Quote of the Week - 10/31/12

I say murder is abstract.  You pull the trigger and after that you do not understand anything that happens

- Jean Paul Sartre

Happy Halloween from Sing a Song of Murder.

I

A THIN moon faints in the sky o'erhead,
And dumb in the churchyard lie the dead.
Walk we not, Sweet, by garden ways,
Where the late rose hangs and the phlox delays,
But forth of the gate and down the road,
Past the church and the yews, to their dim abode.
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.

II

Fear not that sound like wind in the trees:
It is only their call that comes on the breeze;
Fear not the shudder that seems to pass:
It is only the tread of their feet on the grass;
Fear not the drip of the bough as you stoop:
It is only the touch of their hands that grope--
For the year's on the turn and it's All Souls' night,
When the dead can yearn and the dead can smite.

III

And where should a man bring his sweet to woo
But here, where such hundreds were lovers too?
Where lie the dead lips that thirst to kiss,
The empty hands that their fellows miss,
Where the maid and her lover, from sere to green,
Sleep bed by bed, with the worm between?
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.

IV

And now they rise and walk in the cold,
Let us warm their blood and give youth to the old.
Let them see us and hear us, and say: "Ah, thus
In the prime of the year it went with us!"
Till their lips drawn close, and so long unkist,
Forget they are mist that mingles with mist!
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the dead can burn and the dead can smite.

V

Till they say, as they hear us--poor dead, poor dead!--
"Just an hour of this, and our age-long bed--
Just a thrill of the old remembered pains
To kindle a flame in our frozen veins,
A touch, and a sight, and a floating apart,
As the chill of dawn strikes each phantom heart--
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight."

VI

And where should the living feel alive
But here in this wan white humming hive,
As the moon wastes down, and the dawn turns cold,
And one by one they creep back to the fold?
And where should a man hold his mate and say:
"One more, one more, ere we go their way"?
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the living can learn by the churchyard light.

VII

And how should we break faith who have seen
Those dead lips plight with the mist between,
And how forget, who have seen how soon
They lie thus chambered and cold to the moon?
How scorn, how hate, how strive, wee too,
Who must do so soon as those others do?
For it's All Souls' night, and break of the day,
And behold, with the light the dead are away. . .

Edith Wharton, All Souls

                                         

Have a lovely day. Stay away from strange houses and old graveyards. Or don't.

Off Topic: Mutiny in Heaven - Nick Cave and the Cavemen

In between The Birthday Party and the Bad Seeds, there was "Nick Cave - Man or Myth?" and "Nick Cave and the Cavemen" (link).  The latter is pretty clever, huh?  I wouldn't really call them separate bands, more like attempts to try out different names.

But there's this . . .

Can someone please tell me what hell he's saying at the beginning of this video?  Is there anyone out there that can translate drunk-heroin-taking-Australian to English?

Papa Loved Mama

Papa Loved Mama, penned by Garth Brooks and Kim Williams, adds another tale to the the pantheon of tunes about killing your spouse/wife/partner/lover/obsession.  Seems a trucker has discovered that his wife likes to fool around while he's on the road.  Naturally he reacts to this in a calm, rational, manner:


Well the picture in the paper showed the scene real well
Papa's rig was buried in the local motel


Yep, he drives his semi into the motel room where she's holed up with her one night stand. You have to admit, "Papa" was creative.  Significant others in other tunes have been stabbed, shot (a popular option) cut with a razor, and beaten with sticks.  They've also been tied to chairs, then shot.  I'm pretty sure that "Papa Loved Mama" was the first song that involved death by truck.



Ever wanted to hear David Allan Coe cover this song?

Sing a Song of . . . Steamrollers?: The Big Tragedy AKA Slide Her Under The Door

"The Big Tragedy" contains no murders.  Yet the fate of "little Rosemarie" and the reaction of her beloved upon hearing the news of her demise makes it worthy of inclusion here.
When I first became aware of this song, it was titled "Slide Her Under the Door" sung by one Moses Longpiece. Turns out that when DJ Pete "Mad Daddy"Myers (of WHUS in Cleveland)  received the single, the record bore no mention of the title of the song or the name of the singer.  So the "Big Tragedy" became "Slide Her Under the Door" and Johnny Lance became Moses Longpiece.
I almost hate to call this a novelty song.  I love the guitar sound, and Moses' . . . er, Johnny's smooth, deep vocals.  The punchline and the "CLANG" of the instruments brings it together perfectly. A lovely, near forgotten cut from a time when rock n' roll was truly strange.

Another Look: Psycho

(Original post here)

Elvis Costello's version:



Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman give it a go:

Hello Darling . . .It's been a long time.

Yeah, I've been gone awhile.
At the end of last year I decided to stop hemming and hawing and devote my free time to writing a novel.  It's been a long process, and has left me with little time for other writing activities, including this blog.
So am I back? Not entirely.  But fear not!  I've enlisted the help of other writers with similar interests (murder, madness, Nick Cave) to help me keep my little blog alive.  So stay tuned.