The drummer, the bass player and the pianist all had many turns singing lead in The Band, but my personal favourite was the pianist, Richard Manuel. Manuel composed two other songs all by his lonesome on Music from Big Pink, "We Can Talk" and "Lonesome Suzie". The first of these songs brilliantly illuminates the capacity of the aforementioned trio to harmonize their talents and play to their greatest strengths, with lots of playful metaphors and a melody hinting at a carefree attitude toward life with an underlying deeper meaning. The latter song, "Lonesome Suzie" really draws the listener into the penetrating sense of mourning that Manuel seemed to always understand, and as his life progressed, experience firsthand.
We can talk about it now
It's that same old riddle only starting from the middle
I'd fix it but I don't know how
Well, we could try to reason but you might think it's treason
One voice for all
Echoing across the hall
Don't give up on father clock
We can talk about it now
Come, let me show you how
To keep the wheels turnin' you've got to keep the engine churnin'
Did you ever milk a cow
I had the chance one day but I was all dressed up for Sunday
Everybody, everywhere
Do you really care
Pick up your heads and walk
We can talk about it now
It seems to me we've been holding something underneath our tongues
I'm afraid if you ever got a pat on the back
It would likely burst your lungs
Woh, stop me, if I should sound kinda down in the mouth
But I'd rather be burned in Canada than to freeze here in the south
Pulling that eternal plough
We've got to find a sharper blade or have a new one made
Rest awhile and cool your brow
Don't need it, no need to slave, the whip is in the grave
No salt, no trance
It's safe now to take a backward glance
The leaves have turned to chalk
We can talk about it now,
We can talk about it now
We Can Talk
Levon Helm
"It's a funny song that really captures the way we spoke to one another; lots of outrageous rhymes and corny puns. Richard just got up one morning - or afternoon - sat down at the piano, and started playing this gospel song with its famous line: "But I'd rather be burned up in Canada than to freeze here in the South."
This is a perfect opener for side two, in contrast to Tears of Rage on side one, and another Manuel song. Unlike his other compositions, this is tailor made for the ensemble rather than for a lead vocal by himself. The way the lyrics are swopped between singers, and get lost in the general hurly-burly previews what happens on the next track but one, Chest Fever. Rick and Richard are close in to the mics, Levon appears to be around / across / along the hall. The distance between the perceived positions is accentuated on the remasters. The lines are exchanged, finished for each other, then everything suddenly blends together in a line that sums up their finest vocal work:
'One voice for all, echoing (echoing) around the hall!'
Manuel's writing here is as dense, complex and enigmatic as Robertson's. We Can Talk defies explanation, yet bursts from the lyrics imprint themselves in the mind.
The song is a series of snatches of conversations; perhaps it's emphasising the eventual cameradie among the members of The Band after years on the road (and presumably the inevitable fallings out).
Richard Manuel
"(there's) a whole vocal thing I wasn't aware we had before. I remember thinking "I really like this stuff."
It's all tied together with the wackiest, oddly-accented most fabulous drum track you've ever heard. Greil Marcus sums it up in Mystery Train (devoting more space to this song than almost any other by The Band):
".. a Richard Manuel tune that sounds like the best merry-go-round in the world. Full of exultation, exhortation, smiles and complaints, it is the song of a man who has gone far enough to have become part of what he sings about. 'It's safe now', he says, 'to take a backward glance.'"
Richard Manuel
"The songs that I wrote myself ... I'd usually have a musical idea and then I'd give it a theme, an idea to go with it ... like 'We Can Talk' ... that song ... 'We can talk about it now.'? I just got up one morning and wrote that song. I got that gospel thing on the piano."
Lonesome Suzie, never got the breaks
She's always losing so she sits and cries and shakes
It's so hard just to watch her, and if I touch her
Oh, poor Suzie, I'm wondrin' what to do
She just sits there, hoping for a friend
I don't fit here, but I may have a friend to lend
Maybe I mistook her, but I can't overlook her
Must be someone who can pull her through
Anyone who's felt that bad could tell me what to say
Even if she'd just get mad, she might be better off that way
And where is all the understanding
Her problems can't be that demanding
Why is it she looks that way
Every time she starts to cry?
Lonesome Suzie, I can't watch you cry no longer
If you can use me until you feel a little stronger
I guess just watching you has made me lonesome too
Why don't we get together,
What else can we do?
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Caledonia Mission
This is the first post of what's probably gonna be a few where I look at the same song from different angles. In this case, it's "Caledonia Mission", written by Robbie Robertson, off Music from Big Pink. This is one of the first cases of Robertson displaying a Dylanesque writing style, and the first instance of Rick Danko singing lead, hinting at the subdued playfulness that marked most of his time in that role.
She reads the leaves and she leads the life
That she learned so well from the old wives
It's so strange to arrange it, you know I wouldn't change it
But hear me if you're near me, can I just rearrange it?
The watchman covers me
With his remedy
I can't see and it's hard to feel
I think his magic might be real
I can't get to you from your garden gate
You know it's always locked by the magistrate
Now he don't care why you cry, he thinks it's just a lie
To get out, I don't doubt that you'd make a try
If the good times get you through
I know the dogs won't bother you
We'll be gone in moonshine time
I've got a place they'll never find
You know I do believe in your hexagram
But can you tell me how they all knew the plan?
Did you trip or slip on their gifts, you know you were just a con?
You knew it, why d'you do it, I've been hiding in the dark
Now I must be on my way
I guess you really have to stay
Inside the mission law
Down in Modock, Arkansas
So, what’s the song about? I accepted the Greil Marcus opinion in Mystery Train for years. Marcus traces the image of ‘The Quester’ through several Band songs:
"Looking for salvation (the quester) ends up trying to save others: the woman of Caledonia Mission (she lives hidden behind a wall and the city has a lock on her gate).
Ronnie Hawkins
"I do understand the lyrics though, and better than most people. That one about Caledonia Mission and being surrounded by Mounties, that was one time they got busted at the border. They’re writing about true things, the things that happened to us along the way."
Levon Helm agrees:
"‘Caledonia Mission’ was Robbie’s and Richard sang the lyrics that alluded to the little problem we’d had with the law a few years earlier."
Though Levon was there, it’s surely Rick singing lead, with Richard singing the high part behind him. Interestingly, however, there's evidence that this wasn't always intended to be the case.
The bust occurred just before they joined with Dylan and had maximum publicity in Toronto. Levon & The Hawks had been trailed by eight RCMP cars for the hundred miles between the U.S. border crossing at Buffalo and Toronto Airport before being arrested. It caused them hassle for years (read Levon’s autobiography for the details).
Rick Danko
"We got set up. This guy was trying to impress my girlfriend. None of us would have known him, but he knew what time we were coming through the border that day, and he told the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that we were bringing in a trunkful of pot."
The singer makes some kind of arrangement with a woman who can foretell the future but lives in some kind of hidebound traditional way. Someone (the watchman) gives the singer a remedy which makes it hard for him to see or feel. He thinks that his magic might be real. The woman is locked away from him, she’s locked away by a magistrate who thinks her tears are a lie, but the singer doesn’t doubt that she wants to escape. The dogs won’t bother her. (sniffer dogs?) He’s got a hiding place they’ll never find (the trunk doesn’t sound that hard to find, but then again The Hawks weren’t bringing in a trunkful of pot anyway), but fate comes in - ‘they’ all knew the plan (they were tipped off). Did she trip or slip on their gifts? (Did she have any part in it?) You know you were just a con. Why did she do it? The singer is hiding out in the dark (or possibly the dawn). He leaves condemning her to stay in the mission (law / hall / walls) down in Modock Arkansas.
The question of the lyrics again. Barney Hoskins calls it ‘a wryly oblique song of longing for a missionary in the non-existent town of Modock, Arkansas’. I always heard it as ‘inside the mission walls’ and ‘old dark Arkansas’. Walls fits with gate, I guess. And that seems to be what Greil Marcus heard too. I assumed Modock was a mistake. More of this later.
Caledonia Mission later reappears in a rather roided up version (bit of a powerful horn section) on the 1971 live album Rock of Ages, with the last line changed from ‘down in Modock Arkansas’ to
inside the mission walls
on a river (bank/bench/branch) of Caledonia
It was also an unexpected revival throughout the 1994 to 1997 live shows. I say ‘unexpected’ because it doesn’t seem to feature on any late 60s / early 70s live tapes. Rick Danko sings this in the 1996 Radio Show version:
inside those mission walls
on a river bank in Caledonia …
In a 1994 tape from the Quatro Club in Tokyo, it’s behind those mission walls (and you can be behind a wall, but hardly ‘behind a law’). Mind you he also sings on a river bank in … Tokyo which has nothing to do with it!
So we have Modock, Arkansas and Caledonia as the setting for the story. Having checked the AAA Road Atlas of Arkansas, there seemed to be no town called Caledonia in Arkansas, though there is a small town called Caledonia just north of Columbus, Mississippi, a good 120 miles east of the Mississippi River, which forms the Arkansas - Mississippi border. Even so, the nearest river to this Caledonia is a couple of miles away on the map. A look back at the AAA atlas reveals a tiny town called ‘Moark’ right below the Arkansas / Missouri border, just off Highway 67 - and taking a runaway across a state line would have been a federal offence (Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry step forward). I couldn’t find ‘Modock’ at all, but when the first version of this was posted on the web, I discovered from Jimmy P. in Modok, Arkansas that it does indeed exist, and is about twenty miles south of Levon’s home in Helena.
But think about the switch in the lyrics in later years. The bust story mainly involved Rick, and he sings it on stage. I suddenly wondered about Ontario. Back to the atlas, and there it was. Caledonia, on the Grand River a few miles south of Hamilton. Off the main highway, but yes, it’s definitely between the US/Canadian border at Buffalo and Toronto. Ah. (So what was all that stuff about Arkansas then?). Then look again. Caledonia is just inland from Port Dover, which was Levon & The Hawks regular Sunday night gig for awhile. And just below Port Dover is Turkey Point. And Turkey Point Productions deal with Rick Danko’s business affairs nowadays. Levon is quite precise:
"The cops were real proud of themselves. They told us how they had picked us up at the border and followed us all the way into Toronto … ‘You drove so fast we even lost you a couple of times,’ one of them told me. But they were ahead of us too and found us again on the highway that cuts between the lake shore and Route 401. Damn."
Theoretically, you could take the Lake Erie shore road, then cut north through Caledonia to pick up the 401 (which runs from Detroit to Toronto). And that would cut out going through Niagara Falls to the Lake Ontario shore (which looks more logical on the map, but might not be in tourist season). But it still doesn’t figure to me that Caledonia would be so hugely significant in that story that it would title the song. Even if that’s where the RCMP had seen them again, the drama took place at Toronto airport. After reading the first version of this article, Bill Munson looked at Levon’s original account, and noted that he mentions the Metro Police. He adds:
"The airport isn't in Metropolitan Toronto, so the Metropolitan Police wouldn't have been involved in the arrest Metro police wouldn't have been involved in the chase either, as Metro is east of the airport (and the guys were coming from the west) airports are federal land (under Canada's constitution), so any bust would have to have been led by the RCMP (i.e., the federal police force) for charges to stick (or, frankly, even be contemplated) the RCMP would have had a car or two at the border, but the eight cars claimed by Levon could only have come from the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP - whose badge McCartney is wearing on Sergeant Pepper); the OPP has jurisdiction everywhere in Ontario (except on federal land) but is only active on provincial expressways (like the Queen E) and in rural areas without their own municipal forces (i.e., like much of the area travelled that day)"
I think Levon was trying to say that the police refound them on the road that goes from the lakeshore to the 401, which they'd have taken to get to the airport. (The Queen E, or QEW, runs close to the lakeshore and the 401 forms the southern boundary of the airport.) By "the lakeshore", Levon could have been referring either to the shore of the lake or, more likely, to Lakeshore Boulevard / Road, which is the old highway and which all locals call "the Lakeshore."
In other words, the place where the police picked up their trail again was further along from Caledonia, more on the outskirts of Toronto. But they were singing about Caledonia, Ontario. I’d be prepared to bet that. I also think the Arkansas reference could have been a deliberate fictionalisation, a "blind," in 1968, designed to cover the tracks, and divert attention from the actual location, that seemed irrelevant and unnecessary by 1972. Another useful note came in the Guestbook from Greg D:
I've always wondered (since hearing the Rock of Ages version) if the song was related to that place. There is indeed a river flowing through the town (the Grand River, largest river in southern Ontario). Caledonia is know to the Band/Hawks, since, as Peter correctly observed, the town is not too far from Port Dover, where the Hawks used to play, situated on the same highway. Secondly, it is adjacent to the Six Nations Reserve where Robbie used to spend summers as a child. Talking to both Rick and Levon after one of their concerts on the reunion tour of 1983, they both knew where the town was, Rick having driven through the previous night on the way to see his folks in the Simcoe/Turkey Point area.There was never a Mission in the town of Caledonia as far as I know, so I don't know what the line "inside the mission walls (law?)" means.
What about the woman? The bust involved a woman, and there’s no reason why the two stories won’t hang together. It seems reasonable that girlfriends might have come from Caledonia or the area. A mission can be a religious calling, a religious building or simply an intent or plan (Mission Impossible). I think the mission law transcription is quite wrong. I’m certain it’s walls, as in later versions. A walled mission (with a walled garden) brings up pictures of the South-West to me, Arizona or New Mexico. The most famous mission walls in American history are the walls of the Alamo Mission. But any building has walls. The area to the north of Kitchener, Ontario is a center for Mennonite religious communities, and there are more in the Niagara area. Who can tell what sort of mission it might have been? But it points to a woman tied into some kind of religious community, desperate to escape with the singer. The resultant trouble with the law seems connected.
OK, it could all relate to a betrayed attempt to carry something across a border, a runaway seems as likely as dope, maybe it was both. I didn’t find the border necessary, and saw it as more universal, and that is the secret of The Band at their best. I used to see a link to the I-Ching in some of the lines that might apply to the bust story:
It’s so strange to arrange it, you know I wouldn’t change it
But hear me if you’re near me, can I just rearange it… (You throw the sticks and arrange them in lines. There are fixed lines and ‘changing’ lines. A changing line means it rearranges and you read a different interpretation)
You know I do believe in your hexagram … (obviously)
But can you tell me how they all knew the plan … (Yeah, the I-Ching works, it foretells the future, but how do "they" know what’s going to happen)
The I-Ching was a surprisingly ‘hippy-friendly’ theme for Big Pink though, and no quotes (known to me) back it up as the main story. And of course the woman reads the tea leaves as well as reading the hexagrams.
The stories may be based in real events, but are polished into a mythic dimension. My guess is that the relationship story is part of the bust story. I also think that without seeing the Ronnie Hawkins or Levon quotes, the relationship story is more obvious (Greil Marcus and Barny Hoskyns picked it up first, though where Hoskyns gets a missionary from I don’t know). The 1968 Band seemed to want to keep it secret too.
Caledonia is interesting as a name. First, even The Band seem confused between ‘Caldonia’ (Louis Jordan tune later covered by Muddy Waters, now part of their stage act) and ‘Caledonia Mission’. On the box set, ‘Caledonia Mission’ (Rock of Ages) is wrongly titled ‘Caldonia Mission’, and in his book, Levon adds an aside that ‘I believe (Miss Fanny) looked a lot like Caledonia’ (which must mean Caldonia). On the New Orleans laser disc, they list ‘Caledonia’, but perform ‘Caldonia’. Then again, the blues tune must have been an abbreviated form of "Caledonia" or even a misspelling. Caledonia is the original Roman name for Northern Britain, later becoming restricted to Scotland. Van Morrison named his seventies touring group, The Caledonia Soul Orchestra.
The song has not had many airings on official releases, and doesn’t appear on 1969 to 1990 tapes either. It was missed off the compilations until the box set. It has been a constant in recent (1994 to 1997) Band live shows, with Rick Danko moving to acoustic guitar and taking lead vocal, and Randy Ciarlante playing bass. This is a pity. I’ve nothing against Ciarlante’s bass playing on the song, but Rick’s 1968 bass line is one of his great melodic lines pulling the story along. Another note in the Guestbook from B. Gold recalls Robbie switching to bass for this number in a live show at the Filmore East.
She reads the leaves and she leads the life
That she learned so well from the old wives
It's so strange to arrange it, you know I wouldn't change it
But hear me if you're near me, can I just rearrange it?
The watchman covers me
With his remedy
I can't see and it's hard to feel
I think his magic might be real
I can't get to you from your garden gate
You know it's always locked by the magistrate
Now he don't care why you cry, he thinks it's just a lie
To get out, I don't doubt that you'd make a try
If the good times get you through
I know the dogs won't bother you
We'll be gone in moonshine time
I've got a place they'll never find
You know I do believe in your hexagram
But can you tell me how they all knew the plan?
Did you trip or slip on their gifts, you know you were just a con?
You knew it, why d'you do it, I've been hiding in the dark
Now I must be on my way
I guess you really have to stay
Inside the mission law
Down in Modock, Arkansas
So, what’s the song about? I accepted the Greil Marcus opinion in Mystery Train for years. Marcus traces the image of ‘The Quester’ through several Band songs:
"Looking for salvation (the quester) ends up trying to save others: the woman of Caledonia Mission (she lives hidden behind a wall and the city has a lock on her gate).
Ronnie Hawkins
"I do understand the lyrics though, and better than most people. That one about Caledonia Mission and being surrounded by Mounties, that was one time they got busted at the border. They’re writing about true things, the things that happened to us along the way."
Levon Helm agrees:
"‘Caledonia Mission’ was Robbie’s and Richard sang the lyrics that alluded to the little problem we’d had with the law a few years earlier."
Though Levon was there, it’s surely Rick singing lead, with Richard singing the high part behind him. Interestingly, however, there's evidence that this wasn't always intended to be the case.
The bust occurred just before they joined with Dylan and had maximum publicity in Toronto. Levon & The Hawks had been trailed by eight RCMP cars for the hundred miles between the U.S. border crossing at Buffalo and Toronto Airport before being arrested. It caused them hassle for years (read Levon’s autobiography for the details).
Rick Danko
"We got set up. This guy was trying to impress my girlfriend. None of us would have known him, but he knew what time we were coming through the border that day, and he told the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that we were bringing in a trunkful of pot."
The singer makes some kind of arrangement with a woman who can foretell the future but lives in some kind of hidebound traditional way. Someone (the watchman) gives the singer a remedy which makes it hard for him to see or feel. He thinks that his magic might be real. The woman is locked away from him, she’s locked away by a magistrate who thinks her tears are a lie, but the singer doesn’t doubt that she wants to escape. The dogs won’t bother her. (sniffer dogs?) He’s got a hiding place they’ll never find (the trunk doesn’t sound that hard to find, but then again The Hawks weren’t bringing in a trunkful of pot anyway), but fate comes in - ‘they’ all knew the plan (they were tipped off). Did she trip or slip on their gifts? (Did she have any part in it?) You know you were just a con. Why did she do it? The singer is hiding out in the dark (or possibly the dawn). He leaves condemning her to stay in the mission (law / hall / walls) down in Modock Arkansas.
The question of the lyrics again. Barney Hoskins calls it ‘a wryly oblique song of longing for a missionary in the non-existent town of Modock, Arkansas’. I always heard it as ‘inside the mission walls’ and ‘old dark Arkansas’. Walls fits with gate, I guess. And that seems to be what Greil Marcus heard too. I assumed Modock was a mistake. More of this later.
Caledonia Mission later reappears in a rather roided up version (bit of a powerful horn section) on the 1971 live album Rock of Ages, with the last line changed from ‘down in Modock Arkansas’ to
inside the mission walls
on a river (bank/bench/branch) of Caledonia
It was also an unexpected revival throughout the 1994 to 1997 live shows. I say ‘unexpected’ because it doesn’t seem to feature on any late 60s / early 70s live tapes. Rick Danko sings this in the 1996 Radio Show version:
inside those mission walls
on a river bank in Caledonia …
In a 1994 tape from the Quatro Club in Tokyo, it’s behind those mission walls (and you can be behind a wall, but hardly ‘behind a law’). Mind you he also sings on a river bank in … Tokyo which has nothing to do with it!
So we have Modock, Arkansas and Caledonia as the setting for the story. Having checked the AAA Road Atlas of Arkansas, there seemed to be no town called Caledonia in Arkansas, though there is a small town called Caledonia just north of Columbus, Mississippi, a good 120 miles east of the Mississippi River, which forms the Arkansas - Mississippi border. Even so, the nearest river to this Caledonia is a couple of miles away on the map. A look back at the AAA atlas reveals a tiny town called ‘Moark’ right below the Arkansas / Missouri border, just off Highway 67 - and taking a runaway across a state line would have been a federal offence (Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry step forward). I couldn’t find ‘Modock’ at all, but when the first version of this was posted on the web, I discovered from Jimmy P. in Modok, Arkansas that it does indeed exist, and is about twenty miles south of Levon’s home in Helena.
But think about the switch in the lyrics in later years. The bust story mainly involved Rick, and he sings it on stage. I suddenly wondered about Ontario. Back to the atlas, and there it was. Caledonia, on the Grand River a few miles south of Hamilton. Off the main highway, but yes, it’s definitely between the US/Canadian border at Buffalo and Toronto. Ah. (So what was all that stuff about Arkansas then?). Then look again. Caledonia is just inland from Port Dover, which was Levon & The Hawks regular Sunday night gig for awhile. And just below Port Dover is Turkey Point. And Turkey Point Productions deal with Rick Danko’s business affairs nowadays. Levon is quite precise:
"The cops were real proud of themselves. They told us how they had picked us up at the border and followed us all the way into Toronto … ‘You drove so fast we even lost you a couple of times,’ one of them told me. But they were ahead of us too and found us again on the highway that cuts between the lake shore and Route 401. Damn."
Theoretically, you could take the Lake Erie shore road, then cut north through Caledonia to pick up the 401 (which runs from Detroit to Toronto). And that would cut out going through Niagara Falls to the Lake Ontario shore (which looks more logical on the map, but might not be in tourist season). But it still doesn’t figure to me that Caledonia would be so hugely significant in that story that it would title the song. Even if that’s where the RCMP had seen them again, the drama took place at Toronto airport. After reading the first version of this article, Bill Munson looked at Levon’s original account, and noted that he mentions the Metro Police. He adds:
"The airport isn't in Metropolitan Toronto, so the Metropolitan Police wouldn't have been involved in the arrest Metro police wouldn't have been involved in the chase either, as Metro is east of the airport (and the guys were coming from the west) airports are federal land (under Canada's constitution), so any bust would have to have been led by the RCMP (i.e., the federal police force) for charges to stick (or, frankly, even be contemplated) the RCMP would have had a car or two at the border, but the eight cars claimed by Levon could only have come from the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP - whose badge McCartney is wearing on Sergeant Pepper); the OPP has jurisdiction everywhere in Ontario (except on federal land) but is only active on provincial expressways (like the Queen E) and in rural areas without their own municipal forces (i.e., like much of the area travelled that day)"
I think Levon was trying to say that the police refound them on the road that goes from the lakeshore to the 401, which they'd have taken to get to the airport. (The Queen E, or QEW, runs close to the lakeshore and the 401 forms the southern boundary of the airport.) By "the lakeshore", Levon could have been referring either to the shore of the lake or, more likely, to Lakeshore Boulevard / Road, which is the old highway and which all locals call "the Lakeshore."
In other words, the place where the police picked up their trail again was further along from Caledonia, more on the outskirts of Toronto. But they were singing about Caledonia, Ontario. I’d be prepared to bet that. I also think the Arkansas reference could have been a deliberate fictionalisation, a "blind," in 1968, designed to cover the tracks, and divert attention from the actual location, that seemed irrelevant and unnecessary by 1972. Another useful note came in the Guestbook from Greg D:
I've always wondered (since hearing the Rock of Ages version) if the song was related to that place. There is indeed a river flowing through the town (the Grand River, largest river in southern Ontario). Caledonia is know to the Band/Hawks, since, as Peter correctly observed, the town is not too far from Port Dover, where the Hawks used to play, situated on the same highway. Secondly, it is adjacent to the Six Nations Reserve where Robbie used to spend summers as a child. Talking to both Rick and Levon after one of their concerts on the reunion tour of 1983, they both knew where the town was, Rick having driven through the previous night on the way to see his folks in the Simcoe/Turkey Point area.There was never a Mission in the town of Caledonia as far as I know, so I don't know what the line "inside the mission walls (law?)" means.
What about the woman? The bust involved a woman, and there’s no reason why the two stories won’t hang together. It seems reasonable that girlfriends might have come from Caledonia or the area. A mission can be a religious calling, a religious building or simply an intent or plan (Mission Impossible). I think the mission law transcription is quite wrong. I’m certain it’s walls, as in later versions. A walled mission (with a walled garden) brings up pictures of the South-West to me, Arizona or New Mexico. The most famous mission walls in American history are the walls of the Alamo Mission. But any building has walls. The area to the north of Kitchener, Ontario is a center for Mennonite religious communities, and there are more in the Niagara area. Who can tell what sort of mission it might have been? But it points to a woman tied into some kind of religious community, desperate to escape with the singer. The resultant trouble with the law seems connected.
OK, it could all relate to a betrayed attempt to carry something across a border, a runaway seems as likely as dope, maybe it was both. I didn’t find the border necessary, and saw it as more universal, and that is the secret of The Band at their best. I used to see a link to the I-Ching in some of the lines that might apply to the bust story:
It’s so strange to arrange it, you know I wouldn’t change it
But hear me if you’re near me, can I just rearange it… (You throw the sticks and arrange them in lines. There are fixed lines and ‘changing’ lines. A changing line means it rearranges and you read a different interpretation)
You know I do believe in your hexagram … (obviously)
But can you tell me how they all knew the plan … (Yeah, the I-Ching works, it foretells the future, but how do "they" know what’s going to happen)
The I-Ching was a surprisingly ‘hippy-friendly’ theme for Big Pink though, and no quotes (known to me) back it up as the main story. And of course the woman reads the tea leaves as well as reading the hexagrams.
The stories may be based in real events, but are polished into a mythic dimension. My guess is that the relationship story is part of the bust story. I also think that without seeing the Ronnie Hawkins or Levon quotes, the relationship story is more obvious (Greil Marcus and Barny Hoskyns picked it up first, though where Hoskyns gets a missionary from I don’t know). The 1968 Band seemed to want to keep it secret too.
Caledonia is interesting as a name. First, even The Band seem confused between ‘Caldonia’ (Louis Jordan tune later covered by Muddy Waters, now part of their stage act) and ‘Caledonia Mission’. On the box set, ‘Caledonia Mission’ (Rock of Ages) is wrongly titled ‘Caldonia Mission’, and in his book, Levon adds an aside that ‘I believe (Miss Fanny) looked a lot like Caledonia’ (which must mean Caldonia). On the New Orleans laser disc, they list ‘Caledonia’, but perform ‘Caldonia’. Then again, the blues tune must have been an abbreviated form of "Caledonia" or even a misspelling. Caledonia is the original Roman name for Northern Britain, later becoming restricted to Scotland. Van Morrison named his seventies touring group, The Caledonia Soul Orchestra.
The song has not had many airings on official releases, and doesn’t appear on 1969 to 1990 tapes either. It was missed off the compilations until the box set. It has been a constant in recent (1994 to 1997) Band live shows, with Rick Danko moving to acoustic guitar and taking lead vocal, and Randy Ciarlante playing bass. This is a pity. I’ve nothing against Ciarlante’s bass playing on the song, but Rick’s 1968 bass line is one of his great melodic lines pulling the story along. Another note in the Guestbook from B. Gold recalls Robbie switching to bass for this number in a live show at the Filmore East.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Two more from Big Pink
Let's go in order for a minute and look at the next two songs from Music from Big Pink, "To Kingdom Come" and "In a Station", written by Robbie Robertson and Richard Manuel, respectively. The first one exemplifies the oblique style of writing that Robertson would ultimately become associated with while being the creative brain of the group, while the latter song proves that Manuel knew how to write numbers that fit perfectly with his aching falsetto.
Forefather pointed to kingdom come
Sadly told his only son
Just be careful what you do
It all comes back on you.
False witness spread the news
Somebody's gonna lose
Either she or me or you,
Nothing we can do.
(Chorus)
Don't you say a word
Or reveal a thing you've learned
Time will tell you well
If you truly, truly fell
Tarred and feathered, yea!
Thistles and thorns,
One or the other
He kindly warns.
Now you look out the window tell me
What do you see?
I see a golden calf pointing
Back at me.
I been sitting in here for so darn long
Waitin' for the end to come along.
Holy roaster on the brink
Take a chance, swim or sink.
False witness, cast an evil eye
said I cannot tell a lie,
Haints and saints don't bother me
I'm not alone you see.
(Chorus)
Once I walked through the halls of a station
Someone called your name
In the street I heard children laughing
They all sound the same
Wonder, could you ever know me
Know the reason why I live
Is there nothing you can show me
Life seems so little to give
Once I climbed up the face of a mountain
And ate the wild fruit there
Fell asleep until the moonlight woke me
And I could taste your hair
Isn't everybody dreaming!
Then the voice I hear is real
Out of all the idle scheming
Can't we have something to feel
Once upon a time leaves me empty
Tomorrow never comes
I could sing the sound of your laughter
Still I don't know your name
Must be some way to repay you
Out of all the good you gave
If a rumour should delay you
Love seems so little to save
Forefather pointed to kingdom come
Sadly told his only son
Just be careful what you do
It all comes back on you.
False witness spread the news
Somebody's gonna lose
Either she or me or you,
Nothing we can do.
(Chorus)
Don't you say a word
Or reveal a thing you've learned
Time will tell you well
If you truly, truly fell
Tarred and feathered, yea!
Thistles and thorns,
One or the other
He kindly warns.
Now you look out the window tell me
What do you see?
I see a golden calf pointing
Back at me.
I been sitting in here for so darn long
Waitin' for the end to come along.
Holy roaster on the brink
Take a chance, swim or sink.
False witness, cast an evil eye
said I cannot tell a lie,
Haints and saints don't bother me
I'm not alone you see.
(Chorus)
Once I walked through the halls of a station
Someone called your name
In the street I heard children laughing
They all sound the same
Wonder, could you ever know me
Know the reason why I live
Is there nothing you can show me
Life seems so little to give
Once I climbed up the face of a mountain
And ate the wild fruit there
Fell asleep until the moonlight woke me
And I could taste your hair
Isn't everybody dreaming!
Then the voice I hear is real
Out of all the idle scheming
Can't we have something to feel
Once upon a time leaves me empty
Tomorrow never comes
I could sing the sound of your laughter
Still I don't know your name
Must be some way to repay you
Out of all the good you gave
If a rumour should delay you
Love seems so little to save
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Tears of Rage
I figure there's no better way to kick this thing off than to start with the very first track from the Band's very first album, Music from Big Pink, released in 1968. That song is Tears of Rage, written by Bob Dylan and Richard Manuel.
We carried you in our arms on Independence Day
And now you'd throw us all aside and put us all away
Oh, what dear daughter 'neath the sun could treat a father so?
To wait upon him hand and foot and always tell him "No"
(Chorus:)
Tears of rage, tears of grief
Why must I always be the thief?
Come to me now, you know we're so low
And life is brief
It was all very painless
When you went out to receive
All that false instruction
Which we never could believe
And now the heart is filled with gold
As if it was a purse
But, oh, what kind of love is this
Which goes from bad to worse?
(Chorus)
We pointed you the way to go
And scratched your name in sand
Though you just thought it was nothing more
Than a place for you to stand
I want you to know that while we watched
You discovered no one would be true
And I myself was among
The ones who thought
It was just a childish thing to do
(Chorus)
This broke every perceived rule of album programming. You were supposed to start out with a rocker, then do the slow ballad second. Instead Music From Big Pink opens with this slow, stately song sung by Richard Manuel.
Levon Helm
"Tears of Rage opened the album with a slow song, which was just another way of rebelling against the rebellion. We were deliberately going against the grain. Few artists had ever opened an album with a slow song, so we had to. At the zenith of the psychedelic era with it’s flaming guitars and endless solos and elongated jams, we weren’t about to make that kind of album. Bob Dylan helped Richard with this number about a parent’s heartbreak, and Richard sang one of the best performances of his life."
The philosophy behind the song was often quoted in contemporary articles on The Band. In direct contrast to the mood of the times, they were not writing about hating their parents or breaking away from their families - hence the ‘Next of Kin’ photo on the centrefold of the album:
Robbie Robertson
"You know the punky attitude that had to do with music - hate your mother and stab your father. It’s kind of a trend of some sort, and this (the next of kin photo)was a statement that we weren’t there. We don’t hate our mothers and fathers. It (Tears of Rage)’s from a parent’s point of view. So what if your parents did you wrong? Maybe they did, but so what? Everybody’s doing what they can do, right or wrong. I’m just tired of hearing all this - that little girl, Janis Ian. You know, Jim Morrison and all those people. I just think that they’re a drag. Even if that is their situation, who cares? "
Richard Manuel
"(Dylan) came down to the basement with a piece of typewritten paper - and it was typed out - in line form - and he just said ‘Have you got any music for this?’ I had a couple of musical movements that fit, that seemed to fit, so I just elaborated a little bit, because I wasn’t sure what the lyrics meant. I couldn’t run upstairs and say, ‘What’s this mean Bob? Now the heart is filled with gold as if it was a purse.’"
Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone magazine reviewer
"One hears a pure naked emotion in some of Dylan’s writing and singing - in Tears of Rage especially - that can’t be found anywhere else, and I think it is the musical sympathy Dylan and The Band shared in these sessions that gives Tears of Rage, and other numbers their remarkable depth and power."
Never mind who wrote what, it seemed to sum the Band up, and certainly everything they had to say to interviewers fitted the song:
We carried you in our arms
on Independence Day
Now you throw us all aside
and put us all away * (Dylan version: on our way )
Oh ,what dear daughter neath the sun (Dylan what daughter beneath the sun)
could treat a father so? (Dylan: would treather)
To wait upon him hand and foot
yet always tell him no? (Dylan version 3: answer no )
Tears of rage, tears of grief,
why must I always be the thief?
Dylan was already a parent; none of The Band were, but the song is still surprising because it’s not till kids are teenage that you get that feeling (though one supposes they’d all spent time considerable listening to teenaged girls moaning about their parents). Never mind that it’s a Dylan song. They arranged it. They placed it in its position of total prominence. Richard sang it. As commentators have pointed out, oddly the lyrics and style sound more like a Robertson song rather than Manuel or Dylan, but this is being wise after the event. Discount all the bullshit about Robertson writing this (or Dylan writing The Weight).
The magic image it starts with is the family group on Independence Day, a national holiday where parents watch parades, kids in arms. But of course the problem is that when kids arrive at their own personal day for independence - a mirror of the initial Independence Day - you can’t carry them in your arms anymore, even metaphorically. And if you want to get heavy, then maybe America itself is the child, the daughter, carried by the founding fathers in their arms (on Independence Day).
Paul Williams, producer
"I always come back to my first impression, based on the opening lines, that the song is about the American nation as seen from the perspective of the founding fathers, an expression of their pain at how she (personified as a female, Liberty) has turned her back on the ideas in which she was conceived.
We pointed you the way to go (Dylan: pointed out )
and scratched your name in sand
though you just thought it was nothing more
than a place for you to stand
I want you to know
that while we watched you discover
no one would be true (Dylan: there was no one true )
that I myself was among the ones (Dylan I myself remember now … )
who thought it was a childish thing to do
The whole mood of 1968 was kids rebelling against their parents. The tears of rage and grief are all around. The kids have taken all that false instruction. They were turning up at graduation ceremonies wearing black armbands."
Greil Marcus takes up the America theme, but this time America is the parent, rather than the child:
"They began with ‘Tears of Rage’, an eerie invocation of Independence Day, dragging the organ and those secretive horns across a funereal beat, changing the Fourth of July into an image of betrayal and loneliness: America betrayed by those who would no longer be part of it."
You can go even further if you want. Tim Riley, writer and media commentator, sees an injured soldier being carried in the arms on Independence Day:
"Tears of Rage … is a soldier’s curse upon his commander. It’s the voice of a man who followed his leader into battle, saw his friends slaughtered for a cause he never believed in, only to return to find his superior running for political office, turning his back on the values that were so easily sacrificed. 'We carried you in our arms / on Independence Day' is the kind of battle-scar allusion that Robbie Robertson will flesh out on ‘The Night they Drove Old Dixie Down' … 'Tears of Rage' doesn’t depend on the same associations, but it pursues the same memories and voices , a disbelief in and cynicism about authority so charged with resentment it can barely work up the steam to get pissed off … The leader who was carried in the arms of his troops, who scratched his name in sand, must now hear the bitter voice of the dissenters. The song can be read as an allegory of the Vietnam experience."
Levon Helm
"It had those trademark horns and organ and the moaning tom-tom style of drumming that I’ve been credited with by some observers, but I know that Ringo Starr was doing something like it at the same time. You make the drum notes bend down in pitch. You hit it, it sounds, and then it hums as the note dies out. If the ensemble is right, you can hear it sustain like a bell, and it’s very emotional. It can keep a slow song suspended in an interesting way. As a matter of fact, I found the tuning I used in ‘Tears of Rage’ by tuning to the flourescent lighting in the studio."
We carried you in our arms on Independence Day
And now you'd throw us all aside and put us all away
Oh, what dear daughter 'neath the sun could treat a father so?
To wait upon him hand and foot and always tell him "No"
(Chorus:)
Tears of rage, tears of grief
Why must I always be the thief?
Come to me now, you know we're so low
And life is brief
It was all very painless
When you went out to receive
All that false instruction
Which we never could believe
And now the heart is filled with gold
As if it was a purse
But, oh, what kind of love is this
Which goes from bad to worse?
(Chorus)
We pointed you the way to go
And scratched your name in sand
Though you just thought it was nothing more
Than a place for you to stand
I want you to know that while we watched
You discovered no one would be true
And I myself was among
The ones who thought
It was just a childish thing to do
(Chorus)
This broke every perceived rule of album programming. You were supposed to start out with a rocker, then do the slow ballad second. Instead Music From Big Pink opens with this slow, stately song sung by Richard Manuel.
Levon Helm
"Tears of Rage opened the album with a slow song, which was just another way of rebelling against the rebellion. We were deliberately going against the grain. Few artists had ever opened an album with a slow song, so we had to. At the zenith of the psychedelic era with it’s flaming guitars and endless solos and elongated jams, we weren’t about to make that kind of album. Bob Dylan helped Richard with this number about a parent’s heartbreak, and Richard sang one of the best performances of his life."
The philosophy behind the song was often quoted in contemporary articles on The Band. In direct contrast to the mood of the times, they were not writing about hating their parents or breaking away from their families - hence the ‘Next of Kin’ photo on the centrefold of the album:
Robbie Robertson
"You know the punky attitude that had to do with music - hate your mother and stab your father. It’s kind of a trend of some sort, and this (the next of kin photo)was a statement that we weren’t there. We don’t hate our mothers and fathers. It (Tears of Rage)’s from a parent’s point of view. So what if your parents did you wrong? Maybe they did, but so what? Everybody’s doing what they can do, right or wrong. I’m just tired of hearing all this - that little girl, Janis Ian. You know, Jim Morrison and all those people. I just think that they’re a drag. Even if that is their situation, who cares? "
Richard Manuel
"(Dylan) came down to the basement with a piece of typewritten paper - and it was typed out - in line form - and he just said ‘Have you got any music for this?’ I had a couple of musical movements that fit, that seemed to fit, so I just elaborated a little bit, because I wasn’t sure what the lyrics meant. I couldn’t run upstairs and say, ‘What’s this mean Bob? Now the heart is filled with gold as if it was a purse.’"
Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone magazine reviewer
"One hears a pure naked emotion in some of Dylan’s writing and singing - in Tears of Rage especially - that can’t be found anywhere else, and I think it is the musical sympathy Dylan and The Band shared in these sessions that gives Tears of Rage, and other numbers their remarkable depth and power."
Never mind who wrote what, it seemed to sum the Band up, and certainly everything they had to say to interviewers fitted the song:
We carried you in our arms
on Independence Day
Now you throw us all aside
and put us all away * (Dylan version: on our way )
Oh ,what dear daughter neath the sun (Dylan what daughter beneath the sun)
could treat a father so? (Dylan: would treather)
To wait upon him hand and foot
yet always tell him no? (Dylan version 3: answer no )
Tears of rage, tears of grief,
why must I always be the thief?
Dylan was already a parent; none of The Band were, but the song is still surprising because it’s not till kids are teenage that you get that feeling (though one supposes they’d all spent time considerable listening to teenaged girls moaning about their parents). Never mind that it’s a Dylan song. They arranged it. They placed it in its position of total prominence. Richard sang it. As commentators have pointed out, oddly the lyrics and style sound more like a Robertson song rather than Manuel or Dylan, but this is being wise after the event. Discount all the bullshit about Robertson writing this (or Dylan writing The Weight).
The magic image it starts with is the family group on Independence Day, a national holiday where parents watch parades, kids in arms. But of course the problem is that when kids arrive at their own personal day for independence - a mirror of the initial Independence Day - you can’t carry them in your arms anymore, even metaphorically. And if you want to get heavy, then maybe America itself is the child, the daughter, carried by the founding fathers in their arms (on Independence Day).
Paul Williams, producer
"I always come back to my first impression, based on the opening lines, that the song is about the American nation as seen from the perspective of the founding fathers, an expression of their pain at how she (personified as a female, Liberty) has turned her back on the ideas in which she was conceived.
We pointed you the way to go (Dylan: pointed out )
and scratched your name in sand
though you just thought it was nothing more
than a place for you to stand
I want you to know
that while we watched you discover
no one would be true (Dylan: there was no one true )
that I myself was among the ones (Dylan I myself remember now … )
who thought it was a childish thing to do
The whole mood of 1968 was kids rebelling against their parents. The tears of rage and grief are all around. The kids have taken all that false instruction. They were turning up at graduation ceremonies wearing black armbands."
Greil Marcus takes up the America theme, but this time America is the parent, rather than the child:
"They began with ‘Tears of Rage’, an eerie invocation of Independence Day, dragging the organ and those secretive horns across a funereal beat, changing the Fourth of July into an image of betrayal and loneliness: America betrayed by those who would no longer be part of it."
You can go even further if you want. Tim Riley, writer and media commentator, sees an injured soldier being carried in the arms on Independence Day:
"Tears of Rage … is a soldier’s curse upon his commander. It’s the voice of a man who followed his leader into battle, saw his friends slaughtered for a cause he never believed in, only to return to find his superior running for political office, turning his back on the values that were so easily sacrificed. 'We carried you in our arms / on Independence Day' is the kind of battle-scar allusion that Robbie Robertson will flesh out on ‘The Night they Drove Old Dixie Down' … 'Tears of Rage' doesn’t depend on the same associations, but it pursues the same memories and voices , a disbelief in and cynicism about authority so charged with resentment it can barely work up the steam to get pissed off … The leader who was carried in the arms of his troops, who scratched his name in sand, must now hear the bitter voice of the dissenters. The song can be read as an allegory of the Vietnam experience."
Levon Helm
"It had those trademark horns and organ and the moaning tom-tom style of drumming that I’ve been credited with by some observers, but I know that Ringo Starr was doing something like it at the same time. You make the drum notes bend down in pitch. You hit it, it sounds, and then it hums as the note dies out. If the ensemble is right, you can hear it sustain like a bell, and it’s very emotional. It can keep a slow song suspended in an interesting way. As a matter of fact, I found the tuning I used in ‘Tears of Rage’ by tuning to the flourescent lighting in the studio."
Friday, December 12, 2008
Watch some videos
lyndsayhardy.blogspot.com/
Apparently, the most beautiful blog by, apparently, the beautiful girl in the whole world. If it's on the Internet, it has to be true. Also has some videos that I happen to be in. Choice!
Apparently, the most beautiful blog by, apparently, the beautiful girl in the whole world. If it's on the Internet, it has to be true. Also has some videos that I happen to be in. Choice!
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