Fegmaniax Digest Volume 4 Number 75 Send posts to fegmaniax@ecto.org Send subscribe/unsubscribe commands to majordomo@ecto.org Send comments, etc. to the listowner at owner-fegmaniax@ecto.org FegMANIAX! Web Page: http://remus.rutgers.edu/~woj/fegmaniax/ Archives are available at http://archive.uwp.edu/pub/music/lists/fegmaniax/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's Topics: ------- ------- various pointlessness Zebadee Re: I have SEEN a Vegetarian Cat! It sounds great when you're dead I Often Dream of Robyn spam Neat CRD: Dwarfbeat Sounds Great When You're Drunk (100% RH content) Re: Sounds Great When You're Drunk (100% RH content) Somebody's Chords every night our voices meet in darkness (was "Sounds Great When Somebody's Corrections fwd: Deadness no robyn content. Re: every night our voices meet in darkness Love songs, a vegetarian cat, and e-mail romance Re: Sounds Great When You're Drunk (10% RH content) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1996 17:10:19 +1200 From: james.dignan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (James Dignan) Subject: various pointlessness Reply RH Mike Godwin wrote: >I definitely saw an old forties movie the other day of a Noel Coward >play called Blithe Spirit, in which >the hero (played by a young Rex Harrison) has trouble choosing between >his Wife and His Dead Wife. A strong influence there, I would have >thought. I'm pretty sure that Robyn has said that this was the main influence for this song. If you haven't seen the movie, check it out, BTW. A little dated, but a lot of fun - especially Margaret Rutherford's performance as the dotty old psychic. >>This Guthrie-Dylan-Bragg axis... >Obviously Rex is referring to JANET Guthrie, the race car driver. And >Dylan, the character played brilliantly by that master thespian Luke Perry >on "Beverly Hills 90210". And Fort Bragg (though I'm somewhat puzzled by >his inclusion of a military base in connection with a race car driver and >a TV character). erm, that's Sir William Bragg (1862-1942), Nobel laureate in physics; Thomas Guthrie, a nineteenth century Scottish church and school reformer; and Dylan, the talking snail in British children's TV programme "The Magic Roundabout". James ------------------------------ From: TPJSHEDS@aol.com Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1996 02:03:30 -0400 Subject: Zebadee >Dylan, the talking snail in British children's TV programme "The Magic >Roundabout". "Brian" wasn't he ? Tim (Kaczynski) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Apr 1996 22:37:16 -0700 (PDT) From: Glen Uber Subject: Re: I have SEEN a Vegetarian Cat! On Fri, 19 Apr 1996, Jay Brownlee wrote: :You see, we need 'our song.' Which brings up an interesting topic: Best :Robyn Hitchcock Love Song. : :Suggestions? : HELLO??? It's so obvious! "I've Got The Hots", of course. ;) Congratulations to you both, --g Glen Uber hirsute@u.washington.edu http://weber.u.washington.edu/d83/hirsute/ Dept. of Linguistics Univ. of Washington Seattle, Washington USA ***************************************** * "No man...can _be_ a genius: but all * * men _have_ a genius, to be served or * * disobeyed at their own peril." * * --Ananda Coomaraswamy * ***************************************** ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1996 12:46:30 +0100 (BST) From: M R Godwin Subject: It sounds great when you're dead Your brother is A DRUNK The words after 'formaldehyde' sound like A TRUNK to me, but that doesn't make much sense. The Egyptians used to do a great version. Did anybody tape it? - Mike Godwin PS Hi, Rex! I think I mentioned the Welsh police choirs some time ago. Anglophilia rools OK! ------------------------------ From: Keith Hanlon Subject: I Often Dream of Robyn Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1996 13:02:11 -0400 (EDT) I rarely remember my dreams, so it's always a big deal. I had to share this one with my fellow fegs because of it's subject matter. My dream opened with me flipping through a stack of 7" singles that I supposedly owned. One that I remember was by Monster Truck 5, a band from Columbus, Ohio. Then, I found one that I do own in real life: "I Something You." Immediately I learned that Robyn Hitchcock would be on the David Letterman show. Of course, I didn't watch it on TV... I was there. The show was not in Dave's normal studio.. but in an office building. The show opened showing Robyn's plane touching down at the airport. Attached to the plane was a windsock, longer than the plane itself. It had collected objects and insects during it's trip (there was a hornet in it - yeterday I found the biggest hornet I ever saw in my basement - perhaps there was a wasp in the windsock as well!). While the plane landed, you could hear the announcer say that Dave's guests would be Robyn and Nicole Kidman (I just played Batman Forever pinball yesterday). We then cut to an alley somehwere... the woman who played Edwina's mom on "Absolutely Fabulous" was hosting the show. "I remember when I first met Robyn. He was very young, and he was singing a song. I can't remember it, but it went something like, "I something you.... dah dah dah dah dah dah." That's all I remember. I may have joined the list too late, but if this hasn't been a thread before, perhaps we can try it out. Have you ever dreamt of Robyn? Take care, Keith ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1996 16:40:29 -0500 From: Tim Bugbee Subject: spam For those of you who were bombarded with emails containing my home and beeper number, I am truly sorry. In my absence at work, I activated an automatic reply macro, totally forgetting that it would send the email in response to all external messages as well. I've fixed the problem and will go back to lurksville. Tim ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 01:24:02 -0400 (EDT) From: Terry Marks Subject: Neat Just noting that the Robyn Hitchcock and Echo and the Bunnymen lists are both at the same place. Sorry to bother you all. Terry "The Human Mellotron" Marks a013645t@bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 01:25:32 -0400 (EDT) From: Terry Marks Subject: CRD: Dwarfbeat Now this was a tough one... hard to be sure about this, especially the A chords. ALso included is lyrics to "Some Body", in the hopes that someone will figure it out @SONG: Dwarfbeat A G That's what happens accidentally when you're in the mood C D for a bit of nothing much or even just some food C G That's what happens every day between you say and between you do A D that's what happens every second to you that's what happens unintentionaly when you're playing cards there's a smell of burning and a screeching in the yard there's a chicken in the chimney, there's a book on what to do but I've never read it, baby, have you? D So you feel like a dwarf who feels like a king yeah dwarf has some fun G D when there's no one tall to be compared with. That's what happens accidentally when you're on a boat the sea is full of iron gloves you wonder how they float there's a suit of armour eating scampi by your side when he lifts the visor there's nothing inside so you look for the scampi and you feel like a dwarf yeah dwarf has some fun when there's no one tall to be compared with that's what happens accidentally when you're on a train everybody's made of glass you can see right through their brains When the train goes underwater, it gets green and black as night that's ok, cause someone turns on the light and the fish all come round and they stare through the glass and its you in the bowl cause there's no one else to be copmared with @SONG: Some Body Somebody wants to talk but Somebody doesn't want to hear. Somebody says it shouldn't worry its a waste of time trying to get out of here so you cry your life away baby, you just cry Somebody tries too hard like a rear wheel spinning in the rut There's a clock ticking on an empty beach there's a girl sleeping in an empty youse you're so full you're coming out your ears baby, your so full is there anything else to spare of somebody walks around blindfolded with his hands tied behind his back somebody says it makes no difference if he's in the pink or in the red or in the black so you cry your life away baby, you just cry Terry "The Human Mellotron" Marks a013645t@bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us ------------------------------ From: RxBroome@aol.com Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 01:27:29 -0400 Subject: Sounds Great When You're Drunk (100% RH content) I hear the lyric in question as: "Your sister is a butterfly Your brother is a drunk You gaze at him reclining in formaldehyde A drunk." Okay, I'm not so sure about those last two syllables at ALL, but my interpretation is just throwaway enough to be correct. Great song! I corrupted a friend of mine in high school, who was a classical music fanatic and is, in fact, now a respected modern classical composer, by introducing him to Robyn's music. He became fanatical, covering his notebooks and various blackboards at school with Robyn lyrics, especially "Sounds Great". His father, a college professor and recovering alcoholic, was at first appalled by the lyrics to "Sounds Great", which he thought of as advocating suicide (he'd probably heard a lot of hype about Judas Priest and backwards messages and was concerned about his son listening to - gasp- ROCK MUSIC). Then for some reason this gentleman gave it a second lesson, and then subjected his son and myself to an hour- long discourse on how sophisticated the song was on a Freudian level... y'see, central character had witnessed Freud's "primal scene" when his parents "make it in the bedroom", etc, thus accounting for his sunsequent sociopathy. This made Robyn a sudden and remarkably insightful genius to the professor Okay... Unfortunately, the professor was more correct than he know in his initial interpretation, at least as far as his son was concerned, for the son was soon to wrap his speeding car around a big oak tree-- twice, in fact-- in what only I and one other friend were to ever learn was a very earnest suicide attempt. He was very depressed about a number of very silly things, you see, and my life for some time thereafter consisted of trying to help him out of that depression while he languished in bed recovering from a death wish he'd come very near to fulfilling. Quite an onus for a 17 year old... That whole nasty scene (combined, admittedly, with an aesthetic disappointment with the "Queen Elvis" album) led me to swear off listening to Robyn for quite some time. Not because I thought Robyn was "responsible" or any such rubbish, but just because those records, especially "IODOT", brought back some really hideous memories of what people can devlove into (and to this day, "The Cars She Used to Drive" can make me come very close to wretching if it sneaks up on me in an unguarded moment). Ironically, I only began to appreciate Robyn again the next time I myself was relatively depressed (nothing comparable to what the son must've felt, mind you) and the best moments of "Eye" began to catch my ear, months after buying and subsequently ignoring it. I know, it's a heavy trip, but if this is a forum for discussing "the music of Robyn Hitchcock", it's worth mentioning the manner in which the Man's music has impacted our lives, and this seems as relevant as discussing which songs are suitable love songs, or whatever. For what it's worth, I see nothing in Robyn's music to advocate voluntarily shuffling off this mortal coil-- quite the contrary. But he can be dark. Of all the music I introduced my poor friend to, the only artists he took to heart were Robyn and the Velvet Underground, and I've ultimately come to grips with the fact that someone who would cling only to those two signposts was just seeking a one-way ticket into the void, to the point where he clung only to the darkest aspects of essentially positive artists (the VU is a harder case, but hell, by the end even Lou Reed was "Beginning to See the Light"...) ______________________ On a liter note, this reminds me of something else from those high school daze... The first time I heard "Element of Light" was on a dub that I purchased from a friend of a friend who was divesting himself of tapes to "go digital". So I paid 50 cents for a dub of a Robyn album I'd never heard... what the hell? What I got was something which, in retrospect, makes no sense. It did NOT include "Ted Woody & Junior" or "Raymond Chandler Evening" (nor any of the "bonus" tracks")... and odder still, the remaining tracks were in a completely different order! Something like this: The President Bass Winchester Somewhere Apart If You Were a Priest Airscape Lady Waters Never Stop Bleeding --the decay to which cut off quite abruptly. My first clue that something was amiss came when I saw the "Raymond Chandler" video on 120 Minutes, and the album was listed as "EOL"... I then looked up the genuine track listing and listened back to my dub. Bizarrely, even on close examination, there were no obvious edits between the tracks, and there was quite a bit of space left at the end of the tape. And I still can't figure out why anyone would bother to resequence this great album, especially to the exclusion of one of its singles and best tracks... still, I guess that's what they'd done, unless any of you have ever heard of such a weirdly truncated version being commercially or promotionally issued. Well? Sorry for being so long-winded, but at least I was relevant this time. Rex ------------------------------ From: "Brian Huddell" Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 01:52:21 +0000 Subject: Re: Sounds Great When You're Drunk (100% RH content) RxBroome@aol.com writes: [hard, sad, but felt stuff cut] > For what it's worth, I see > nothing in Robyn's music to advocate voluntarily shuffling off this mortal > coil-- quite the contrary. But he can be dark. One assumes that we are a bunch of folks who find that RH makes our lives a tad easier to bear. But I'm fascinated by this fact: we are all, by definition as Robyn's fans, people who have made a point of looking the hooded one in the eye, taking his measurements, counting his teeth. The aura of welcome cordiality surrounding this list belies an undercurrent: you can't love this music without occasionally encountering your own potential for eventual corpse-hood. We laugh about it; Robyn invites us to do so and I for one jump at the chance. Robyn's Manifesto on the GOF cover goes a long way toward explaining his darker tendencies. What's our excuse? O' ye soon-to-be piles of goo, ye heaps of bones in the making: what do we make of, get from, do with Robyn's many dances with Mr. D.? Does anyone find it therapeutic? Does anyone ignore it? Does anyone wish it would go away? Does anyone wish _I_ would go away? Glad I'm doing the asking and not the answering, Brian ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 02:33:55 -0500 From: JH3 Subject: Somebody's Chords I promised to do this over three months ago and I just never got around to it. Actually, I had a flat tire... and then the dog ate it... Or was it my vegetarian cat? Anyway, this one's much easier than it looks. --John "JH3" Hedges ----------------- S O M E B O D Y ----------------- D5: XX0230 Csus2: X30030 G5 (B bass): X20030 Bb6 (v1): X10030 A7sus4: X02030 A7: X02020 Bb6 (v2): X1303X C9 (the hook): X3233X If someone has a better way to differentiate the two versions of Bb6, feel free to correct me. Charted, the verse is basically this: -------020-------------020-------------020-------------020------ -----3-----3---------3-----3---------3-----3---------3-----3---- ---2---------2-----0---------0-----0---------0-----0---------0-- -0-------------0---------------0---------------0-----------------0... -----------------3---------------2---------------1-------------1 -------(D5)----------(Csus2)-----------(G5)----------(Bb6 v1)--- There's a bit more to it, but you get the idea. The last half of that is fairly hard to play the way Robyn does it, so I usually just leave out the 0-2-0 on the high E string. What can I say, I'm lazy. D5 Csus2 G5(B bass) Somebody... wants to talk but Bb6(v1) D5 Somebody... doesn't want to hear D5 Csus2 Somebody says it makes no difference, it's a G5(B bass) Bb6(v1) A7sus4 - A7 Waste of time trying to... get out of here G Bb6(2) A7 D5 So you cry........... your life away G C9 Baby you just cry.... D5 Csus2 G5(B bass) Somebody... tries too hard like a Bb6(v1) D5 Rear wheel spinning in a rut D5 Csus2 G5(B bass) ...There's a clock ticking... on an empty beach Bb6(v1) A7sus4 - A7 There's a girl sleeping... in an empty hut G Bb6(2) A7 D5 You're so full...........you're coming out your ears G C9 Baby, you're so full... F A ...Is there anything left to spare of Somebody... walks around... blindfolded with his Hands tied behind his back Somebody says it makes no difference if you're In the pink, or in the red, or in the black So you cry... your life away Baby, you just cry... (Waaaahhh.) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Apr 96 10:02:13 CDT From: Truman Peyote Subject: every night our voices meet in darkness (was "Sounds Great When You're Drunk" In answer to Brian's question, I quote one of my favorite poets, one W.B. Yeats, who commented that sex and death were the only subjects worthy of a serious mind. I am in 100 percent agreement with Mr. W.B. on this, being that sex and death are both inescapable and inexplicable (and so obviously deeply linked) conditions of human existence. No, I don't ignore the "dances with Mr. D", as Brian phrases it, nor do I at all wish them to go away. Quite the opposite. These are precisely the sorts of topics that I like to plunge headlong into and I wholeheartedly admire anyone who explores them with the depth, complexity, verbal dexterity and humor displayed by such as RH. Maybe this explains why "Eye" is my favorite solo RH record, as in my opinion and that of many others it is his darkest post-SBs recording (yes, I know this is debatable, although personally I can't think of a solo RH album that is consistently thematically darker). In answer to Keith- the Robyn dream thread HAS appeared at least once that I can remember, and probably more than that. I myself have only had one, and I'm afraid it wasn't nearly as entertaining as yours or the one Kay posted about awhile back :). Mostly because hardly anything happened in it. In the dream I was out after an RH show and he happened to turn up in the bar my friends and I had decided to go to. I don't remember how it happened but we did end up in the same booth (and curiously enough, the people we were both with had disappeared with no explanation other than dream logic). This is where you would think it would get interesting, but it doesn't, as we just sat there and drank and stared at each other. I remember feeling extremely nervous and that's about it; although there didn't seem to be a pressing need to talk, I did feel as though I were being weighed and examined by someone who saw directly into my brain. Fascinating and unpleasant at the same time. At this point the dream segues to me screaming as I see my grandmother smashing my guitar to bits, and the rest may be of interest to those in the therapy profession but is irrelevant to the question, really, so I'll leave off here. I also once had a dream where I met Bob Dylan in a coffee shop. He sked me if I liked the macadamia nut chocolate bar I was eating, and then vanished. I guess I'm just doomed to relatively prosaic dreams :). Susan "You act suprised/ You shouldn't be/The world is full of creeps like me"- Lyle Lovett :) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 12:15:34 -0500 From: JH3 Subject: Somebody's Corrections I'm sending this again because it was missing the intro (oops!) and I incorrectly identified Dsus2 as D5 for some reason. (Must've mis-entered it into the chord computer...) Actually you could just play D if you want, ther's no need to be legalistic about it. Anyway, sorry about the mistake. I'll try to do better... --John H. ----------------- S O M E B O D Y (again) ----------------- The intro is Gm (3X0333) and Dsus2 (Gb bass) (2X0230), like this: -----------3---------------0 (or 2)----- ---------3---3-----------3----------3--- -------3-------3-------2--------------2- -----0---------------0------------------ ... ---------------------------------------- -2-3-------------3-2-------------------- Dsus2: XX0230 Csus2: X30030 G5 (B bass): X20030 Bb6 (v1): X10030 A7sus4: X02030 A7: X02020 Bb6 (v2): X1303X C9 (the hook): X3233X The verse: -------020-------------020-------------020-------------020------ -----3-----3---------3-----3---------3-----3---------3-----3---- ---2---------2-----0---------0-----0---------0-----0---------0-- -0-------------0---------------0---------------0-----------------0... -----------------3---------------2---------------1-------------1 ----(Dsus2)---------(Csus2)-----------(G5)----------(Bb6 v1)--- Dsus2 Csus2 G5(B bass) Somebody... wants to talk but Bb6(v1) D5 Somebody... doesn't want to hear Dsus2 Csus2 Somebody says it makes no difference, it's a G5(B bass) Bb6(v1) A7sus4 - A7 Waste of time trying to... get out of here G Bb6(2) A7 Dsus2 So you cry........... your life away G C9 Baby you just cry.... Dsus2 Csus2 G5(B bass) Somebody... tries too hard like a Bb6(v1) D5 Rear wheel spinning in a rut Dsus2 Csus2 G5(B bass) ...There's a clock ticking... on an empty beach Bb6(v1) A7sus4 - A7 There's a girl sleeping... in an empty hut G Bb6(2) A7 Dsus2 You're so full...........you're coming out your ears G C9 Baby, you're so full... F A ...Is there anything left to spare of Somebody... walks around... blindfolded with his Hands tied behind his back Somebody says it makes no difference if you're In the pink, or in the red, or in the black So you cry... your life away Baby, you just cry... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Apr 96 10:19:00 -0800 From: Russ Reynolds Subject: fwd: Deadness ======== Original Message ======== Hi! new here. No access to FTP's etc. (only a 2400b modem and some wax,,,)--- Can anyone fill in the blanks from IODOT?====??? Your sister is a butterfly Your brother is a {?} [one syllable] You gaze at him reclining{?} in formaldehyde {??} [two syllables].............. Any help would be appreciated! Sillyme (104264,41@compu$erve.com) ======== Fwd by: Russ Reynolds ======== drunk, a trunk? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 14:21:29 -0400 (EDT) From: Eugene B Mirman Subject: no robyn content. Viva la Canada! About a year ago, I remeber people on this list talking about the bands Game Theory and Loud Family. I heard some Loud Family and really liked it. Can anyone suggest some albums of theirs to get? Thanks. -Eugene P.S. Anyone know when Robyn next album is schedualed for release? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tipper Gore said to Lou Reed, "Lou Reed, how can we communicate better with our children?" Lou Reed responded, "We would probably have to sit down and talk about it over a bottle of scotch, and maybe, some crack." It's back! My lovely Humor Home page: http://hamp.hampshire.edu/~ebmF92 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Apr 96 13:38 PDT From: upstart@mindlink.bc.ca (Renee Lynn) Subject: Re: every night our voices meet in darkness I had a dream once that Robyn borrowed my Volkswagen and as he drove off in it I realized that if he looked in the glove compartment he was going to find a sappy, autographed picture of my stupid exboyfriend's stupid old band, and some Devo cassettes that I listen to in the car. I was mortified and humiliated. I don't think he ever brought the car back, and I remember that he seemed to like my sister better than he liked me. What else is new.. ; ) RLT ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Apr 96 16:24:53 CST From: The Goddess Subject: Love songs, a vegetarian cat, and e-mail romance I wanted to thank everyone who posted suggestions for a love song for Jay and me. I would send you all personal "thanks", but I think that would take more time and energy than I have. The suggestions were all great, but I was surprised that no one mentioned "Heaven". It seems logical to me as did the song "Love". Jay and I have to listen to 37 songs together this weekend to make a choice. Since there were a few people who wanted to hear about how Jay and I got together, I thought I would indulge you. I posted a while back asking about other Texas fegs. Jay was one of the three people responding to that post. When he mentioned he was in Lubbock, I got really excited because I'm from Lubbock although I go to school in San Antonio now. The probability of there being more than one feg in/from Lubbock were slim to none. I e-mailed him, and we began to correspond back and forth, discovering we had a lot more in common than just loving Robyn. Eventually he asked if he could call me, which I allowed him to do. After we talked over the phone, we were in love. He came to meet me that weekend, driving through a horrible snowstorm just to meet me. Everything went as well in person as in e-mail and over the phone. Now we're head over heels and quite happy and in love, even though the distance is quite annoying. But we'll manage. I want to apologize to those of you who are readign this grumbling, "Damn it, there's no RH content in here", but I had to deal with the whole Green Day/etc. conversation, which I thought was a whole lot less interesting. BTW, I could care less about Green Day's influences. I just don't think they're worthy of too much consideration. Please don't flame me just because I'm silly in love and wanted to share it with all of you. Sarah ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Sounds Great When You're Drunk (10% RH content) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 96 10:51:40 -0700 From: Tom Clark Rex wrote: > But he can be dark. Of all the music I >introduced my poor friend to, the only artists he took to heart were Robyn and >the Velvet Underground, and I've ultimately come to grips with the fact that >someone who would cling only to those two signposts was just seeking a >one-way ticket into the void, to the point where he clung only to the darkest >aspects of essentially positive artists (the VU is a harder case, but hell, >by the end even Lou Reed was "Beginning to See the Light"...) Anybody interested in the VU and the Warhol Factory scene should check out Mary Woronov's book "Swimming Underground." She was one of Andy's "Chelsea Girls" and writes beautifully about the whole era, including some interesting side notes about Lou. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming... -tom ************************************* * Tom Clark * Apple Computer, Inc. "If you drink, don't drive. * tclark@apple.com Don't even putt." * tclark@netgate.net - Dean Martin * http://www.netgate.net/~tclark ************************************* ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The End of this Fegmaniax Digest.