From: owner-jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org (jangle-poets-digest) To: jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org Subject: jangle-poets-digest V9 #222 Reply-To: jangle-poets@smoe.org Sender: owner-jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk jangle-poets-digest Saturday, October 4 2008 Volume 09 : Number 222 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [JP] "Sun Burns Gold" [MercyHouse1@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2008 01:53:24 EDT From: MercyHouse1@aol.com Subject: [JP] "Sun Burns Gold" Maura's new song "Sun Burns Gold" has been sort of the shrinking violet, lost amidst the jangle and hum surrounding some of her other new songs like "Chains," "Shadows With the Lonely," and "Just the Rain." But since it's been haunting my steps lately, hanging out in all of the same haunts as me, I thought I'd better take account of it. It's a very personal song. The Kennedys had dreamed of living in Northampton, and one day their dream came true. But something happened along the way. Maura has mentioned a bout of melancholy, brought on by a really cold winter. The winters are more harsh in Western Massachusetts than where Pete and Maura lived before, in Virginia and in New York City. But there is also the "winter of our discontent." For all of the pluses of having a home in the Pioneer Valley, maybe something was missing. Maybe there was some place that Maura needed to be, and she wasn't getting there. A place can be a state of mind too -- as in Wendy MaHarry's song, "A Place Like Home." "Sun Burns Gold" (verse 1) "The snow sparkled at first fall December diamonds in our eyes Were they only reflections of light Or tears from a winter sky? How the wind blows cold right through me Can't we wait it out here inside Oh it might be forever, or til the sun burns gold again." Maura's solo project has entailed a time of new beginnings. So almost instinctively I looked to the first Pete and Maura Kennedy album, River of Fallen Stars, as a template for understanding, since River of Fallen Stars was a new beginning for them too, at the very beginning of their career as the duo. I immediately thought of "Winterheart" -- but then I decided that "Sun Burns Gold" reveals some kind of "anti-Winterheart." The Winterheart woman is "like a goddess with a loaded gun," whereas "Sun Burns Gold" portrays one who comes off as innocent, defenseless, almost helpless. The Winterheart woman's "passion flashes in the august sun," whereas "Sun Burns Gold" emanates far from the heat of summer, out of the deep-freeze of December. In the light-deprivation of the darkest days of the year, there is a positive craving for the sun in "Sun Burns Gold" -- like those flower-children in Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" -- "She shows you where to look Among the garbage and the flowers There are heroes in the seaweed There are children in the morning They are leaning out for love And they will lean that way forever While Suzanne holds the mirror -- " As an anti-Winterheart woman then, the "Sun Burns Gold" character almost cries out for the name "Summerheart." A later Maggies song was "Summergirl" -- ! :-) But summer's gone, providing the entire rationale for the song "Sun Burns Gold," where the seasons change and we weather those changes as best as we can. (verse 2) "It crept up from behind me I didn't know which way to run So I stood thinking I was stronger But I've lost more than I can name." The Winterheart woman she ain't! Winterheart has no regrets, a heart of stone, as cold as ice -- "There's no spring inside her winterheart -- Just like winter follows fall, emotions don't enter in at all." But emotions enter deeply into "Sun Burns Gold." And whereas Winterheart is a breaker of hearts, cutting and running, the "Sun Burns Gold" persona sounds brokenhearted herself, cut to the quick. (verse 3) "Just a season I keep saying But is it something more than this I am only growing older Is there nothing that I can keep?" These are the reflections of someone facing the dark, snowbound and captive to winter's cold embrace, wondering if the warmth and light of a new spring will ever really come again. While I was pondering "Sun Burns Gold" in terms of Maura's new beginnings and the long ago new beginning of River of Fallen Stars, I couldn't help but think of "Day In and Day Out" too, from the first Kennedys album. "Night after night Wander the desperate souls Down empty avenues Streets paved with fool's gold Up in my room Mansions come tumbling down And I'm left with these four bare walls And loneliness all around. It's out of my hands So I'll hold you in my heart 'Cause you're all I think about Day in and day out." In "Sun Burns Gold," hope for the returning sun, reviving the spirit to new life and light, is what is held in the heart, "Day In and Day Out," through the long dark night of winter, surrounded by those four bare walls. But the gold of that hope and of that "invisible sun" isn't the fool's gold of desperate souls on empty avenues, as in "Day In and Day Out." The payoff is the real gold of "Walking on the Streets of Paradise," where the streets are paved with gold, like Sting's "Fields of Gold." "Many years have passed since those summer days Among the fields of barley See the children run as the sun goes down Among the fields of gold. You'll remember me when the west wind moves Upon the fields of barley You can tell the sun in his jealous sky When we walked in the fields of gold." And now Pete and Maura Kennedy are "Walking on the Streets of Paradise," where their natures seem destined to be -- on the "Sidewalks of New York." Streets like "Fields of Gold." "Oh tell me where your freedom lies? The streets are fields that never die." (the Doors) And now "Sun Burns Gold" is haunting my steps, here in a Massachusetts that is no longer the home of the Kennedys -- and I'm finding myself willing to go great distances to see them, even to New York, myself being drawn to the light in these light-diminishing days of autumn, being drawn myself like the flower-children in "Suzanne," who are leaning out to the light through cracks in the sidewalk. I've become like "Sun Burns Gold" myself -- light at all cost! "How the wind blows cold right through me Can't we wait it out here inside Oh it might be forever, or til the sun burns gold again." I couldn't wait till forever, myself. I had to be there. Wendy MaHarry has another song, "California," that is most apropos. "California There are thieves on the ladders Pointing to the stars California Well I had no choice Had to be there Follow my heart." For me, this "California" is any place that is "A Place Like Home," a place you want to be, a place you need to be, a soul-space you long for whenever you're not there. It's a place where you can truly be yourself -- being home = coming home to yourself. The Kennedys have their California, their "Place Like Home" --- New York City -- coming home to themselves -- and I have mine, my own California, which is wherever I am at home, wherever I am most truly myself. So "Sun Burns Gold" reminds me that even the shrinking violet looking for sunlight -- after much searching, wandering, and leaning out for love -- can still find a place like home, coming home to oneself, no matter how long and dark the winter. "There are poems in the seaweed Down by the snowcross Northern and mossy They will echo off a star And the Jangle Poets Will sing their songs While the pilgrim travellers Will listen from afar." "Sun Burns Gold" seems to have been one of those poems found amongst the seaweed. "She will show you where to look among the garbage and the flowers -- " Suzanne holds the mirror -- the Jangle Poets, that's the Kennedys -- and pilgrim traveller listening from afar, that's me! :-) Bruce Check out the Kennedys' Official Home Page: http://www.KennedysMusic.com/ Fab photos, the Official tour diary, dashboard Buddha haiku, groovy merchandise...what more could you ask for? ------------------------------ End of jangle-poets-digest V9 #222 **********************************