Carly, Bach, Floyd, Mozart, Purcell And Me
Absolutely in love with my music today.
As I left the house this morning to get to the Internet cafe that I write to you from now, I was in a foul mood, stressed, self-pitying and an all-round pathetically minded prick. Then on my MP3 player she sang, like the angel that she is, I'd even forgotten that she was there (I think I only have two of her tracks), but Carly Simon charmed her beautiful voice into my head and I was set free from my own particular brand of bullshit. Its true Carly, "nobody does it better" than you (or me for that matter), oh "why do I have to be so good!", maybe its because I'm so vain, eh?!
Followed on with the wonderful Animals album by Pink Floyd. Pretty rocky stuff for the Floyd, great piece of work...a lot of truths there in Mr Waters' grandiose metaphor (a far tighter working concept than The Wall ever was). I've just been listening to some Bach Fugues, which I love too. Beautiful stuff, I hear them as bright orange and luminous green, glowing like some-kind of living colour, sweet and citric in taste. Life.
And now, after life, I have Mozart's Requiem on which I first heard in film adaptation of Peter Schaffer's play Amadeus. Did Salieri kill Mozart? No. He wasn't buried in a pauper's grave either. Genius killed Mozart, and greed, and behaviour brought on by a now identifiable form of autism. This is amazing music though. It shakes through my entire body touching parts of my emotions that I didn't even know existed. This surely is what all great art does!
The great thing is that I know what's coming up in a moment on today's MP3 collection. Purcell. Greatest English composer who ever lived in my opinion, I have NEVER failed to pick out his music when I've heard it. I used his piece 'Chacony' on a film that I made about the remains of the church in Canterbury where Christopher Marlowe (the playwright) which was blitzed in 1942. It was a rather dry film. A structural materialist piece, which was a great concept badly executed. The first half of it was set to Chacony (not only because Purcell for me is a quintessentially English composer but also because he was a contemporary of Marlowe) and the second half of the film was set to Ride Of The Valkyries from Wagner's Ring Cycle (as an allusion to the Nazi propaganda of Leni Reifenstahl).
Maybe I should go back one day and revisit this project once more.
Hmm, listening to some Gregorian Chants right now. I actually really love this stuff. Its very beautiful, it makes me want to fly out of the top of my head to somewhere much higher. It also trows me back into history, and my mind flashes with images (I wonder if I see these as image captures from my past lives?).
Well, as for me...aside from music, I'm stressed at the moment. More relationship problems. I'm constantly tortured by the fear of money and failing to pay rent. I'm not getting enough hours off the guy that I've been working for recently (he's cancelled work today for the fifth time in five days, calling me a 11pm at night). Not good enough. I'm thinking of setting up a bank account and running a blog where people can offer me their patronage by paying straight into it (as distasteful as this sounds, its a staple of the back pages of Private Eye).
A friend of mine (who is staying with us at the moment) asked me what I was up to musically, I talked about getting my new band together. It was interesting because he said that when I play in my group, he finds the conviction and sincerity of my performance captivating. He's not so keen on the noise we make though. Ha Ha!
But its true though, ofcourse I'm totally sincere about. Ofcourse I have total conviction about it. Its rock music. Its the bare fucking minimum requirement to being worthwhile.
So, I WILL be getting this band together. I WILL blow the fuckers away out there who ever crossed me with the supersonic spectacle of my band. We WILL break our balls for this wonderful thing called rock n roll, and I hope that we'll save our own sanity and lives in the process of doing so.
Right. Have to go and top up my credit. Just wanted to say thanks to Brina for posting so many responses her. They mean a lot. Any comments that get posted here almost always brighten my day immensely. They can literally change my entire mood, and I really do appreciate it.
Peace and Love,
Tom.
posted by Tom Matchett @ 12:17 pm
5 Comments:
Morning Tom, Your musical diary was wonderful to read. I could hear each of the sections of your listening in my head.
Gregorian Chants, hmmm, we studied those in one of my music history classes at conservatory, and do you know what? We had to be able to identify different, distinct Gregorian chants from each other on a test. Can you imagine? I found that incredibly challenging.
A writer friend of mine, a world-class writer, is perhaps the best listener of music I've ever known, and he interweaves it with his writing. He told me once that there's just always music playing for him, whether actually playing in a physical sense around him or just in his head, and that it is part of everything he writes somehow.
I do have quiet times in my head (thankfully) but music is the one constant in my life. I often feel I would go insane without music, don't you?
Also, I'm convinced that there's music in heaven. I know there must be.
Hope your day goes well. I think that when I was just a few years younger than you, I had many times when I was truly down to my last $50. And somehow we get through those times.
You've already figured that out. You, my dear, are a survivor!
Hi Brina,
I know all about going insane without music. The thought of not making the rock music that I see in my head drives me mad. Literally.
After gigs I can go 48 hours without sleeping and feeling like I'm absolutely flying. It drives me like nothing on earth. A better drug, than any booze, pill or woman that I've ever encountered. Pete Townshend has written recently about artists merely finishing what drips down from the divine sea of inspiration. I can identify with that. In my best moments as a rock musician I've literally felt like I'm touching the face of God.
As for music in heaven, I've heard it! A few years ago I had a dream about a man digging a grave on my old school's sports pitches. I knew, for some reason though I hadn't heard them since I was a child, that he was Carl Wilson from the Beach Boys. I'll write more about the dream here soon - I think - but to cut the story short, as we talked I heard celestial surf music, as though the Beach Boys had recorded in heaven, and filled the grave in over him.
I woke up the next morning in 1998, and read the Teletext which told me that he'd died that night. I swear I only really had recollections of the Beach Boys from my childhood. But there it was, this amazingly spiritual and beautiful music. There was a lyric in it like,
"Here we are and we're fabulous,
Here we are and we're glorious"
The music was so simple (there is a bass beat from it on the piano that I can still recall) and this reach vocal sound part human and part angelic.
I think that Paul McCartney had a similar experience before he wrote "Yesterday".
So, yes. There is music in heaven. Maybe music is what heaven actually is, beyond physical form, out there somewhere on a different frequency (why not? Bats and dogs can hear and see things that we can't, and yet they exist).
Today, I made £50 for turning up to a film voice over session that didn't happen, I still got the money though! Not bad, eh!
Tom.
Dear Tom, I'm with you on the music and heaven connection. I actually "get" your story without any trace of skepticism. The wonder of it all...
How are you doing with your broken heart? Mine is hurting. I've really been the initiator in this particular breakup, but that doesn't make it hurt any less.
It's a long distance thing and lately there's been a bit of meannness coming from him to me in his written words. I vowed, when I moved away from my marriage over a year ago, that I would not allow any man to bring negativity, meanness, or cruelty across my threshold in my new home.
I've lived by that rule, and yet somehow I allowed my long-distance man to break the rule and I came back for more...it was of course mixed in with our good stuff, very good stuff, and we are great when we're in the same room. But how can I let his meanness continue toward me? I deserve better than that.
So I'm initiating the breakup. It hurts a lot. I keep thinking that if I do this, we'll come back together down the road, better and stronger together. Maybe.
Tell me, how DO you do the voice of a reincarnated penis! giggle
Hi Brina,
Well, I wouldn't actually say that I'm broken hearted at all at the moment. Its a bit difficult to explain without going into specifics. Its not good, but the way I see it, if it'll work out then it will work out. I have a habit of getting involved with complicated women in complicated situations (for some reasons the women who aren't complicated tend to bore me very quickly).
Actually, things might be changing a bit on this front - maybe for the better - but I've got to give her some space at the moment. Which is fine, I've waited two years, I can wait a bit longer to see how things will pan out.
Sorry to hear about this guy being a shit to you in what he's been writing. The way I figure it, bullying or manipulating someone in a relationship is bang out of line. Whenever a woman tries that on with me I'm gone...double quick. And ofcourse, it burns quite bad when that happens because you miss the role that they played in your life before they went nasty and turned on you. A double edged sword, eh?!
As for creating the voice of a reincarnated penis -and an american one studying at Harvard no-less - its top secret, James Bond, MI5 type stuff. Truly, the secrets of stardom!
Tom
Yes, actually...I get plenty...thank you.
I enjoy blogging. And why not?
So, don't get your knickers in such a twist.
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