Comments on Fragments of a Cale Season: Sanities

Jack, I think I'm responsible for "Safeties" - I m...

2007-11-12T13:52:00.000-05:00

Jack, I think I'm responsible for "Safeties" - I mooted it as the original title back on Chinese Envoy. I checked Welsh for Zen, though, and it was "Sanctus."

Cale later did an electronic composition called "Sanctus," which is included on the Paris S'eveille compilation. It bears no resemblance to this.

Moore's quoting of Cale - his mis-quoting, even - ...

2007-11-12T12:10:00.000-05:00

Moore's quoting of Cale - his mis-quoting, even - is still one of my favourite epigraphs of all time.

I came to John Cale via Music For A New Society, s...

2007-11-12T10:41:00.000-05:00

I came to John Cale via Music For A New Society, specifically via that citation in WATCHMEN—and, in retrospect, it's surprising that I kept listening, so determinedly off-putting and abrasive an album it is. And then to understand that this same lunatic could make a record like Paris 1919, and that, in context, neither Paris nor New Society is at all unrepresentative...

The story behind the title has several variations—I've heard another version where the track was meant to be called "Safeties"—and it seems like a tale that has grown in the telling; that is, there's the teensiest whiff of bullshit around the whole thing.

P.S. "St. Andrew (This Battle Is in the Air)", a b...

2007-11-12T00:38:00.000-05:00

P.S. "St. Andrew (This Battle Is in the Air)", a bagpipe-driven song off the last White Stripes album, bears considerable similarities to this one in both concept and execution. I'm just sayin'.