tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2367859846495854541.post1263032598625343662..comments2010-12-22T15:30:36.523-05:00Inverarityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09838650110847975337noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2367859846495854541.post-75163452108486563502010-12-22T15:30:36.523-05:002010-12-22T15:30:36.523-05:00When I saw him in 1995 he mentioned the textbook story and then followed that by saying &quot;the bomb is in the suitcase.&quot;Christophernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2367859846495854541.post-66183149829319831962007-08-17T10:13:00.000-04:002007-08-17T10:13:00.000-04:00I love this song inordinately, unreasonably. But it's an unreasonable song. I've never been sure what it says as opposed to what it compels me to bring TO it. I'd heard the Spanish-English lessonbook story, too, and I think it helps explain some of what's going on in these lyrics. But we must leave room for Fate and genius in our explanations...<BR/><BR/>Never has so much been wrought from so little. An organ-y keyboard, a drum-machine woodblock, big reverb and that's it. But listen to that busy little tambourine/clock sound, and how, at 1:48, it morphs into very ominous crickets, and the lyrics begin to come to the point, the planning for the rendezvous.<BR/><BR/>Then, in one of the most exquisite moments in any music EVER, our narrator says "Leave the parcel on the top deck," and suddenly, at 2:48, the most lovely, warm, fondly recalled, reasonable, reassuring string quartet appears. I think the beginning of those strings corresponds with the bomb going off, so I take that sound to be the moment when all the poor victims see the White Light, see their lost relatives waiting for them on beautiful green lawns, and their flying-limbs pain becomes only a memory. Those strings are the sound of civilization, and used as they are, represent an elegy for order and sanity and safety. They may well be the sound of the past.<BR/> <BR/>I find it a heartbreaking passage, and one of those occasions when music expresses what words never will. When it's over, we're back with our banal, sociopathic narrator, totally unchanged by the explosion reaching skyward behind him as he walks away, towards US. <BR/><BR/>Sometimes inspiration is so blinding that you wonder if the authors have any idea of how many levels on which their art is operating . Cale and Eno being who they are, I'm sure they had more than a clue, but I'll bet this song scared even them.ZephyrJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03695381091158735437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2367859846495854541.post-57919433487538393992007-07-27T14:36:00.000-04:002007-07-27T14:36:00.000-04:00I meant to mention this when you first posted, but got sidetracked...<BR/><BR/>When I saw Cale live, he mentioned that this lyric began as an exercise in assembling banal lines from a Spanish-to-English phrasebook. I think "Grandfather's House" was written the same way—it sounds that way, anyhow.<BR/><BR/>I'm betting that the idea for the technique came from Eno—it's a dada/"found poetry" kind of thing. Eugene Ionesco did the same thing with his play <I>The Bald Soprano</I>Jack Feerickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06957899718721006732noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2367859846495854541.post-38498586123624813652007-05-25T14:31:00.000-04:002007-05-25T14:31:00.000-04:00I agree, the final of Cordoba is one of the finest moments in Cale´s recording career.Onohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14883739754530542975noreply@blogger.com