Musical Postcard

Put on your headphones and listen. You will love it...

Sending love and good wishes for a jubilant summertime.

Love,

G.

I'm not scared of dying,
And I don't really care.
If it's peace you find in dying,
Well then let the time be near.
If it's peace you find in dying,
And if dying time is here,
Just bundle up my coffin
'Cause it's cold way down there.
I hear that its cold way down their*Yeah, crazy cold way down their*.

[Chorus:]
And when I die, and when I'm gone,
There'll be one child born
In this world to carry on,
to carry on.

Now troubles are many, they're as deep as a well.
I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell.
Swear there ain't no heaven and I pray there ain't no hell,
But I'll never know by living, only my dying will tell.
Yes only my dying will tell.
Yeah, only my dying will tell.

[Chorus]

Give me my freedom for as long as I be.
All I ask of living is to have no chains on me.
All I ask of living is to have no chains on me,
And all I ask of dying is to go naturally.
Oh I want to go naturally.

Here I go,
Hey Hey!
Here comes the devil,
Right Behind.
Look out children,
Here he comes!
Here he comes! Hey...

Don't want to go by the devil.
Don't want to go by demon.
Don't want to go by Satan,
Don't want to die uneasy.
Just let me go naturally.

and when I die,
When I'm dead, dead and gone,
There'll be one child born in our world to carry on,
To carry on.

 

* (no joke, "their" version of "there" on the ringtone website I copied and pasted from. :-D

A Bit of Joni

My daughter and daughter-in-law just returned from a trip to Paris, which reminded me of this song. 

I lived in Paris in 1965 and 66 and it's true, they did kiss on main street...and in the subway, the grocery store and especially in the park.  :-x

Happy Hour Friday

 

paintings by Joni Mitchell

Happy Hour Friday -- Billie Holiday

Happy Hour Friday - Sam Phillips

The video I really wanted to share with you won't allow embedding, so I'll link to it here, in the remote chance that there is anyone else out there who is a Sam Phillips fan. She is this Sam Phillips, no this Sam Phillips. It gets  a little confusing...

Here is a video I did find by Sam Phillips for a song off the album Martinis and Bikinis, from 1994.

 When I Fall by Sam Phillips

Ricky Lee Jones

Ricky Lee Jones

The Whole World Remind Me of My Dog

 Never mind the cute doggy video, the song is soooooooooo groovy...
 "This whole world reminds me of my dog".  That is my philosophy. Though I no longer have a dog, I think of him still...

Happy Halloween All You Pagans

Natalie Merchant performs, in song, a rather horrific old fairytale.  Good stuff from Natalie on BBC radio.

Pagan Sphinx Photo © All Rights Reserved

Music for Sunday - Ani Difranco, Joni Mitchell and Lucinda Williams

...cuz when I look around I think this, this is good enough
I try to allow whatever life brings
Cuz when I look down, I miss all the good stuff
and when I look up, I trip over things...

~Ani Difranco

Ah. But what a lovely pain in the ass she is! ;-)

Music for Insomniacs - Leslie "Sam" Phillips

This week has been no-sleep hell. At least this morning, it was already 4:00 a.m. when I woke up. Earlier in the week it was 1:00 and I couldn't get back to sleep.

You'd think I'd be choosing lullabyes but it never seems to work that way when one's mind is going and going and going...

I need love

not some sentimental prison

I need god

not the political church...

- Sam Phillips 

Welcoming April and National Poetry Month

For mere "folk", the song lyrics here offer a lot to sink your teeth into. 

Joni Mitchell at her mature best. 

Enjoy.

Magdalene is trembling
Like a washing on a line
Trembling and gleaming
Never before was a man so kind
Never so redeeming

Enter the multitudes
In exxon blue
In radiation rose
Ecstasy
Now you tell me
Who you gonna get to do the dirty work
When all the slaves are free? 
(who’re you gonna get)

I am up a sycamore
Looking through the leaves
A sinner of some position
Who in the world can this heart healer be
This magical physician

Enter the multitudes
In exxon blue
In radiation rose
Misery
Now you tell me
Who you gonna get to do the dirty work
When all the slaves are free? 
(who’re you gonna get)

Enter the multitudes
The walking wounded
They come to this diver of the heart
Of the multitudes
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done

Oh, climb down, climb down he says to me
From the middle of unrest
They think is light is squandered
But he sees a stray in the wilderness
And I see how far I’ve wandered

Enter the multitudes
In exxon blue
In radiation rose
Apathy
Now you tell me
Who you gonna get to do the dirty work
When all the slaves are free? 
(who’re you gonna get)

Enter the multitudes
The walking wounded
They come to this diver of the heart
Of the multitudes
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done

Oh, all around the marketplace
The buzzing of the flies
The buzzing and the stinging
Divinely barren
And wickedly wise
The killer nails are ringing

Enter the multitudes
In exxon blue
In radiation rose
Tragedy
Now you tell me
Who you gonna get to do the dirty work
When all the slaves are free? 
(who’re you gonna get)

Pagan Sphinx Entertainment Highlight - Natalie Merchant - Sally Anne

 I loved this song when I first heard it by the excellent band The Horseflies. I was really excited that Natalie Merchant liked it enough to cover it a few years later. Her incredible voice more than does the song justice - it illuminates the story. Vague as it might be, when I hear this song, I imagine Jakarta and Argentina...

Joining Natalie on this Letterman performance is Horsefly members Judy Hyman on violin and at least one other member of the band, though I'm not sure which.

"The Horse Flies combine musical and lyrical quirkiness with beguiling wit and intelligence …  a melange of rock, folk, and minimalism … music that challenges the brain without sacrificing the groove."  (Chicago Tribune).

Pagan Sphinx Entertainment Highlight - Aimee Mann - I Should Have Known

Aimee Mann -- I Should've Known

Al | MySpace Video

Sublime

In aesthetics, the sublime (from the Latin sublimis ([looking up from] under the lintel, high, lofty, elevated, exalted) is the quality of greatness or vast magnitude, whether physical, moral, intellectual, metaphysical, aesthetic, spiritual or artistic. The term especially refers to a greatness with which nothing else can be compared and which is beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement or imitation. rest of entry here

I'm glad I found this video today. It was such a blustery, ever-changing day with wet leaves blowing and a sky that changed from sun to clouds to heavy drizzle in the blink of an eye. My own moods were consistently rapid-cycling today. I think today I identified with what it must be like for people who deal with bipolar disorder everyday. For my own loved one who deals with it, I'm just so grateful that she learned the love lesson well. It's helped her as a cushion. Love builds resiliency. It's in all the books, no matter how many different ways they try to write it.  ;-)

Okay. Without further ado ~~~~~~you must listen.

All the love,
Pagan Sphinx

Music for Sunday (On Wednesday, My Birthday) - Joni Mitchell - 4th of July - Night Ride Home

To me, Joni Mitchell is like Edith Piaf, Billie Holiday and Charles Mingus all in one person. Just as my birthday (July 1), the 4th of July and early summer are all woven together as parts of who I am. I love summer, the fireworks, the man beside me and all the music this elegant Canadian songbird, turned California girl, has given us over the decades.

I'm busy (class started on Monday and ends next Thursday but runs from 2:30 to 7:45: jam-packed) and a bit stressed but none the worse for wear, as they say. 83% happy, healthy and trying to make the most of life. If you've got that, there is not a whole to complain about. Well...unless the hormones are taking their toll on the emotions, as they are wont to do! When I'm in the thick of that, it always seems that I will be depressed forever, as I was way back when. Then it passes and I can see that it was just a bout of the blues and a bit of worry, which is normal and human.

I hope you are all well or hanging in. I'm thinking of you who visit often and as always, regretting I can't get to your blogs for every new post. And when I can, I am often called away by duty and cannot leave a comment. I wish you peace and a wonderful summer.

All the love,
Pagan Sphinx