“Oh oh Telephone Line, give me some time, I’m living in twilight”
This one’s dedicated to the one and only Maïto bébé.
No blaba, no videos. Just a few download links:
In her honor
For (y)our listening pleasure

Rodolphe Legros & Ensemble Ibo-Lele – Trois Feuilles Tombé
Ferrere Laguere Leads The Coeur Simidor – Feuilles
Ferrere Laguere Leads The Coeur Simidor – Haïti Chérie
Issa El Saieh – Choukoun
Ti Paris – Mon Idéal
Haïtiando – Mademoiselle je vous aime
Tabou Combo – New York

Land Ho! / Holy Land…
Terre Sainte en ce premier weekend de Pâques? Je vous propose un face à face des grands noms de la chanson française: Gainsbourg VS Nougaro (enfin Dieudonné qui chante à la manière de Claude…)

En 1967, Serge écrit la chanson Le Sable et le Soldat en soutien à Tsahal pendant la Guerre des Six Jours. Ce travail est réalisé à la demande de l’attaché culturel de l’ambassade d’Israël, qui souhaite envoyer une marche militaire nouvelle pour remonter le moral des troupes.

Oui, je défendrai le sable d’Israël,
La terre d’Israël, les enfants d’Israël;
Quitte à mourir pour le sable d’Israël,
La terre d’Israël, les enfants d’Israël;
Je défendrai contre tout ennemi,
Le sable et la terre, qui m’étaient promis

Quitte à mourir pour le sable d’Israël,
La terre d’Israël, les enfants d’Israël;


Une mélodie entêtante…
Bien des années plus tard Dieudonné emprunte la mélodie entrainante des “yeux noirs” et chante avec l’accent chantonnant du midi une des chansons les plus poignantes en hommage à la Palestine

Hamid a 22 ans et il décide d’aller se faire sauter au milieu de ceux qu’il considère comme l’envahisseur.

Y’a mon souffle qui s’accélère, manque d’oxygène.
Ton regard qui me fixe. Tu comprends. Ton sac qui tombe, la pomme qui roule.
Tes yeux m’implore. Reculer ? Il est trop tard petite.
Y’a mon doigt qui se crispe.
Puisqu’on ne peut vivre tous les deux : Crèvons ensemble. Palestine !!!!


No comment…

Yesterday I got so old
I felt like I could die
Yesterday I got so old
It made me want to cry

without you
Without you


Those Inbetween days are slightly disturbing.

Green light, seven eleven
You stop in for a pack of cigarettes
You don’t smoke, don’t even want to
Hey now, i see you check your change
Dressed up like a car crash
The wheels are turning but you’re upside down
You say when he hits you, you don’t mind
Because when he hurts you, you feel alive
Oh, now, Is that what it is?

Three o’clock in the morning
It’s quiet and there’s no one around
Just the bang and the clatter
As an angel runs to the ground
Just the bang and the clatter
As an angel hits the ground


The teenager in me… ufff! I know, I know.

Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone
It’s not warm when she’s away.
Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone
She’s always gone too long
Anytime she goes away.

I don’t know why this track came to me as an afterthought…


Moving up slowly
Inertia keeps
Moving up slowly
She comes
Moving up slowly
Moving up slowly
She comes moving up slowly
Inertia creeps moving up slowly

And I will always love you
I will always love you
Bitter-sweet memories
That’s all I have, and all I’m taking with me
Good-bye, oh, please don’t cry
‘Cause we both know that I’m not
What you need
But I will always love you
I will always love you

And I hope life, will treat you kind
And I hope that you have all
That you ever dreamed of
Oh, I do wish you joy
And I wish you happiness
But above all this
I wish you love

So you all know Whitney’s cover from the Bodyguard soundtrack. But had you heard Dolly’s original version or even Chris Cornell’s cover? It turns out we owe the Whitney version to Kevin Costner who’s a big country fan and really insisted she sing it…

It’s one of those posts again… you know the ones? Slightly bittersweet and heartwrenching for no clear or immediate reason. Just for the theme and the beauty of the music!
I apologize; but it’s gonna be good. In that “hurts so good” kinda way.
And right now I’m going in for the kill

This time you asked where I rested my head last night
Last time you left I got my drunk ass whupped in a fight
My whole life’s been one cliched country unfinished line after line after line after line
It’s been the curse of my crazy koo-kooed up clocks most all of my lifes time after time after time
From the start I told you of my dark colourful chequered past, ya had to ask and how I ruined the lives of those I loved without so much as a bass ackwards glance
And the long winding roads buried down and blacked out towards recovery
And how it took the great god Jehovah His self to re-uncover me
I said sometimes it’s better just not to ask
But your love stood strong and pressed hard-on through that
Maybe I should’ve lied but my two wrongs wouldn’t a made it right.
And however pathetic it sounds upon it’s hearing it’s true I have been tried
and have tried, and god knows I’ve asked him why
So do you want me back or to back pack up all of my things
Maybe If I had not drank
All of my money behind the bars I just coulda bought you a ring
And from the last doin’ time I got those walkin’ papers bailed up and outta your jail I’d barely been unpacked and that makes twice now in four to six months that I’ve had to ask your ass back
Sweetheart you just gotta let me know
Should I stay and if not, where the hell you reckon I oughta go?
I know it’s backass thinkin’ but please forgive what I do when I’ve been drinkin’ when I’m down and out so lost, lonesome and alone
You know I ain’t the letter writin’ kind print or type but then back when we started this romancingly stoned little adventure bitch I done told your ass now twice
And I know, that I know, that I know, no one knows more that than I, that I was wrong and still I can barely say I’m sorry with the fuckin’ song
And If you don’t want it that I should stay, just say
I’ll understand your needs either way, come what may
I know it’s all my fault and the bloody marriage to the deep alco-hole
I know it’s sad to say but right now these shots keep me sane, sober and alive
I love you more humanly possible than mere earthly words could describe and if I tried even in the heavenly tongues it’s purity mere language would still simply just pervert
And what little I am able to know of love I know that it hurts, it’s sick, it’s sick, it’s sick
It’s a sickness unto death and it’s a hell and at it’s best well hell there just ain’t nothin’ worse
I ain’t strung out or playing games stringin that lovely sass along and I’ve tried and I’ve tried and I’ve tried to explain myself, my sins, my heart, and my oh so very wrongs
Believe me babe it ain’t you hell knows why I do the dumb shit I do-do or think but dammit, heaven knows my heart It has been tried and has tried and god knows I’ve asked him why
And I know it don’t make it right singin’ a simple lullaby
But please accept my humble song.
It ain’t got shit to do with you and by god that’s god’s honest truth
There’s more in a man than the liquor and the lust that can make him anything but strong
And your the guiding light for which I live and I have nothing else that I could give and so I sing to you my song
And no, it’s not an excuse when I confess my love to you
And say I’m sorry with a song.
And woman when you know that I’m still runnin’, but your love if it keeps on comin’
I’m bound to circle round, line up, staring straight back into you.
And I know it don’t make it right singing a simple lullaby
But please accept my sorry with a song

Now that’s a gorgeous monster of a track, sprawling and country-tinged. Beautiful lyrics. The only guy who could follow it is Bob

It ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
It don’t matter, anyhow
An’ it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
If you don’t know by now
When your rooster crows at the break of dawn
Look out your window and I’ll be gone
You’re the reason I’m trav’lin’ on
Don’t think twice, it’s all right

I’m walkin’ down that long, lonesome road, babe
Where I’m bound, I can’t tell
But goodbye’s too good a word, gal
So I’ll just say fare thee well
I ain’t sayin’ you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don’t mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don’t think twice, it’s all right


This is the Whitmark Demo and it’s even better!

Now let’s use Dylan as a smooth transition towards the next track.

Chelsea Girl is a fantastic album by Nico that you might know from the Velvet Underground’s first album, the famous banana one…
So anyway, she gathered all the best songwriters on her solo debut: Bob Dylan, Tim Hardin, The Velvet Underground boys and a young prodigy called Jackson Browne. He wrote the amazing These Days and The Fairest of the seasons which is more relevant for today’s theme

Now that it’s time
Now that the hour hand has landed at the end
Now that it’s real
Now that the dreams have given all they had to lend
I want to know
Do I stay or do I go
And maybe try another time
And do I really have a hand in my forgetting

Now that I smile
Now that I’m laughing even deeper in the side
Now that I see
Now that I finally found the one thing I denied
Its now I know
Do I stay or do I go
And it is finally I decide
That I’ll be leaving in the fairest of the seasons


And I leave you with something upbeat. Same question / different rhythm:
Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Oh yeeeeeaaaaah

Should I stay or should I go now?
yo me enfrio o lo sufro
If I go there will be trouble
Si me voy – va a haber peligro
And if I stay it will be double
Si me quedo es doble
So you gotta let me know
Pero me tienes que decir
Should I stay or should I go?

Let’s stay in that mood. Here’s A Vava Inouva, Idir‘s most famous song, which translates roughly as Oh Father Inouva. I’m trying to remember in which Duraid Lahham film it was used.

Well I’ll just throw in two more songs into the mix. Willis Earl Beal‘s Monotony from his forthcoming album Acousmatic Sorcery. Just a man and his guitar (and his voice).

And we’ll wrap it up with Andy McKee. Didn’t know him until a few hours ago. I don’t know how impressive he is to listen to on a stereo, might turn into elevator music pretty quickly. But watching him on Youtube is amazing. And yes, I know, it’s a Toto cover… Shushhh!!!

But all you ever do is walk away and I know if you’d only go slow
you could see what it means to be making the scene with me
But all you ever do is walk away and I think if you tried
you could find a little time
for the life I can see in your eyes, don’t go. Don’t go.

Sometimes you just explode and no one alive can break your code
You have a language of your own, an unconnected road
The people you called your friends, the places you won’t go again
The decades lost in finding them, you’ll have to let them go.


Stephin Merritt is the genius behind the Magnetic Fields. He’s an amazing songwriter and he’s got at least one other clown-related lyric.

I wandered in these big blue shoes,
till we had nothing left to lose.
Nobody wants you when you’re a circus clown.
I should know.
I looked all over town.

One last time.
I looked all over town.


A great songwriter from another era also talked about clowns

Now if there’s a smile on my face
it’s only there tryin’ to fool the public
but when it comes down to foolin’ you;
Now honey, that’s quite a different subject

Just like Pagliacci did
I try to keep my sadness hid
Smiling in the public eye
But in my lonely room I cry
the tears of a clown
when there’s no one around


Clowns are occasionally funny, fundamentally sad but they can be scary too. Remember Stephen King’s It and Pennywise the creepy clown played by Tim Curry?

Since we’re talking about freaky clowns, let’s go to David Lynch‘s world for a while.

A candy-colored clown they call the sandman
Tiptoes to my room every night
Just to sprinkle stardust and to whisper
“Go to sleep. Everything is all right.”


In 2011, years after using Roy Orbison’s In dreams in Blue Velvet, David Lynch released his first solo album Crazy Clown Time (That’s if you don’t count BlueBob…)

They all run around
Oh, it’s crazy clown time!
It was really fun!


There’s also a weird video he released for his first single from the album. I don’t know if you can stream it from here since you need to sign in.

I know you got to go
Seen in comin’ baby
Just as plain as a day
Seen it comin’ at me
No way you can’t stay

I know, I know, I know
I, I, I know
Don’t have to tell me baby


I’m going to leave you on a lighter note. The picture on top is from a dance movie directed by Lloyd Newson: DV8 Physical Theatre‘s The Cost of Living. I can’t even start to describe it, I love it so much!
Have a look below and try to find and watch the whole film (it’s only 35 min long).

Filed under: Call and response Tagged: Clown, Cost Of Living, David Lynch, DV8 Physical Theatre, Lloyd Newson, Roy Orbison, Smokey Robinson, The Magnetic Fields ]]>