ON SONGS, SONGWRITING, WRITING, AND OTHER TOPICS (with apologies to James Rose, singer, songwriter, writer of many topics)

- On my way to work one day I heard over National Public Radio a haunting cover of Somewhere Over The Rainbow. The arrangement was very, very humble - only a ukulele accompanied the velvety texture of the singer's voice in a slightly reggaish tempo. But the song was played only as a gap filler, utilized to break the silence between a featured story and headline news, and as a result the singer and his cd were never identified. Time, effort, and Barnes & Noble's listening station came to the rescue; the cd turns out to be Facing Future by Hawaiian icon Iz Kamakawiwo 'Ole and the track I longed for was actually a medley of 2 songs - that, and (Louis Armstrong's) What A Wonderful World - a most beautiful rendition of two of my most favorite songs.

- There must be a hundred ways to compliment a songwriter, like a cool comment by another great songwriter; or by a classical arrangement of his song with full symphony orchestra; or through cover by an indigenous tribal singing group. A) In VH1's 100 Greatest songs of Rock N' Roll James Taylor named Bridge Over Troubled Water as his choice because, in his profound words, its lyrics are heroic. B) Lennon and McCartney had been honored so many times and one of them is via a cd of their best songs by (I believe) the London Symphony Orchestra. C) In a tribute to Jonnie Mitchell shown on tv many years back, there was this African group that performed her song You Turn Me On I'm A Radio and that single performance not only brought the entire music hall down but must have earned for Mitchell a fresh million fan-converts.

- Puerto Rican Esmeralda Santiago, in an interview, distinguished her reading from her writing in this wise: she reads because of the occassional need to turn her back from herself, and she writes because of the frequent need to be herself completely.

- I finally got me the soundtrack for The Motorcycle Diaries, and its final track, Al Otro Lado Del Rio, brings back memories of the movie. The song is played at the end of the film when credits are being shown, and not one in the moviehouse when I saw it moved much of a muscle until the last word was sung.

- The song was written and performed by Jorge Drexler, a name I wish could carve a niche in the world of music, at least in fairness to this one great song. Rema, rema, it quips, and as I listen to that song I contemplate on rowing, rowing, to the other side of my own river.

- Either the TMD's scriptwriter or Che Guevarra himself was wrong to write this on account of the motorcycle journey: "Wandering around our America has changed me more than I thought. I am not me anymore, at least I'm not the same as I was." If I were to react to this I would have said, On the contrary Mr. Guevarra, the more that you are you now because you have found yourself already.

- When I got Dave Matthews' solo cd Some Devil less than a year ago, I bet for the song Oh to be a huge hit. Was I wrong? If I played it only once and covered my ears I would never have heard of it. But I have played it a hundred times and never covered my ears, so I've heard it a hundred times. (In comparison, I've heard this stupid song Slow Motion For Me a million times and I wished I have enormous hands to completely devoid myself of hearing a million times.)

- In the book that classifies fins (cool) and decks (uncool), it is stated that decks are those who, among others, play Dave Matthews in their car stereo. Dang. And all the while I thought I was fin.

- I guess I am, even by a /100. Fins' poet of choice, the book says, is William Blake, who happens to be one of my poets of choice. Likewise I don't wear a 10-gallon hat nor walk around carrying an iguana, referred to as strong indications of a bona fide deck.

- Starbucks was selling Artists' Choice cds - and they had Sarah Mclachlan's choices one time I was there. This songwriter was obviously melancholic, not only evident from her songs but also on her choices of other artists' songs. Three of her picks are probably musicworld's saddest songs by saddest artists: Poses by Rufus Wainright, Secret Heart by Ron Sexsmith, and Right In Time by Lucinda Williams.

- James Joyce popularized the use of chiasm in modern literature. The title of this post is close to chiasmic, though not quite. If I were to illustrate the method, it should be this. Face the mirror and find from reality to reflection the following sequence: background, you, foreground, foreground, you, background. In Joyce's most famous last paragraph of his most famous novella The Dead, he used the method like no other, "...falling faintly...faintly falling..." for the simple chiasmic reason I hereto state - the soundness of literature begets the literature of sound.

- KD Lang's new cd 49th Parallel (or something) carries her version of the Neil Young classic After the Gold Rush, and she sounded like Rita Coolidge in peak form. Great a song it is, I still can't figure out what Young meant...Looking mother nature silver seed to a new home in the sun.
Young also said in that song that a friend told him something and he was hoping it was a lie. He never divulged what his friend told him. Wherefore we can never judge its truthfulness, poor thing.

- Finally, and without intending to turn off my good friend Jet David, her "snake comments" brought to mind this William Saroyan short story with the long title (I hope I remember this correctly now) Old Country Advice to Young Americans On How To Handle A Snake where the lead character, an Armenian (and assumingly an Arab) said to little kids playing a board game (wherein an arrow pointing to a snake gets a 10 point deduction) that in his hometown snakes were revered; that every proper family is not without proper snakes. On 2nd reading of the story one realizes the lead character to be the snake himself, from the 1st sentence describing him as gargoyle-faced, to his description of the movement of the snake in their own house, and to to his own movement when he leaves the house that resembles the movement of the snake. Timely, very timely, from the text, from between the text, (beginning with the title.) Timely, very timely.

- Chiasmic, eh!