Time spent: 10:30 - 20h
Average speed: very, very slow
Soundtrack: Bob Dylan: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, Nashville Skyline, New Morning, Desire and part of Pat Garret and Billy The Kid (I’m trying to do them in order, although I just realised I missed The Times They are A-Changin’), Tom Waits: Swordfishtrombones
Well, it was a great day, but it started with absolutely and most definitely the worst traffic jam I’ve ever encountered. I mean - it wasn’t even a traffic jam. We just sat there. For an hour. People were walking their dogs! I passed the time by messaging my wife and surfing the net, when the net worked. The rest of the time I just listened to Bob. Which was great. I felt no discomfort at all, beyond the guilt about keeping the engine on to keep the air conditioning running.
When I we got moving again I switched from Bob to Tom, and and again, surprised myself about how familiar I was with Swordfishtrombones. Good Lord, what an incredible album that is, and surely like no other. And of course I was familiar with it - I had forgotten that Dad gave me a copy of it in 1995! That’s 26 years to explore every corner, nook and cranny, and I was absolutely obsessed with the title track for a good while, and with good reason, it’s pretty amazing. I discovered a new track today though, in Shore Leave:
Well with buck shot eyes and a purple heart
I rolled down the national stroll
And with a big fat paycheck strapped to my hip sack
And a shore leave wristwatch underneath my sleeve
In a Hong Kong drizzle on Cuban heels
I rolled down the gutter to the Blood Bank
And I'd left all my papers on the Ticonderoga
And I was in a bad need of a shave
And I slopped at the corner on cold chow mein
And shot billards with a midget until the rain stopped
And I bought a long-sleeved shirt with horses on the front
And some gum and a lighter and a knife
And a new deck of cards with girls on the back
And I sat down and wrote a letter to my wife
And I said baby, I'm so far away from home
And I miss my baby so
Well, I can't make it by myself
I love you so
And I was pacing myself
Trying to make it all last
Squeezing all the life out of a lousy-two day pass
And I had a cold one at the Dragon
With some Filipino floor show
And I talked baseball with a lieutenant over a Singapore sling
And I wondered how the same moon outside over this Chinatown fair
Could look down on Illinois
And find you there
And you know I love you baby
And I'm so far away from home
I'm so far away from home
And I miss my baby so
I can't make it by myself
I love you so
I can remember a friend with pretensions to be a writer getting obsessed with what amounted to a Tom Waits beat poem quite awhile ago. I have had my moments with Frank’s Wild Years and The Crossroads (which has a story that dates back to my teens), but didn’t pay a great deal of attention to Shore Leave. I guess we find - or re-find - songs at the right time, because Shore Leave is sort of what I’m up to now. I’m a long way from home, I don’t really know what I’m doing, I can’t make it by myself, and I miss my baby so.
I feel for the protagonist, here. He seems - like so many of Tom Waits characters, like a pretty flawed guy that probably has any number of skeletons in his closet, and if he’s being honest, things about his past and even his present that he’d probably like to shield his “baby” from. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love her. Or that he really doesn’t feel like he won’t make it with out her. There’s probably some bits and pieces in there about wondering whether he deserves her or if he’s being as honest as he should be with her. Or even if he feels like she should be shielded from all of that, which is..... why he’s buying cards with girls on the back and going to Filipino floor shows a long way away from her prying eye. He seems like a man with some guilt to make up for, and some conflict to deal with.
Anyway: I listened to it five times today. It’s a great tune.
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