounding much the same, but not Frisell. This is music of such depth, diversity and richness. Whether playing acoustic or electric guitar he has a lightness of touch, as well as a capacity to interpret songs in a unique way. The John Hiatt song "Have a Little Faith in Me" and the American folk tune "Shenandoah" come alive in his hands.

The Independent gives the album five stars, referring to the CD's "beautiful, ringing musicality: 15 pieces of fathomless depth played with the freshness and simplicity that only genius brings. Make your world anew and treat yourself." Pretty accurate description.

In preparation for the release of Tom Waits's new live album Glitter and Doom Live I have been revisiting his back catalog, particularly the 2006 3 CD compilation Orphans which includes 56 rarities, outtakes and songs written for purposes other than a Tom Waits CD. It is a sprawling epic of an album. For me there are many highlights but none better than "Down There by the Train", a song of immense compassion and humanity. I have written before of the depth of Waits compassion for the subjects of his songs and this is no better reflection of that quality. I can't wait for his new live CD. A review of the new live album is here

What's playing today? Tom Waits Mule Variations - music of uncompromising sadness and beauty

Photo credit Richard Beckwith (from Tom Waits Library)

"I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things" Tom Waits

Tom Waits's music is not for the fainthearted. His darkly poetic lyrics, his voice and use of instrumentation challenge the listener's assumptions. Waits tell stories that draw the listener in. He is at once social observer and social commentator. His songs reveal and uncover something of the mystery of life and the grit and grime of the world we inhabit.

One thing I like about his music is that it grounds us in the fragility and cycles of everyday life. Many of his songs are about people who inhabit the margins, about human suffering, desolation, love, tragedy and despair. But they are also about the lighter moments, moments of joy and beauty and of levity, and particularly humor. Waits is the funniest songwriter.

Tom Waits's 1999 CD Mule Variations is one of those CD's that I play over and over. It is an album of songs of such richness and depth about human experience and human suffering, all sung and played with the unique style, voice, originality and musicality that is a feature of Waits body of work.

One song is perhaps the the most startling, achingly sad and affecting songs I have heard. The slow ballad Georgie Lee tells the true story of a 12 year old girl who was found murdered by the side of the road near Waits home. (the full story behind the events that inspired the song and its creation and subsequent events can be found here)

The song begins:

Cold was the night and hard was the ground
They found her in a small grove of trees
And lonesome was the place where Georgia was found
She's too young to be out on the street

In the chorus that follows and is repeated through the song Waits poses the unanswerable question

[Chorus]
Why wasn't God watching?
Why wasn't God listening?
Why wasn't God there for Georgia Lee?

Georgia Lee is a despairing song of desolation, but one of such compassion- for the young girl, for her mother, and for all of us who witness and feel suffering in the world and ask ourselves how can that be. Waits's work is infused with compassion. In all his songs there is such compassion for his characters

But here is Waits's genius. It is also a song of contemplation about some of the eternal mysteries- if god exists why does he allow such terrible things to happen? How are we all implicated in the death of a child? How could "we" allow this to happen?