Bruce Springsteen new albúm !

[Steven]

Hi Diane,

I'm now convinced that what I originally saw to be a more universally resonantly conveyed theme in the
song, is, in fact, maybe much more limited. Maybe its more of a guy thing (and a very
specific kind of guy's thing) that puts the song across as more than "a straightforward song
about feeling attracted to someone." Yes, it's staightforward. There's also what I perceive as an
emotional subtext in the song that isn't flowing far and wide, which is okay, of course, albeit somewhat surprising to me.
I don't want to project what Springsteen may have intended. "Queen" plays to me, though,
as consistent with Springsteen's repetitive emphasis on the importance and power of
connection, and in this song, with the equally important and powerful matter of separation,
with moments of potential dissipating in the night, as the song's chacter leaves with his
groceries and not a lover's embrace.

[Kush]

Hi Diane, Steven , Margaret,

Tom Russell has a new album out Blood and Candle Smoke which has the song Nina Simone and also Guadalupe that I had posted awhile back. I have only heard clips so far and it sounds very good.
Be back with my thoughts on love, groceries, cashier girls etc etc and all other matters in a few - a bit busy at work these days.

[Diane]

Hi Diane,

I'm now convinced that what I originally saw to be a more universally resonantly conveyed theme in the
song, is, in fact, maybe much more limited. Maybe its more of a guy thing (and a very
specific kind of guy's thing) that puts the song across as more than "a straightforward song
about feeling attracted to someone." Yes, it's staightforward. There's also what I perceive as an
emotional subtext in the song that isn't flowing far and wide, which is okay, of course, albeit somewhat surprising to me.
I don't want to project what Springsteen may have intended. "Queen" plays to me, though,
as consistent with Springsteen's repetitive emphasis on the importance and power of
connection, and in this song, with the equally important and powerful matter of separation,
with moments of potential dissipating in the night, as the song's chacter leaves with his
groceries and not a lover's embrace.

Hang on, there is no right or wrong way to interpret lyrics, remember, so let them mean whatever they mean to you hey. Thanks for the explanation. OK, aha, yes, maybe the narrator in this song is connecting with the woman's "beauty", but 'going home alone' because she doesn't want to connect like that? Yes, suddenly I can see a whole host of possible metaphors in the lyrics! Me I was seeing the song as painting a scenario where everything is more of a potentiality than a reality.

I have to say that over here we wouldn't put our groceries into our cart, but put our shopping into our trolley. This may seem like a trivial point but the "groceries" term, although the meaning is clear, is a bit unfamiliar in that context, and adds a certain emphasis to the word, and maybe that's what makes the song seem a tad comical to me (as I was talking about earlier). This had caused me to not look into the song for any meaning other than a straightforward one. That and the 60's pop tune sound. I'll try to get over it. Thanks for causing me to look at this song again, Steven. Bruce is cleverer than me. He is also a man and I'm not:-)

Queen of the Supermarket

There's a wonderful world where all you desire
And everything you've longed for is at your fingertips
Where the bittersweet taste of life is at your lips
Where aisles and aisles of dreams await you
And the cool promise of ecstasy fills the air
At the end of each working day she's waiting there

I'm in love with the queen of the supermarket
As the evening sky turns blue
A dream awaits in aisle number two

With my shopping cart I move through the heart
Of a sea of fools so blissfully unaware
That they're in the presence of something wonderful and rare
The way she moves behind the counter
Beneath her white apron her secrets remain hers
As she bags the groceries, her eyes so bored
And sure she is unobserved

I'm in love with the queen of the supermarket
There's nothing I can say
Each night I take my groceries and I drift away, and I drift away

With guidance from the gods above
At night I pray for the strength to tell the one I love
I love, I love, I love her so
I take my place in the checkout line
For one moment her eyes meet mine
And I'm lifted up, lifted up, lifted up, lifted up, lifted away

I'm in love with the queen of the supermarket
Though a company cap covers her hair
Nothing can hide the beauty waiting there
The beauty waiting there

As I lift my groceries into my cart
I turn back for a moment and catch a smile
That blows this whole fucking place apart
I'm in love with the queen of the supermarket
I'm in love with the queen of the supermarket

The new Tom Russell sounds interesting, Kush.

[Steven]

Hi Diane,

The narrator is going home with the reality of his feelings, whether the cashier
wants to connect or not. I agree with most all of what you've said in this post, but
have no basis to conclude that Bruce is cleverer than you. Until he contributes
to this thread, we don't really know. May have years ago heard "trolley"
used to denote a handtruck or dollie (sp?). Certainly know trolley to be
a bus-like conveyance with an overhead electrical connection. Never heard
it used for something to put shopping items in. Were someone to tell me
to go get a trolley, I'd think they might be suggesting "hit the road."

[margaret]

The bus-like conveyance you know as a trolley is what we here call a tram!

We also call an air hostess a "trolley dolly" because she goes up and down the aircraft with drinks, snacks etc.

I will have to look out for the new Tom Russell album, and maybe try to see him next year.

Margaret

[Steven]

Hi Margaret,

I only hear "tram" used here in connection with special vehicles that shuttle people on
boardwalks and at some tourist attractions. "Trolley dolly" sounds like the punchline to
an off-color joke about air hostesses.

[Kush]

Hi Diane and Margaret,

I would recommend not beckoning the air hostess by "trolley dolly" if you happen to be travelling in US (well maybe you might get away with it without too much damage but defintely not recommended for guys).

Steven - heard your interview with S Robinson (in two sessions couple of days apart) - I agree with all the comments on that thread - seems like you have a relaxed and laid back way of framing questions that puts the interviewee in an easy frame of mind, while still asking the interesting and pertinent questions.

Steven Diane - your discussion and posts about Supermarket girls and aging reminded me of the Garth Brooks song Unanswered Prayers. Not really related to the issue but somehow was reminded of it.

Well I got the new Tom Russell album just before embarking on a work related trip and listened to it quite a bit in the hotel room. Its a classic TR album and probably his best since Borderland, although his last album Love and Fear is right up there, almost. In addition to the aforementioned Nina Simone and Guadalupe, here are two other songs that caught my ears. I was inspired by Diane to transcribe them from ipod audio so think I got most of it (could not find the lyrics anywhere on the web). The live versions may be slightly different from studio version that I transcribed from. Plus he usually tours alone with an accompanist (maybe he doesnt sell enough records to afford a full band???) so the live versions are only half as good as the studio version which is always with a band.


American Rivers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7EkbkPxKGo

Ain’t no more cane on the Brazos
Its all been ground down to molasses

I saw red iron sunsets
From a rust iron bridge
In the Indian country
Of the mockingbird .....(??)

I saw the moon in a boxcar
Being carried as freight
Through sixty two winters
Through forty eight states

And in an old Chinese graveyard
I slept in the weeds
When a song and a story
Were all a kid needs

Yeah the rhymes and the rattles
Of those runaway trains
And the songs of the cowboy
And the sound of the rain

And its “Mama I miss you”
I woke up and screamed
These American rivers
Roll deep through my dreams

Colorado, Allegheny
Shenandoah, Susquehenny
And the Wabash, the Hudson
The brave Rio Grande
I was a kid there
Asleep in the sand

We named them for Indians
Our guilt to forsake
The Delaware, the Blackfoot,
The Flathead, the Snake

Now they roll past casinos
And old hamburger stands
They are waving farewell
To this kid on the land

With their jigsawed old arteries
So clogged and defiled
No open-heart miracle
Is gonna turn ‘em back wild

Past towns gone to bankers
Past fields gone to sea
All cut up and carved out
So divided by greed

And ol’ grandfather catfish
With his whiskers so long
And his life in a struggle
Because the oxygen is gone

"Oh Mama I miss you”
I woke up and screamed
These American rivers
They poison my dreams

Colorado, Allegheny
Shenandoah, Susquehenny
And the Wabash, the Hudson
The brave Rio Grande
I was a kid there
I was asleep in the sand


Crosses of San Carlos is trademark TR - cinematic, film noir and country music all in one.

Crosses of San Carlos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SLtvtkr5yQ

Two Apache kids in a stolen car
Navigatin’ by a fallen star
Where are they goin’?

Towards Jerusalem mountains
Red amphetamine sunrise
Mesquite, Suguaro, great mystical Agave
Tell me please....(??)
Where are they goin’?

Past the little white crosses
The highway signs
Stay away from the double yellow line
Jimmy Yellow-Eye
Take care where you goin’.

Ain’t no alcohol allowed on the Reservation
They’re headin’ out in search of strong libation
They know where they goin’.

Out where the Crosses of San Carlos
Shine ‘neath the desert moon
Near the canyons where Geronimo rode
And the Ocotillo blooms
Where’s it all goin’?

Old Mexican jaguar crossed over last night
Near the Agua Prieta bordertown lights
Where’s the old man goin’?

He’s on the track of a deer or a Javelina hog
He ain’t afraid of your huntin’ dogs
He knows where he’s goin’.

He disdains your greed, your ignorance
Your razor wire, your chain-link fence
He knows where he’s goin’.

Out where the Crosses of San Carlos
Shine ‘neath the desert moon
Near the canyons where Cochise laid it down
And the old Agave blooms
Where’s it all goin? Where’s it all goin’?

And one night when the moon is down
We’ll come back on you stronger
Out on this Lordsburg highway
We’ll be crucified no longer.

We’ve seen it come, we’ll watch it go
The beer’s gone, the gasoline is low
Said Jimmy Yellow-Eye
Hell, where are we goin’?

Look up ahead in our highbeam lights
Some kind of leopard
Comin’ at us through the night
Where’s the old one goin’?

Maybe he’s taking back his ancient hunting ground
Blood on the streets of the cowboy towns
He knows where he’s goin’.

Then the scream of the tires
The curse and the swerve
The final war-cry on the final curve
Where in hell were they goin’?

And the Crosses of San Carlos
Still shine ‘neath the desert moon
Near the canyons where Geronimo rode
And the Ocotillo blooms
Where’s it all goin’?
Where is it goin’?

[Bequia]

Leadbelly doing "Ain't No More Cane" is worth a listen...

From russelltom.blogspot:

American Rivers - Series of Dreams #11

We named them for Indians
Our guilt to forsake
The Delaware, the Blackfoot
The Flathead and Snake
Now they flow past Casinos and Hamburger stands
They are waving farewell to the kid on the land….
With their jig-sawed old arteries
All clogged and defiled
No open heart miracle's
Gonna turn 'em back wild.

It's the river towns which attract me. Pittsburgh, Portland, St. Louis, Kansas City.
Even Manhattan and old El Paso. I tell European folks, planning to travel the U.S.; aim for a river town like Pittsburgh or Portland and you might still find an America of used book stores, local radio stations and a cafe cooking real food. Maybe. There might be a butcher, a baker and a candle stick maker. You might dissolve into another America. The towns that clang with the "rhymes and the rattles of the runaway trains, and the songs of the cowboys, and the sound of the rain." Towns like the poetry out of Carl Sandburg's song bag. Hog Butchers of the world! Stormy, husky, brawling city of the big shoulders. The sunsets look different from an old iron bridge over the Monongahela. Help you conjure up Huckleberry Finn and Ramblin Jack Elliott singing "912 Greens." Towns with voices. New Orleans on a Friday night: "With the wind blowin' off the Mrs. Miller river"….to quote Ramblin Jack. Not speaking of nostalgia, here, so much as a heart-pounding attempt to find where the music still flows in the "weird old America" of clogged rivers and empty factories. The America which has lost it's "Old Man River" Voice. Did it all die with Walt Disney? Meredith Wilson? Kerouac? Thomas Wolfe? Crazy Horse? Edward Abbey? Early Randy Newman? Harper Lee? Mark Twain? Joseph Mitchell? Fred Neil? Walt Whitman? The Band? Stephen Foster?

Past towns gone to bankers
And fields gone to seed
All cut up and carved out
Divided by greed
And old grandfather catfish
With his whiskers so long
And his life is a struggle
Cause the oxygen's gone….

Naw, there aint no more cane on the Brazos. But there's many a river that waters the land. Some nights my dreams float and roll along to the poetry of old folk songs, and there's always a river involved. Shenandoah to the Rio Grande. And a kid is always sleeping on the riverbank, near an old Chinese graveyard. It's me. Never figured what it means. Can songs and dreams really be explicated? Naw. Only rhymed and sung. Over and over. A river is a carrier of dreams. "The water is wide…I can’t make it over…nor do I have…the wings to fly." We are stuck inside the river dream. For a moment. "Until human voices wake us, and we drown….." (Eliot.)

[Kush]

wow thanks Bequia. Did not know he even had a blogspot. I did wonder whether the first two lines of American Rivers came from somewhere else (Aint no more cane on the Brazos), it did not look like it was part of the song. The good TR songs are always an exploration in history, geography, botany and many other things.

Mesquite


Suguaro


great mystical Agave

[Kush]

Background to the song Guadalupe from TR's blog ---it is a mine of information. Thanks again to B.



There are ghosts out in the rain tonight
High up in those ancient trees
Lord, I've given up without a fight
Another blind fool on his knees…
And all the Gods that I've abandoned
Begin to speak in simple tongue….

The shrine sits on the outskirts of Mexico City, beneath a low mountain where two older versions of the church are settling into the Mexican earth. Sinking into the primeval Aztecan mud. This is the spot where the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to a poor Nahuatl Indian named Juan Diego. On the morning of December 9, 1531, Juan Diego was walking near the Hill of Tepeyac and encountered a vision of a young girl. The girl was surrounded in light and spoke to Juan in his native language, asking that a church be built in her honor on this site. He recognized the vision as the Virgin Mary and went to tell the Bishop, Juan de Zumaraga. The Bishop asked Juan to return and seek a miraculous sign of proof. Back on the hill, the Virgin told Juan Diego to pick a bouquet of flowers and these turned out to be Castilian Roses which only grew near Bishop's home territory in Spain - they didn’t grow in Mexico. The Juan Diego opened his cape and the apparition of Guadalupe appeared there like an ancient votive painting…the same image which now hangs in the church. Let me tell you a little story….
I had flown to Mexico City six years ago during Christmas season. I was in between relationships; aching to escape self pity and the pressures of the holiday season. Craving escape in a city I now consider the Rome of Western Civilization. I hooked up with Taxi driving guide named Caesar who was a bit of a self-made historian. We drove to the pyramids, Frida Kahlo's house, the wondrous Dolores Olmedo Museum, all the great eateries near the square; we wandered the maze in the flea market of antiquities and I spent Sunday in the largest bull ring in the world.
Christmas eve I attended Midnight mass in the great central cathedral where Indian women carried their baby Jesus statues to the archbishop to be blessed with holy water. My heart pounded along with the 200 year old pump organ; sadness, doubt, self -pity and fear drained from my body with every hair raising crescendo of the ancient Latin hymns. I was not rediscovering religion so much as digging deeper into an understanding of the raw face of passionate belief - even if it wasn't my own personal belief. It was their belief and their story. Passion is passion. It counteracts the poison.
There are times when zealous rituals of other cultures open portals in your soul. A glimpse. Inward comes a light. This feeling does not lead to acceptance of church dogma or re-conversion or an overwhelming acceptance of Jesus, Mohammed, Jehovah or Buddha. Not every time. But I heard whispers and I was lead to the hill of Tepeyac. The shrine of Guadalupe. And I sat there for hours on a winter afternoon with thousands of Mexicans and Indians, and an odd assortment of German tourists who kept leafing through guide books. And that image was up on the altar in a golden frame, and the poor and spiritually crippled and dumbstruck and all of us… were staring at her. Guadalupe.
We're talking of an image that is tattooed on the backs of Mexican men on death row. An image from a million roadside shrines. The Mother of the Americas. The talisman carried in the pocket of the poor and the Indian and the lawyer the thief and the bullfighter and the used car salesman. The belief in Guadalupe transcends normal Catholicism. It is a story, much like an old folk song or a votive painting, which has endured. As Carlos Fuentes wrote: "One may no longer consider himself a Christian, but you cannot truly be considered a Mexican unless you believe in Guadalupe. Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz stated: "The Mexican people, after nearly two centuries of experiments, have faith only in the Virgin of Guadalupe and the National Lottery."
And I sat there that long winter afternoon and it didn’t lead to my talking in tongues or getting baptized again or riding through Mexico City on a horse behind Zaptata or sub-commandante Marcos. And they both rode under her banner. It lead to a lingering chill and a knowledge that I was not alone in my yearning. There was a new light in my eyes, reflected from a thousand candle flames. And it finally lead to a song.

Who am I to doubt these mysteries?
Cured in centuries of blood and candle smoke
I am the least of all your pilgrims here
But I am most in need of hope.

[Diane]

Hello everyone,

Recent posts here, including Bequia's input and Steven's interview with Sharon, spark many thoughts, and I can't wait for when I have a chance to get back here, tomorrow I hope. Kush on Wednesday morning I got around to sending for a couple of African cds I had wanted for a while and added in Blood and Candle Smoke just for the hell of it. Then, later, I read your post and I'm really looking forward to this cd.

In the meantime, just posting something that takes no time or thought, a link to a great acoustic version of No Surrender. Thanks, musicmania for getting me thinking about this song of Bruce's again. It would be interesting to know what you think of this version. Watch him gradually get more into the song as he goes along. Gotta love the way he omits the last three words of the last verse and sings, I wanna sleep beneath peaceful skies in my lover's bed /with a wide open country in my eyes /and these romantic dreeeaaams (in my head).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8cusOGsenk

[musicmania]

Hi Diane, just had alook at the video and I love it. Not only did Brucie gradually get more into the song, the same can also be said about the audience. Can't believe that was 11 years ago! He looks younger now than he did then LOL I LOVE acoustic music so especially love when my favourite artists do this with their songs. Bryan Adams is bringing his acoustic tour to Ireland in January. I've second row tickets and can't wait for it. Bryan alone on stage with just a guitar for company is my idea of 'Heaven' Would LOVE if Brucie did the same but getting tickets would be impossible as I've never seen a pre-sale for Brucies gigs.

[Bequia]

Listen, put it into your heart, my youngest-and-dearest son, that the thing that frightened you, the thing that afflicted you is nothing. Do not let it disturb you. Do not fear this sickness nor any other sickness, nor any sharp and hurtful thing. Am I not here, I, who am your mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not the source of your joy? Are you not in the hollow of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms? Do you need something more?

....from Nican Mopohua ("Thus It Is Said"), the account of Juan Diego, a Nahuatl-speaking Native Mexican. If interested, a full text of Nican Mopohua which was probably put together by Antonio Valeriano about 30 years after the events and has an earliest remaining written version dating from about a century later can be found here

At the outset of the Nican Mopohua, Juan Diego was hearing something more than the neighborhood drummer sound when he felt his heart begin to pound:

He heard singing on the little hill, like the song of many precious birds; when their voices would stop, it was as if the hill were answering them; extremely soft and delightful; their songs exceeded the songs of the coyoltotl and the tzinitzcan and other precious birds. Juan Diego stopped to look. He said to himself: "By any chance am I worthy, have I deserved what I hear? Perhaps I am only dreaming it? Perhaps I'm only dozing? Where am I? Where do I find myself? Is it possible that I am in the place our ancient ancestors, our grandparents, told about, in the land of the flowers, in the land of corn, of our flesh, of our sustenance, possibly in the land of heaven?".

[Kush]

Diane - thats a terrific version and a hell of a song. A little secret - I think of that line every time Brits point fingers at USA (which tends to happen frequently on this forum, overtly or disguised). No retreat baby, no surrender! Strangely it doesnt matter so much if others do it but never ever from an Englishman!! (just kidding .....hmm not completely )

Bequia - thanks for the link. Will definitely look into it soon. I have been skipping recent offerings from my favorite singer songwriters of the past and was initially uncertain whether to get tghis one, but this one's a keeper. In fact, after first downloading it, I then went and got the CD itself last evening. A late discovered gem is Santa Ana Wind which may end up being the best song of the album. IMHO.

Steven - I saw DVD release of the Ken Burns National Parks at B & N. Costs $ 119. Dont know if it is still airing on PBS will try to catch it this weekend if it is.

[Diane]

Kush, I'll point a finger at you later if I can think of anything bad you've done, as an experiment to see whether my being an Englishwoman makes you not mind. You don't got annoyed about all the rude things I say about American country music. No retreat baby no surrender, yep it feels really good to say that doesn't it.

Hi Diane, just had alook at the video and I love it. Not only did Brucie gradually get more into the song, the same can also be said about the audience. Can't believe that was 11 years ago! He looks younger now than he did then LOL I LOVE acoustic music so especially love when my favourite artists do this with their songs. Bryan Adams is bringing his acoustic tour to Ireland in January. I've second row tickets and can't wait for it. Bryan alone on stage with just a guitar for company is my idea of 'Heaven' Would LOVE if Brucie did the same but getting tickets would be impossible as I've never seen a pre-sale for Brucies gigs.

Glad, music/m, that you like the acoustic version too. Interesting you mention acoustic Bryan Adams; saw him a few years ago and at the end of the gig he did a couple of acoustic numbers and they were definitely the icing on the cake. My favourite song by Bryan Adams has long been I'm Ready from the acoustic live album. (The orchestral background makes that song though, and adds a kind of granduer to the simplicity of the words and guitar I think.) Enjoy the concert:-) Yes, Springsteen concert tickets for acoustic tours are a sore point. I still remember the pain of not being able to get a ticket for the Ghost of Tour. Everything was still done by phone in those days. And during Devils and Dust he played the RAH and I was inches away from buying a touted ticket online for about £300 and didn't only because I'd have had to get back from central London to a work meeting early the next morning. Never mind, that's the price you pay (literally) for liking someone who's so damn popular.

My Tom Russell arrived yesterday. Amazon are suddenly getting very efficient and I can't keep up, having gone off on a tangent for the mo since I saw Justin Adams and Juldeh Camara again on Friday in Swansea. Despite the fact I was unavoidably an hour late for the gig, they surprised me by being even better than when I saw them in Cardiff in June. They were very cohesive, doing some wonderful intense extended improvisations. Not just guitar, riti (African fiddle) and voice, but drums too. The sound is a bit muddy on this amateur video from earlier this year, but check out for example the end of this version of Sahara (from 5.25 on). Adams is on frame drum at the end although you can't see him:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9qq715yoTM

Another memorable number was a suberb extended version of Ya Ta Kaaya from the album Soul Science, here the studio version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTFAK3eCAug&NR=1

A friend here for whom I played Tell No Lies yesterday, the latest album, didn't appreciate it at all, and I seem to be swimming against the tide on this African trip, but if anyone reading is interested, I notice they are playing Bridlington tonight and London twice next week then Copenhagen and Budapest and then returning to the UK.

You can't take music any further back to its roots than the West African griots such as Juldeh Camara, nor, in my opinion, much further forward than Justin Adams who co-wrote and played on the Mighty Rearranger album, Robert's Plant's best offering from the noughties. So with these two guys together, things have come full circle, and live they are just sublime.