From: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org (shindell-list-digest) To: shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: shindell-list-digest V7 #269 Reply-To: shindell-list@smoe.org Sender: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk shindell-list-digest Thursday, November 10 2005 Volume 07 : Number 269 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [RS] JB, part of a path leading to RS for me [Jim Colbert ] [RS] RE: Last Fare [Jamie Younghans / John McDonnell ] [RS] RE: Last Fare [Jamie Younghans / John McDonnell Subject: [RS] JB, part of a path leading to RS for me > By the way, here's the Jackson Browne song I often do as a medley with > "Wisteria" when I play out. > > RG > > > LOOKING INTO YOU > > That's a really cool pairing. I've been revisiting Jackson Browne a lot lately since picking up his solo acoustic disc. He used to be my absolute favorite back in the days when the Pretender and Late for the Sky were new, or nearly so. A literate songwriter with an acoustic guitar... all part of the path that just let me to Richard, really...! By the way, for you RS trivia buffs, one of the members of the Razzy Dazzy Spasm Band will have a new disc out shortly; Russ Rentler actually just won a songwriting contest with the title track, Scarecrow's Lament. - -jim ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 11:24:03 -0500 From: dbri732722@aol.com Subject: Re: [RS] Re: Last Wisteria from me Very eloquently written and right on the money. Beautiful song that evokes so much emotion in me. I haven't tired of listening to it. Now, should we start on "Last Fare of the Day"? Doug Brienzo - -----Original Message----- From: Chris Foxwell To: shindell-list@smoe.org Sent: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 22:25:01 -0500 Subject: Re: [RS] Re: Last Wisteria from me On 11/9/05, John McDonnell wrote: > > I tend to contrast the house and the wisteria: man-made vs. organic, only > one of which can really be owned. The emotional investment in the wisteria > is ultimately futile, because it can never be owned, whereas the house, > whose value ultimately lies in its having provided the setting for many fond > memories, will always have that, no matter who the occupants are. That's fascinating! I love how different people can have such different views of songs as (relatively) simple as Wisteria. Huh, that's an interesting take, I'll have to mull that over. For myself, I ascribe very different sybolism to the wisteria. I don't see the narrator as investing the *wisteria *with emotion; rather, I see the wisteria as itself being representative of the narrator's investment of emotion into the house. I see the wisteria as "being" both the narrator's love and his memory, which--just like the vine--steadily grow and entwine the house, imperceptibly growing ever longer and fuller as time goes by. (And, of course, the association of vine and memory is directly made by the narrator: "the vine of my memory".) This dual sense of "capturing" and entwining is very strong for me. Thus I see the vine not as an object of the narrator's love, but rather the vehicle of that love/memory, which is directed at the house. In the narrator's memory, the vine "still blooms all around those eaves": both the love and the wisteria are still in full bloom, in the narrator's mind. (Note that "vine of my memory" functions equally well here with both associative and possessive interpretations of "of my memory": the vine that *belongs to* his memory (conveying his love), and the vine that actually *is* his memory.) Ultimately, it's this interpretation of the vine's symbolism that makes the phrase "it's true it's a chore to tame wisteria" so very, very powerful and moving to me. Maybe the most moving lyric of all of Richard's songs, on a personal level at least. Man, what a beautiful, beautiful metaphor. Is there truly anything more difficult to "tame" than one's sadness at the passing of loved things/people? Can there be any "chore" greater, or more unending, than the struggle to cherish the good times that were and not be overwhelmed by the sadness of their passing? While listening to the song, I get a very powerful image of the narrator lovingly cultivating those vines yet also fighting to keep control of them, while simultaneously cultivating his memories of the house while struggling to avoid being overwhelmed by them. Vine = memory/love, and it's the same fight he's waging with both. Man. It really gets me, every single time. --Chris - -- "We were born in a dark age out of due time (for us). But there is this comfort: otherwise we should not know, or so much love, what we do love. I imagine the fish out of water is the only fish to have an inkling of water." - -- J.R.R. Tolkien ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 14:54:21 -0500 From: John McDonnell Subject: [RS] Re: Spanish Inquisition Hi All, OK so the last Wisteria post is actually the second to last. Chris wrote: >>This dual sense of "capturing" and entwining is very strong for me.<< I agree, and I think the song is full of duality: past/present, presence/absence, and the vine as separate from but representative of the memories as Chris points out, but I'm still left with the concrete image (almost literally) of the house still present and the wisteria absent--and the notion that while we feel we are somehow in communion with nature and it with us, it is our own creations which endure for us. That, to me, is what rescues the song from the kind of sentimental green-colored glasses of, for example, early Yeats. John McD. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 22:09:09 -0500 From: Jamie Younghans / John McDonnell Subject: [RS] RE: Last Fare Hi All, Doug wrote: Now, should we start on "Last Fare of the Day"? I'm all for weighing in on songs--I find out a lot about them from the different posts, and enjoy the different interpretations. I am, however, expecting a smackdown of WWF proportions on this song, because I am not a big fan. As a sort of peace offering, Jamie and I are unable to use our tickets for the upcoming Carnegie Hall show on Friday November 18, as we have a family commitment for that weekend. So, I have two tickets, Section P1, Row BB, seats 1&2 for the face value of $38.00 apiece (I said sort of). Any takers? They will otherwise just go to waste. E-mail me as above or at jmcdonn@gmail.com. John McD. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 22:49:32 EST From: Rongrittz@aol.com Subject: Re: [RS] RE: Last Fare >> Now, should we start on "Last Fare of the Day"? << OK, but prepared for another round of the "Are the couple in the beginning of the song and the end of the song the SAME couple?" discussion. Note: Richard says they're NOT the same, that it would be too pat a story. Many olks here disagree. Have at it. ;-) Anyway, my quick take: "We all laugh when he says Hope and she says Grace" may be my all time favorite Richard lyric. I mean, besides "She's in Spain and I'm in pain," of course. >> the upcoming Carnegie Hall show << Ah, yes. Richard sells out Carnegie Hall, but played to 20 people here in a coffeehouse dive here in San Diego last night. I'm now more convinced than ever that the sun must do something to the brains of these SoCal folks. Anyway, he had a new guitar, a Norman Blake model Martin 000-28. Biggest, fattest frets I've ever seen on an acoustic guitar, and maybe the best sounding guitar I've ever heard him play. Can't wait until the day when he invariably puts THAT bad-boy up for sale. RG ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 19:48:11 -0800 (PST) From: Deb Woodell Subject: Re: [RS] Giants vs. Colts - --- Bart Gallagher wrote: >Those Philly Chickens look dun to me. - -- Hey! They're the same 4-4 as the Patriots! Deb This I have learned: Because we can, we must try to change the world -- fully, wisely, restlessly. -- Rudy Nemser == Life is such a changing art. -- Dar Williams == __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 23:38:47 -0500 From: Jamie Younghans / John McDonnell Subject: [RS] RE: Last Fare Hi All, RG wrote: >> [be]prepared for another round of the "Are the couple in the beginning of the song and the end of the song the SAME couple?" discussion.<< I think if RS says they are not, then they are not. I suppose the song could be deconstructed in such a way as to demonstrate that not only are they the same couple, but that they are also the soldier and widow of Reunion Hill, the old man and his youth, the trucker and his Kenworth, Mary Magdalene and Jesus, or even the summer wind and the cotton dress. I don't always ascribe to authorial intention analyses, but some things are what they are (or aren't). One of my problems, since you ask (or don't), is that regardless of whether they are the same couple or not, the song seems facile. The usual RS observational powers are there--the flow and sway of the NY cab drivers in traffic, the laugh over the difference in the names--but bringing them home in the rain?? He's done better. Also, I know he has said it's a post-September 11 song, but I find absolutely no evidence of that day or its aftermath in the song. In fact, thinking they are the same couple provides just as rational explanation for their being on the street as the events of that day--a reproductive tragedy in one season, and a baby in the next. Maybe it's pat, but it's there because there is nothing to say it isn't except an intro to the song at the live show. If they are not the same couple, what's the song saying? Ready for the smackdown. John McD. ------------------------------ End of shindell-list-digest V7 #269 ***********************************