From: owner-jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org (jangle-poets-digest) To: jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org Subject: jangle-poets-digest V10 #25 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 Monday, April 13 2009 Volume 10 : Number 025 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [JP] Kennedys Surprise! [MercyHouse1@aol.com] [JP] Maura Kennedy "The Thing with Feathers" [MercyHouse1@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 00:11:57 EDT From: MercyHouse1@aol.com Subject: [JP] Kennedys Surprise! During Maura's solo set portion of tonight's Driftwood Folk Cafe Kennedys show in Plymouth, she suddenly and unexpectedly ceded the stage to someone else, saying, "This is the most important song ever written!" Without further ado, Mike Delaney, playing on Maura's guitar, played a complete rendition of his song, "I Wanna Be Maura Kennedy" -- !!! Maura mostly watched from a comfy chair that had been hastily hoisted to the very middle of the stage. But she also backed Mike up on background vocals on the choruses. 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? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 01:49:52 EDT From: MercyHouse1@aol.com Subject: [JP] Maura Kennedy "The Thing with Feathers" I've kept some of the Maura Kennedy reviews offlist since I already do so many Kennedys reviews, but I'm making an exception with this and posting it to the J-P. I'm very, very excited about "The Thing with Feathers"! Bruce ========== Maura Kennedy has now posted her newest song online, "The Thing with Feathers." She had already laid down the basic tracks for the song when she first played it live in an acoustic version 2/28/09 at Common Ground Coffeehouse in Hastings-on-Hudson NY. I was fortunate to get to hear the unfinished mix. But even through hearing a stripped-down live version and an unfinished track heard on a portable music device, I could tell that Maura Kennedy was breaking completely new ground. ========================================= The concept for the song derives from the poem by Emily Dickinson called "Hope." Hope [1] (Emily Dickinson) Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all, And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm. I've heard it in the chillest land And on the strangest sea; Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me. ========================================= Maura has channeled the ingenious conceit of hope as a thing with feathers that perches in the soul with a wondrous admixture of words and music of her own. The Thing with Feathers (Maura Kennedy) I feel the thing with feathers beating in its soul cage I long to set it free to see how far it flies But hold it tightly till it crumbles in its old age The cage is empty when the hope inside you dies I feel the thing with feathers beating in its soul cage I long to set it free to see how far it flies But hold it tightly till it crumbles in its old age The cage is empty when the hope inside you dies I hear the thing with feathers crying for an earthworm It knows you're out there and it thinks that it should die But feed it once and it will promise you a good turn For hope is fragile when the lightning streaks the sky I hear the thing with feathers It thinks that it should die But feed it once a good turn For hope is fragile in the I feel the thing with feathers I long to set it free But hold it tight in old age The cage the hope inside you Hope inside you dies I feel the thing with feathers beating in its soul cage I long to set it free to see how far it flies But hold it tightly till it crumbles in its old age The cage is empty when the hope inside you dies ========================================== I was blown away with astonishment the first time I heard this song. Maura had hinted from the beginning that this might be something of her masterpiece, maybe the masterstroke of the new collection of songs "Parade of Echoes." There is something of a progression from the entire art-rock, folk-rock milieu of the Strangelings -- from the song "White Bird" with the lines, "White bird in a golden cage... White bird must fly, or she will die..." -- through the Maura Kennedy solo material from "Chains" and "Make It Last" to "Sun Burns Gold," "Patience," and "Freefall" -- then the new turn of a friendly card, the art-rock sounding "October" -- each in their own way paving the way for Maura Kennedy's "The Thing with Feathers." After the 2/28/09 premiere, I was going to post about "The Thing with Feathers" right away, Johnny on the spot. But the song had not yet been posted online, and almost no one had heard it. So I waited. I jotted down the words from the audience at the Turning Point 3/7/09, when I heard Maura do the song again. Then Pete & Maura got busy with a number of things, including a move to a new apartment which took a lot of their attention. Now "The Thing with Feathers" is out of the cage! 40 days since 2/28/09! While I've been waiting patiently like Noah in his ark, 40 days and 40 nights of the flood. "Patience, patience..." Well now a new flood is drenching the earth -- a flood of mind-boggling, auricular delight -- a veritable deluge of great new music: uncaged, unchained, and unleashed from the mind of Maura Kennedy! 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 V10 #25 **********************************