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america shrinks & goes chrome

今日で、今年も半分終わってしまうというわけですね。
あっという間の半年、何をしたかと考えてみても、結局、生活のために去年と同じ仕事の繰返しをしているだけ、ですね。
小学校時代の夏休みの日は、長かったと今は感じますが、当時は、もう終わってしまったという印象しかなかったですね。

昨日は、日曜を三週間ぶりの休日にあてることができましたが、いつもショッピング・センターに買い物に行き、午後、読書、スカパーで映画を見て入浴、食事。
午後7時から、渡哲也初出演作というのをチャンネルNECOで見ていたのですが、午後8時になると眠くてしょうがなくなりました。映画のせいではなく・・・・です。

昨日の続きですが、Chad Wackerman についての個人的評価は、アンドロイド的メトロノームというものから180度転換しました。

何がきっかけになるかわからないものです。Frank Zappa のThe London Symphony Orchestra vol.1 & 2 を聞きなおしたおかげです。
これらは同じセッションの演奏ですが、2の方は1987年に発表されています。こちらの方は、以前からのFZのおなじみレパートリーをやっていて、その意味でGrand Wazoo あたりからつきあっている人には、おなじみのザッパ・オーケストラの雰囲気がします。

おなじみの曲をやっているので当然なじみのモチーフが出てくるということですね。

こちらで感じるのは、FZが70年代に比べると格段に編曲能力が上がったのではないかとことです。特に管楽器ですね。
弦楽器のアレンジに関しては、前も書いたかもしれませんが、ハリウッド映画音楽に多くを学んでいるのだと感じます。

ハリウッドの映画音楽で西部劇の音楽といっても、50年代や60年代半ば当たりまでは、別にC&Wが出てくるわけじゃなくて、スタジオの座付き作曲家が作曲、編曲し、ロサンゼルス・フィルのメンバーが小遣い稼ぎに演奏していたわけですね。

ハリウッドの映画産業(音楽産業)というのは、東部のエスタブリッシュメントではなく、東欧からやってきたユダヤ系の人たちが金を出し、ワーナーとかMGMを作る。
映画は、スタジオという分業システムの中で作られるわけですが、その担い手の多くは、監督や脚本家、作曲家の他、俳優などの多くも仮にイギリス風の名前を名乗っていても、後からアメリカへ移民してきた東欧のユダヤ系の人やイタリア系の人が多かったわけですね。

Randy Newman のおじさんたちはオスカー受賞者ですが、彼らが書いた西部劇の音楽は、それこそドヴォルザークやチャイコフスキー的な中欧、東欧ロマン主義古典音楽の雰囲気があるわけです。
FZは、これらを教材にしていたのだと思います。

LSOの演奏を聞いていると、弦楽器のアンサンブルにそれを感じます。

Vol.2の方が全体にまとまった演奏のように感じるのは、単に、聞く方が曲を知っているからだけではないのかもしれません。

今日は、朝からVan Morrison です。彼は多作なのでというかキャリアが長くて、ちゃんと継続的にアルバムを出していて、きちんと追っかけをしていて・・・というわけです。

Astral Weeks で、はまったのですが、ヘビー・ローテーションでかけるとすればThem 時代を集めた二枚組CDになるんでしょう。
というわけで今週は、仕事場でずっとヴァン・ザ・マンと付き合うことになりそうです。
Van MorrisonのThe Big Royalty Check という曲は、聞いたことがないと思ったらThe Lost Tapes Vol.1 というアルバムに収録されているようです。
1967年のBang Session のときの録音だろうと他の収録曲名を眺めながら考えています。

      The Big Royalty Check

I’m waiting
For my royalty check to come,
And it still hasn’t come yet.
It’s about a year
Over due.
I guess it’s coming
From the big royalty check in the sky.
I waited and the mailman
Never dropped it in my letterbox.
Oh, oh-oh, oh...
I guess it’s a big royalty check in the sky.
Oooh baby.
But you can’t
Beat the tax man
And me
All at once.

1967年のヴァンの経済状態だったら結構切実な思いそのままかなと。
このThe Lost Tapes なんてやつもブートなんだと思いますけどね。印税欲しいって歌が入ってるCDが売れてもきっとヴァンには印税は、入らない。ピリオド。
ネットにこの歌がいっぱい転がっているので驚きました。

曲を書けば印税が入るわけですね。ちゃんとユニオン・スタイルで契約していれば、演奏やバック・コーラスだけでもちゃんと自分が関わった曲が使われるごとにロイヤリティがもらえる。

ヴァン・モリソンのMoondance を採り上げている詩です。kamryn chew が書いています。

      callings of a wanting heart

There comes a point in a girls life where she needs something more. Having reached this point in my life, I have become antsy. My heart longs for the amazing. The amazing love. The amazing night with that one perfect person. The person who I know is flawed, but the person that I love anyway. My heart needs a warm summer night in the grass watching the stars in the sky. I yearn for a cool breeze in my hair, a sweet kiss on the cheek. Living in the desert you don't really expect these things, but my hope never dies. I want a boat that is candle lit and a sweet song playing in the background. This life I am leading seems to go no where and all along all I have ever wanted is these things I write to you now.

And that also. Writing, I mean. The passion of my life. The ideas that swim in my head, filled to the brim with the romantic things that most would consider foolish. I dream of past times, kings and queens, being the girl who falls in love with the perfect man. A tragic forever. Anything that makes my heart swell is something that I feel I need. So many things, but such little things that bother me until I feel antsy. My head swims with thoughts of these things. Things that I have wanted since I was a little girl. Maybe I have read one too many love stories. Maybe these thoughts are there for my future books. I would like to think that things are the way I imagine them to be. But I know otherwise.

I believe sometimes I am the only one who thinks this way and that I am born in the wrong generation. Although I have a feeling that no matter when I could have been born my ideas will always haunt me. Always left wanting. Always thinking of how wonderful my life would be if I was someone else. Someone who could have all these things. So, so many things. All non material things though. I was never one for the material. Most writers aren't. but I especially am not materialistic. I long for true love.. For a night in shining amour. As silly as that seems I long more and more for that exact thing. More and more for a sweet summer night, a sweet song and a look of love deep in his eyes.

And then I ask myself why I am writing all this, because no one will ever read it. But something about writing has always helped me to calm my nerves. And now days I need that more and more. The antsy-ness is at the brim. John Keats once wrote about being afraid he would never trace the Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance with the magic hand of chance. And more than ever I am feeling the same. Although he was dying, and the reason for his fear was more real, my heart feels as though he was writing my emotions. So many things run through my mind that I fear this will become random and incomprehensible. I want my head to swim with happiness, I want my heart to burst with joy. The kind of joy that I have not possessed for quite a while now. As books take me to these places that I long to be, I feel good for a short while. But then reality hits and I am back in this lonely world.

And this letter would make you believe that I am depressed. While sometimes I feel that I am, I am much too happy of a person to be depressed. I smile and laugh more than most. And it is real. But there is the me that wants something more than what I have been given. I want these things that a man could give me if a man could think of such things. And what man would that be? I have no clue. The gap becomes larger and I'm beginning to fall into it. But my hopes are still high, that is something that will not change. And a weird thought pops into my head. How I miss high school. I miss my senior English class. I miss Mrs. Beasley's class too. The classes that I learned in. The classes that kept me going. The poems in English that made me think hard and made me dream even harder. What I wouldn't do to be lost in a story land like the one in the books and poems.

Could anyone ever comprehend what is in my heart and mind? Is there really a man out there who would be able to understand my heart? Who would love me for the depth and ideas that I have. Are they not too radical? Not to me, but who these days would actually find them interesting? If I met someone who could, my heart would be forever theirs. I have the longing to stroll the beach, to kiss as the waves run over my feet and above the sun sets in the sky. Also to lie on a blanket. Such simple things to dream of, really. But the simple things that I have begun to doubt.

I wish that I would not doubt. I wish that I was in a play where all was well in the end. That this is just the first act. How immature us that? So.. Childish.. I guess. But I remember as a child the feelings of completion were always present. Having nearly nothing never phased me or my family. We were happy. What I would do to have those days back. I talked about some of it today. Some of the sacred things that I have kept for the times when I need a place to go. I told Amanda about some of them. I told her about the summers. There is so much more, so many more memories that I would love to have again. So many memories run through my head even now as I write this. I once read a poem called Tinturn Abby. A man talks about a place he loved as a child. Those memories are my Tinturn Abby. So maybe being childish is the key. Maybe its not such a bad thing. I am quite childish. But serious and womanly also, when the time is right. I guess that is a good way to be.

It seems there is always a let down. Another last night. Although it almost came through, but still the lack of what I really feel I need. Things are changing and I feel it. I am unsure what the outcome will be and it scares me a little. But I am strong and I know whatever happens was meant to happen. The magic hand of chance. Am I tracing the shadows? I think not. At least not in the way that Keats spoke of. A smart man. What I would do to sit and have a chat with him. Kindred spirits, I guess you could say. My mind wanders back to those days in school when we would sit in that school room and discuss the meanings of poems. Such simple days it seems, but the quiet before the storm. Such a peaceful time. My heart was content. I long for those days again. I need some good old fashioned poetry and essay writing. Ha what a loser I am. But I enjoy it, so I don't really care.

Maria's husband passed. Its really such a tragedy. He was young, and it hit me hard even though I've never met him. To think that someone that close could pass. JJ left for Iraq. That terrifies me, though I don't show it as much as I feel it. Zack leaves in a few months. They are both only boys. Neither are old enough to go fight a war. It is a horrible feeling that runs through my body when I think of all this. It brings me down even more. Such innocence, to be tainted by war. The romance is there, in the death. Maybe that is why it hit me so hard. Always a sucker for a love story, even if it is a tragic one.

I just realized how much I love to write. I have always known, of course. But it has been a long time since I have really spilled my heart into words. A kind of limbo, that is what I have come to think of the state I am in. I just want to write. Is it so difficult? I want to share with the world the romance in my heart. The passion for reading and writing that I have should be shared with all. But I hold back, because I worry that my passion is too strong. If passion is all I have? What of talent? Certainly you need talent to write. What If the talent I feel I have is only there because of the passion in my heart? Could they be the same? I have never written this fear before.

Some things, I feel, are too 'out there ' to share with the general public. They are just the musings of a passionate heart and a wandering mind. I thought maybe I had found someone with the depth to comprehend what I feel, but not even close. Last night showed me how wrong I was. It was simple really what I wanted. Not a big deal. And free! But he crushed it like it was nothing. Oh sure, he didn't mean to. But his actions showed me that he really didn't care. And another one bites the dust.

Another passion of mine. Music. Its most likely the romance that it creates that makes me love it so much. But oh how I love it. And all kinds. Not just one genera. I'm not close minded. Each type of music has its own bit of romance and I catch it from each. Moondance would have to be my favorite though. The romance in every Van Morrison song makes my heart soar. But Moondance is the ultimate. It is what I crave. I have not met anyone with the love for that song that I have. No one feels it like I do. I wish I could find someone with the love for it that I possess. Maybe then I will have found my one and only. Over a song.. Seems silly right? Maybe it is. But once again I don't care.

That song is the one that makes my heart leap. And I think I shall need it until the right man comes along. Lord knows I need that song. I feel it in my heart. Makes me want to do exactly that.. Moondance. A moondance. Worth a thousand words. I'd have to say Van Morrison is a poet, in his own way. The stories his songs tell of Gypsies and the things that are exotic in my mind, I guess. The things that are different. I'm such a junkie for that kind of stuff. For culture. Ha and out comes the geek once more.

Astral Weeks とMoondance どちらが好きか、Them 時代・・・そしていまのヴァンかな。

Duane Allman は、Eat A Peach のジャケットが描いているような桃を積んだトレーラーにぶつかって不慮の死を遂げたわけです。当時24歳、別れた妻との間に2歳の子供が一人。
彼の当時の資産というと、事故のときに乗っていたハーレー、現金と預金を合わせて2000ドルに満たないほどだったようです。

彼はやたらとセッションに顔を出していますが、買い取りスタイルで一回いくらという感じだったと思われます。彼が亡くなった時点でABBのレパートリーは、ほとんどがGreg Allman、出なければ古いブルース・ナンバーでした。
唯一彼が作曲したのがLittle Mertha です。夢の中にJimi Hendrix が出てきて弾いてみせてくれた曲だと近しい仲間に語っていたとか。まあ、ジミヘン云々はどうでもよいことですが。
by nk24mdwst | 2008-06-30 11:28 | Poetry


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