Perdono Grande Giove del Rock, ho peccato.
Non pensavo potesse succedere ma è successo.
Non li ascolterò più quei due assieme.
A mia parziale discolpa, Re Vega del Rock, le garantisco che quelli con cui ho avuto a che fare erano due stregoni. Come si fa a mettere in testa certi pensieri a una persona che si è giocato il cuore e l'anima per Who e Led Zeppelin? E mi creda, non fu per tirchieria che non mi giocai altro, era tutto quello che avevo a quei tempi.
L'uomo, nella sua forma terrena, aveva persino l'aspetto dello stregone: capelli lunghi, lisci, lerci, orecchie a sventola, strane fasce in testa, strani suoni che tirava fuori dal suo strumento, uno strumento che pare modificò a suo piacere, come è d'uso fare tra gli stregoni appunto, per renderlo più efficace.
Si chiamava Pastorius quell'uomo, forse ne avrà sentito parlare oh Grande Inquisitore del Rock. Beh, io dico che se si fosse trattato di un americano come si conviene, avrebbe avuto un cognome tipo Smith, Ford,... Callaghan al limite. Ma quello si chiamava Pastorius, è evidente che nascondeva qualcosa di strano.
Ora non nego che mi farebbe comodo disporre di indizi simili anche per quel che riguarda la donna, mi consentirebbero, oh Grande Scrutinatore del Rock, di provale più agevolmente quanto sto affermando. Purtroppo non ne ho. Devo dire che lei non ha mai avuto nulla dell'aspetto da strega, anzi. E non mi è possibile ricavare un granché nemmeno da nome e cognome, tutto abbastanza ordinario.
Ma forse la prova è proprio questa mancanza di indizi evidenti. Non è forse vero che quando si tratta di donne, tutto può diventare il contrario di tutto? Potrebbe darsi quindi che le streghe vadano cercate proprio dove non si crederebbe mai.
Ci fu chi sosteneva, lei certamente se lo ricorderà, che il diavolo è troppo furbo per far streghe con l'aspetto da strega.
E poi ci sono tutte quelle melodie così inafferrabili a darmi ragione. Sono una creazione della donna quelle melodie. Oh Uomo Del Monte del Rock, mica esisteranno solamente delle streghe che passano il tempo a mescolar pozioni? Ve ne saranno di certo alcune che preferiscono utilizzare la musica per far vittime.
Per fargliela breve, Magnifico Rettore del Rock, questa volta la vittima sono stato io, la vittima della trama sonora creata da quei due, dall' intreccio della voce di lei e delle linee di basso di lui. Le riassumo in breve quella mia esperienza.
Richiami di donna, che giungono da lontano scivolando su onde immaginarie create dalle note di una chitarra, che accarezzano i timpani e subito dopo tornano da dove son venuti e che a pensarci adesso, direi che in quanto a fatalità nulla avevano da invidiare a richiami di sirena, anzi, azzarderei a dire che proprio di quello si è trattato. Durante l'ascolto però non ci si accorge del pericolo e si procede tranquilli. Dopo un po' si fa vivo il basso con note che scuotono le viscere, ma all' inizio si tratta di pochi e rapidi interventi e quindi si procede ancora avanti senza pensieri. E piano piano, senza che ci si accorga di nulla, i due elementi si serrano attorno alla mente e ci si trova lungo il viale del cotone, e a quel punto è troppo tardi.
Il ribollire del basso si fa più denso e ci si abbandona, "Talk to Me", galline, "Jericho", poi si giunge a pianure di paprika e il programma prevede una fantasia di piano e voce svolazzante, e a seguire un po' d'orchestra, un po' troppa orchestra forse. Come dessert un assaggio di previsioni del tempo. Si prosegue con Otis e Marlena e un bel po' di percussioni. Poi è la volta della figlia monella di Don Giovanni, di "Off Night Backstreet", e in fine di The "Silky Veils of Ardor". L'uomo non ci mette mano in quest'ultimo pezzo, solo voce e chitarra, ma la musica non perde un grammo della sua fatalità.
Oh Grande Orson del Rock, non so dirle quando accadde, quando quel pensiero che mi stà condannando mi attraversò la mente, ricordo solo che successe senza che me ne accorgessi, senza che potessi farci niente: "In fondo per me, tutto il resto della musica può anche andare a funk-u low".
Ma fu solo un attimo Gran Vizir Detutiterun del Rock, poi mi sono ripreso, sono andato subito ad affondare la mente in "Live at Leeds" e tutto è tornato come prima.
Elenco tracce testi e video
01 Overture / Cotton Avenue (06:41)
A red sun came rolling down a grey sky
And the frogs and dogs and night birds then
Started up singing sweet country lullaby
You see that patch of city lights-
Somewhere in there's Cotton Avenue-
That's where I'm going to take myself tonight
With a spit shine on my dancing shoes
If you got a place like that to go
You just have to go there
If you got no place special
Well then, you just go no place special
I guess it's just the summer in the young blood
Ripe and juicy in the young blood
Teasing to go down to ...
Cotton Avenue
To hear the shiny shiny music
See all the shiny people dancing to it
Anytime you go to ...
Cotton Avenue
If you got a place like that to go
You know you got to go there
If you got no place special
Well then, you just go no place special
You see that summer storm brewing in the southern sky
By the time it hits here I'll be dancing high and dry
To rhythm and blues
On Cotton Avenue
Poor boys'll be hanging around outside in the street
They got all the latest words
They're dancing to the latest beat
While they're hustling and sizing you
On Cotton Avenue
If you got a place like that to go
You just have to go there
If you've got no place special
Well my dear
You just so no place ... special
03 Jericho (03:25)
I'll try to keep myself open up to you
That's a promise that I made to love
When it was new
"Just like Jericho" I said
"Let these wall come tumbling down"
I said it like I finally found the way
To keep the good feelings alive
I said it like it was something to strive for.
I'll try to keep myself open up to you
And approve your self expression
I need that, too
I need your confidence, baby
And the gift of your extra time
In turn I'll give you mine
Sweet darling, it's a rich exchange
It seems to me
It's a warm arrangement!
Anyone will tell you
Just how hard it is to make and keep a friend
Maybe they'll short sell you
Or maybe it's you
Judas, in the end
When you just can no longer pretend
That you're getting what you need
Or you're giving out anything for them to grow and feed on.
I'll try to keep myself open up to you
It gets easier and easier to do
Just like Jericho
Let these walls come tumbling down now
Let them fall right on the ground
Let all these dogs go running free
The wild and the gentle dogs
Kenneled in me.
04 Paprika Plains (16:21)
It fell from midnight skies
It drummed on the galvanized
In the washroom, women tracked the rain
Up to the make-up mirror
Liquid soap and grass
And Jungle Gardenia crash
On Pine-Sol and beer ...
It's stifling in here ...
I've got to get some air ...
I'm going outside to get some air
Back in my hometown
They would have cleared the floor
Just to watch the rain come down!
They're such sky oriented people--
Geared to changing weather ...
I'm floating off in time
I'm floating off
I'm floating off in time
When I was three feet tall
And wide eyed open to it all
With their tasseled teams they came
To McGee's General Store
All in their beaded leathers
I would tie on colored feathers
And I'd beat the drum like war ...
I would beat the drum like war
I'd beat the drum
I'd beat the drum like war
But when the church got through
They traded their beads for bottles
Smashed--on Railway Avenue
And they cut off their braids
And lost some link with nature
I'm floating into dreams
I'm floating off
I'm floating into my dreams
I dream paprika plains
Vast and bleak and God forsaken
Paprika plains
And a turquoise river snaking
(Where crows gaze--vigilant on wires
Where cattle graze the grasses
Far from the digits of business hours
The moon clock wanes and waxes--
But here all time is stripped away
Nowhere on these plains
Is a sprout or an egg in evidence
To measure loss or gain ...
Only a little Indian band
Come down from some windy mesa
No women to make them food and child
No expressions on their faces
I'm low in a helicopter
And the wind from whirling blades
Flaps their woven blankets
And flags their raven braids
How came they to this emptiness?
How came they to this dream?
How came I to this view
From a flying machine
Of earth and air and water
And a band of Indian men
Without herds or flocks or crops
Or families or fires to tend?
Like a phoenix up from ashes now
A blanket figure springs
With a fist raised up to turquoise skies
Like liberty
And at the point of vanishing
Where the sky and the earth meet
A bomb blooms
Deadly mushroom
White
Gold
Heat
Like a phoenix up from ashes
Up from violent mysteries
And growing 'till the giant blast
Is to it like a golfer's tee
there comes a child's beach ball
And memory takes me back
to the beach to toss it up
to the garage to get it patched
A pink and yellow beach ball
Rolling
Grand
Detached
Turning the blues and greens of earth
From space probe photographs
I float out of the hovercraft
Naked as infancy
And weightless
And drifting
Horizontally
Like a filing to a magnet
Like the long descent of rain
I am drawn
I fall against the ball
And lose paprika plains
I suckle at my mother's breast
I embrace my mother earth
I remember perforated blinds
Over the crib of my birth
And just as Eve succumbed
To reckless curiosity
I take my sharpest fingernail
And slash the globe to see
Below me--
Vast Paprika plains
And the snake the river traces
And a little band of Indian men
With no expressions on their faces.)
The rain retreats
Like troops to fall on other fields and streets
Meanwhile they're sweet talking and name calling
And brawling on the fringes of the floor
I spot you through the smoke
With your eyes on fire
From J&B and coke
As I'm coming through the door
I'm coming back
I'm coming back for more!
The band plugs in again
You see that mirrored ball begin to sputter lights
And spin
Dizzy on the dancers
Geared to changing rhythms
No matter what you do
I'm floating back
I'm floating back to you!
05 Otis and Marlena (03:58)
Marlena under Foster Grants
She's undercover from the dawns advance
That girl is travel-drained
And the neon mercury vapor stained
Miami sky
It's red as meat
It's a cheap pink rose
Otis in the driver's seat
Watches the street lights fade away
On louvered blocks in green sea air
In fluorescent fossil yards
Slippers are shuffling into folding chairs
Freckled hands are shuffling cards
They've come for fun and sun
While Muslims stick up Washington ...
Otis empties out the trunk
On the steps of that celebrated dump
Sleazing by the sea
Bow down to her royal travesty--
In her ballrooms heads of state--
In her bedrooms rented girls--
Always the grand parades of cellulite
Jiggling to her golden pools
Through flock and cupid colonnades
They jiggle into surgery
Hopefully beneath the blade
They dream of golden beauty ...
They've come for fun and sun
While Muslims stick up Washington ...
Marlena, white as stretcher sheet
Watches it all from her 10th floor balcony
Like it's her opera box
All those Pagliacci summer frocks
Otis is fiddling with the TV dial
All he gets are cartoons and reruns
She taps her glass with an emery file
Watching three rings in the sun
The golden dive, the fatted flake
And sizzle in the mink oil
It's all a dream
She has awake
Checked into Miami Royal
Where they've come for fun and sun
While Muslims hold up Washington ...
Dream on
Dream on
Dream on
Dream on
Dream on
07 Dreamland (04:39)
It's a long, long way from Canada
A long way from snow chains
Donkey vendors slicing coconut
No parkas to their name
Black babies covered in baking flour
The cook's got a carnival song
We're going to lay down someplace shady
With dreamland coming on
Dreamland, dreamland
Dreamland, dreamland
Walter Raleigh and Chris Columbus
Come marching out of the waves
And claim the beach and all concessions
In the name of the suntan slave
I wrapped that flag around me
Like a Dorothy Lamour sarong
And I lay down thinking national
With dreamland coming on
Dreamland, dreamland
Dreamland, dreamland
Goodtime Mary and a fortune hunter
All dressed up to follow the drums
Mary in a feather hula-hoop
Miss Fortune with a rose on her big game gun
All saints, all sinners shining
Heed those trumpets all night long
Propped up on a samba beat
With dreamland coming on
Dreamland, dreamland
Dreamland, dreamland
Tar baby and the Great White Wonder
Talking over a glass of rum
Burning on the inside
With the knowledge of things to come
There's gambling out on the terrace
And midnight ramblin' on the lawn
As they lead toward temptation
With dreamland coming on
Dreamland, dreamland
Dreamland, dreamland
In a plane flying back to winter
In shoes full of tropic sand
A lady in a foreign flag
On the arm of her Marlboro Man
The hawk howls in New York City
Six foot drifts on Myrtle's lawn
As they push the recline buttons down
With dreamland coming on
Dreamland, dreamland
Dreamland, dreamland
La, La ...
African sand on the trade winds
And the sun on the Amazon
As they push the reline buttons down
With dreamland coming on
Dreamland, dreamland
Dreamland, dreamland
08 Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (06:36)
I'm Don Juan's reckless daughter
I came out two days on your tail
Those two bald-headed days in November
Before the first snowflakes sail
Out on the vast and subtle plains of mystery
A split tongue spirit talks
Noble as a nickel chief
Striking up an old juke box
And he says:
"Snakes along the railroad tracks"
He says, "Eagles in jet trails ..."
He says, "Coils around feathers and talons on scales ...
Gravel under the belly plates ..."
He says, "Wind in the Wings ..."
He says, "Big bird dragging its tail in the dust ...
Snake kite flying on a string."
I come from open prairie
Given some wisdom and a lot of jive!
Last night the ghosts of my old ideas
Reran on channel five
And it howled so spooky for its eagle soul
I nearly broke down and cried
But the split tongue spirit laughed at me
He says, "Your serpent cannot be denied."
Our serpents love the whisky bars
They love the romance of the crime
But didn't I see a neon sign
Fester on your hotel blind
And a country road come off the wall
And swoop down at the crowd at the bar
And put me at the top of your danger list
Just for being so much like you are!
You're a coward against the altitude--
You're a coward against the flesh--
Coward--caught between yes and no
Reckless this time on the line for yes, yes, yes!
Reckless brazen in the play
Of your changing traffic lights
Coward--slinking down the hall
to another restless night
As we center behind the eight ball
As we rock between the sheets
As we siphon the colored language
Off the farms and the streets
Here in Good-Old-God-Save-America
the home of the brave and the free
We are all hopelessly oppressed cowards
Of some duality
Of restless multiplicity
(Oh say can you see)
Restless for streets and honky tonks
Restless for home and routine
Restless for country-safety-and her
Restless for the likes of reckless me
Restless sweeps like fire and rain
Over virgin wilderness
It prowls like hookers and thieves
Through bolt locked tenements
Behind my bolt locked door
The eagle and the serpent are at war in me
The serpent fighting for blind desire
The eagle for clarity
What strange prizes these battles bring
These hectic joys-these weary blues
Puffed up and strutting when I think I win
Down and shaken when I think I lose
There are rivets up here in this eagle
There are box cars down there on your snake
And we are twins of spirit
No matter which route home we take
Or what we forsake
We're going to come up to the eyes of clarity
And we'll go down to the beads of guile
There is danger and education
In living out such a reckless life style
I touched you on the central plains
It was plane to train my twin
It was just plane shadow to train shadow
But to me it was skin to skin
The spirit talks in spectrums
He talks to mother earth to father sky
Self indulgence to self denial
Man to woman
Scales to feathers
You and I
Eagles in the sky
You and I
Snakes in the grass
You and I
Crawl and fly
You and I
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Altre recensioni
Di London
"Il nero che balla in copertina è lei, è Joni la figlia spregiudicata di Don Giovanni."
"Don Juan Reckless Daughter è un disco che definire complesso è forse riduttivo, deve essere ascoltato sia con la mente che con il corpo."
