Elvis Costello’s demos are often better pieces of music than the final recorded versions of songs they represent. Case in point: “The Invisible Man” from Punch the Clock (1983).
I’ve long had theories about why I find E.C.’s music so interesting in general. For me, much of the fascination has to do with Costello’s distinctive take(s) on the formal structure of a song.
If you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, think of it this way: It’s arguably not that big a deal to create a catchy melody, hooky chorus, innovative chord progression, funky rhythm, or clever lyric. Jingle writers do it all the time. My kids can do it, given enough sugar.
We usually take for granted, however, how incredibly difficult it is to create a twenty or thirty minutes of musical time that holds together and gets us involved. Side two of the Beatles’ Abbey Road, for example, which pulls together several fragments of songs unused by Lennon and McCartney in an attempt to create a larger whole, holds my attention for twelve or so minutes, even after repeated listenings. For various reasons, it works, and I’m not alone in feeling that way. It presents a fairly innovative (for rock music) formal solution for how to create music longer than a single song that keeps one’s interest from flagging. Similarly, I could name dozens of similar-length pieces that do not.
Formal structure, then, is kind of like how chunks of music are put together to make a whole. Each chunk, in a way, comprises a “section.” When we talk about songs, the language we use varies, but we are all familiar with the terms intro, verse, chorus, bridge, outro, and maybe a couple of others. I’m generalizing again, but standard pop song form tends to do something like this: intro – verse / chorus 1 – verse / chorus 2 – bridge/instrumental solo – verse / chorus 3 – outro. “Verse” means “same music, different words” each time through (1, 2, 3), while “chorus” simply means “same music, same words” (think, “The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind / the answer is blowin’ in the wind” … that’s a chorus).
A “bridge,” meanwhile, can be sung or instrumental, but the point is that it’s like a whole new (but not unrelated) musical idea is thrown in, to add a little contrast. What’s music without contrast? BORING.
I’d have to say that most rock music I grew up listening to employed very conventional formal structures, like the one I jotted down two paragraphs ago. Elvis Costello, I’ve noticed, especially in his earlier songs, doesn’t like to come off as dull. Formally, what this means is that he won’t just follow “verse / chorus 1” with “verse / chorus 2.” Oh, no. Why repeat yourself so soon? Throw a THIRD musical idea in there as fast as possible: hence, the Costello-ish formal structure, verse / chorus / bridge. Three, count ‘em, three musical sections in a row without repetition.
The demo of “The Invisible Man” uses this form (see lyrics below, and listen to the song). My comments are strewn about through the lyrics, but I’m sure you can tell which is which…
“The Invisible Man” (demo version)
Verse 1 (D Major)
First half: I was committed to life and then commuted to the outskirts / With all the love in the world / Living for thirty minutes at a time with a break in the middle for adverts Second half: But it’s a wonderful world within these cinema walls / Where a shower of affection becomes Niagara Falls / And you wish she could step down from the screen to your seat in the stalls
Chorus 1 (for lack of a better term) (F# minor – G Major)
But if stars are only painted on the ceiling above / Then who can you turn to and who do you love / I want to get out while I still can / I want to be like Harry Houdini /Now I’m the invisible man (ends in D major)
BRIDGE (The THIRD consecutive section of music) (e minor – f minor – A-flat)
My head is spinning round faster and faster (I LOVE that it rests, with a riff, mind you, on the tritone-related tonal center here of A-flat (from D)…) / Here I stand on the edge of disaster (riff in A-flat) / I’m shattered like a piece of crystal porcelain or alabaster (weasels its way back to A, which gets you back to…)
Verse 2 (back to D Major!)
Crowds surround loudspeakers hanging from the lampposts / Listening to the murder mystery / Meanwhile someone’s hiding in the classroom / Forging books of history
Never mind there’s a good film showing tonight / Where they hang everybody who can read and write / Oh that could never happen here but then again it might
Chorus 2 (begins with F#-minor – G major, or iii – IV in D)
Cause if stars are only painted on the ceiling above / Then who can you turn to and who do you love / I want to get out while I still can / I want to be like Harry Houdini / Now I’m the invisible man (D Major; lots of VI / I alternation (B-flat – D))
The form of the demo version holds my interest. Yes, it’s short in a non-commercial sort of way, but so what?
When they recorded (butchered) the song for the Punch the Clock album, they smoothed out the quirks in the formal design in an attempt to make the song more commercially viable ($$$). I don’t like the results much, but I’m sure some people do. Here’s a breakdown:
“The Invisible Man” (from Punch the Clock)
Intro: The ‘riff’ from the Bridge! WHY? They blew the whole surprise of the distant A-flat!!
Verse 1 (D major; not too different from the demo)
First half: I was committed to life and then commuted to the outskirts / With all the love in the world / Living for thirty minutes at a time with a break in the middle for adverts
Second half: But it’s a wonderful world within these cinema walls / Where a shower of affection becomes Niagara Falls
And you wish she could step down from the screen to your seat in the stalls
Chorus 1 (again, not too different)
Cause if stars are only painted on the ceiling above / Then who can you turn to and who do you love / I want to get out while I still can / I want to be like Harry Houdini / Now I’m the invisible man
BRIDGE (Okay, they left this here as in the demo, but listen to how little significance it holds compared with what comes after…)
My head is spinning round faster and faster (A-flat) / Here I stand on the edge of disaster (A-flat) / I’m shattered like a piece of crystal porcelain or alabaster (A)
Verse 2 (INSTRUMENTAL) … This is NEW.
Chorus 2 (only half, though…) Again, NEW. Cause if stars are only painted on the ceiling above / Then who can you turn to and who do you love / I want to get out while I still can … (Why cut it off here so awkwardly?)
Verse 3 (D major)
Crowds surround loudspeakers hanging from the lampposts / Listening to the murder mystery / Meanwhile someone’s hiding in the classroom / Forging books of history
Never mind there’s a good film showing tonight / Where they hang everybody who can read and write / Oh That could never happen here, but then again it might
Chorus 3
Cause if stars are only painted on the ceiling above / Then who can you turn to and who do you love / I want to get out while I still can / I want to be like Harry Houdini / Now I’m the invisible man (extended)
OUTRO (NEW) … the “riff” brought back to D major.
Just to recap:
Verse / Chorus pairs: 2 in the demo, 3 in the final version.
Bridge: 1 in the demo, 1 in the final version, but both the intro and outro use the “riff” and at least the intro uses the tritone-related key.
The excess repetition in the final version kills the beauty of the song, for me anyway. But don’t take my word for it. Pick up the two-disc Rhino re-release of Punch the Clock. There are demo versions of all the songs that make the final cut, and nearly every one is similarly mangled.
No other three-minute song in existence takes you on a time-travel rollercoaster like this late 70s nugget from Squeeze.
The song, consisting of six verses separated midway through by a bridge, is a first-person narrative told by a guy who falls for a girl, has a kid, and eventually ends up alone. A common plot trajectory for a pop song, right? But it’s the WAY the narrator tells this story, more specifically his use of language and tense, which reveals so much more about the whimsical, unreliable nature of the main character than any other song I can think of, bar none.
The first three verses and the bridge take place in the past, in a very stable, secure, well-established E major. There’s a level of detail provided by the narrator that goes a little deeper than we really want to know, but it’s sort of charming, full of British witticisms. At first, it’s a simple recollection of the night he met his loved one, “a girl from Clapham,” who he flatters by calling her “a lady,” to which she answers coyly, “I may be.” Her suggestive answer, which hints that there’s room in her definition of “lady” for a little mischief, pretty much foreshadows what happens in subsequent verses (i.e. they get it on).
Verse 1: I never thought it would happen / With me and the girl from Clapham / Out on a windy common / That night I ain’t forgotten / When she dealt out the rations / With some or other passions / I said you are a lady / Perhaps she said I may be
Sure enough, in the second verse, we can tell that the act has been consummated, because the narrator is already recalling how the couple soon after moved into a flat together and was considering “engagement.” Of course, there’s no evidence anywhere in the song that any sort of marriage ever took place, naturally. Nevertheless, we get hit over the head with the not-so-lurid description of their physical relationship (“we spent our time just kissing”).
Verse 2:We moved into a basement / With thoughts of our engagement / We stayed in by the telly / Although the room was smelly / We spent our time just kissing / The Railway Arms we’re missing / But love had got us hooked up / And all our time it took up
By the third verse, the narrator begins trying to convince us how honorable his intentions were, and boy does he load it on. He gives all kinds of examples of his desire and his efforts to become respectable: he gets a job “with Stanley,” and so pumped is he to start working that takes a bath a full day before. Alas, as we expected, his fiancée surprises him with some wonderful news, which comes at the end of his grueling, eleven-hour workday.
Verse 3: I got a job with Stanley / He said I’d come in handy / And started me on Monday / So I had a bath on Sunday / I worked eleven hours / And bought the girl some flowers / She said she’d seen a doctor / And nothing now could stop her
This news is so momentous that it demands the introduction of a new chunk of music, namely the bridge, the first act of musical non-repetition so far, which kicks off with nine successive chords without repeating any of them. Just when we were beginning to feel all was well, being lulled into a false sense of security by three successive verses, we get this weird-ass chord succession: C#m – G#m – F#m – B – D – Am – Gm – F, followed by a build-up on A major (at “little kicks inside her”). Again, the narrator, nervous now with the news that he is going to be a father, strives to show us even harder how diligent and hardworking he is in the face of impending fatherhood, even going so far as to sacrifice the television, which kept he and his fiancée so close together in the verse two. His insecurity is reflected in the bizarre, somewhat non-sensical chord progression of the bridge (the verse, on the other hand, only had three chords total). The narrator then takes us right up to the point of experiencing with him the first “little kicks” of his soon-to-be birthed baby.
Bridge:I worked all through the winter / The weather brass and bitter / I put away a tenner / Each week to make her better / And when the time was ready / We had to sell the telly / Late evenings by the fire / With little kicks inside her
Verse 4, which begins in the foreign key of D major, is where the time travel begins: the fourth verse kicks you directly into the present moment (“THIS morning at 4:50,” an ungodly hour, to be sure). The big event of the song has arrives “thirty minutes later,” the birth of the daughter, but it doesn’t stop there. Within the space of a single verse, the listener is dragged from 4:50, to “thirty minutes later,” to “within a year a walker.” During this time, the listener is left without any real sense of what transpired between the members of the young family during this year. (I mean, yes, the first year of being a parent can fly by before you know it, but this is ridiculous.)
Verse 4: This morning at 4:50 / I took her rather nifty / Down to an incubator / Where thirty minutes later / She gave birth to a daughter / Within a year a walker / She looked just like her mother / If there could be another
We come to realize that the ideal universe of verse 4, as represented by the move to the “unreal” D major key, wasn’t meant to last. Okay, now hang on tight, because the time warp really begins with verse 5, when the narrator immediately jumps ahead TWO YEARS in the very first line, accompanied by a musical shift up a whole step up, back to the song’s opening key of E major. This obviously, and intentionally, sets the rest of the song off from the previous action.
Verse 5: And now she’s two years older / Her mother’s with a soldier / She left me when my drinking / Became a proper stinking / The devil came and took me / From bar to street to bookie / No more nights by the telly / No more nights nappies smelling
It’s interesting that the narrator crams everything bad he did within the space of about half of verse 5, whereas previously he took his time describing all his good deeds in the first half of the song and the bridge. Not surprisingly, he’s not really at fault for his actions. It was the DEVIL who came and took him “from bar to street to bookie.” (Sure, pal. I’ve tried that approach.)
It’s easy to forget at this point that we are still in the middle of a three-minute song, because we’ve been dragged from way in the past tense when the couple first met, carried all the way through their engagement, brought to (what we thought was) the present-tense birth of their daughter, jerked forward a year later when she first starts walking, thrown even further to two years later when all the relationships have already dissolved, back to the present moment “alone here in the kitchen” (verse 6), where we find ourselves being told everything we now know about this sad tale. It’s staggering, but it works, and it’s very subtle (seemingly).
Verse 6:Alone here in the kitchen / I feel there’s something missing / I’d beg for some forgiveness / But begging’s not my business / And she won’t write a letter / Although I always tell her / And so it’s my assumption / I’m really up the junction
This final verse is obviously a summation, a let down of sorts. It begins much more quietly than the other verses, with the narrator jumping into the NEW present tense. We join him “here in the kitchen” (although he claims to be “alone”), witness to a bar-stool sad sack retelling of his tale to whomever will lend a sympathetic ear. How or why we are so lucky to find ourselves on the receiving end, we aren’t ever told (I guess because we bought the record). I find myself wondering whether the person the narrator is thinking of in verse 6 (“and SHE won’t write a letter”) is his lady or his daughter. He kind of dismissed his ex-fiancee in an impersonal way in the previous verse (“her mother’s with a soldier”). So now we are left wondering if he’s talking about his daughter not writing a letter, in which case time would have really jumped way ahead (in verse 5, she was two years old). Now that’s time travel.
How fitting that the very last words we hear are the song’s title: “up the junction” (an English phrase whose American equivalent, I suppose is, “f*cked”). Isn’t the song’s title phrase important enough to state earlier in the song? This is somehow appropriate in this altered time-travel universe, where everything happens out-of-place, time wise.
What’s truly fascinating is that the music doesn’t even attempt to slow things down. In fact, it’s as though the band is trying to get through the experience as quickly as possible. There’s no chorus or solo to be found, and only a brief introduction and outro fall outside the repetitive verse – bridge – verse structure. The vocal melody lags constantly a step or two behind the musical accompaniment, as though the narrator is trying breathlessly to keep pace but cannot. There’s the shortest of pauses at the end of each verse to let him catch up and take a breath. The music is presented to us as simply and as undecorated as possible: there’s no extra ornamentation, harmony vocals, or studio gimmickry, just a bunch of blue-collar English lads pulling one over on us, really, throwing an incredibly complex song at us disguised as a throwaway. Even among the catalog of a band who has received tons of accolades for songwriting over the years, “Up the Junction” is a step or two ahead of the rest.
Try not to get too distracted with watching the video. Attempt to listen to the song on its own a few times, and you’ll see what I mean.
Verse 1: There’s a new sensation / A fabulous creation / A danceable solution / To teenage revolution / Do the Strand love / When you feel love / It’s the new way / That’s why we say / Do the Strand
Verse 2: Do it on the tables / Quaglino’s place or Mabel’s / Slow and gentle / Sentimental / All styles served here / Louis Seize he prefer / Laissez-faire Le Strand /
Verse 3: Tired of the tango / Fed up with fandango / Dance on moonbeams / Slide on rainbows / In furs or blue jeans / You know what I mean / Do the Strand
Solo section
Verse 4: Had your fill of Quadrilles / The Madison and cheap thrills / Bored with the Beguine / The samba isn’t your scene / They’re playing our tune / By the pale moon / We’re incognito / Down the Lido / And we like the Strand
Verse 5: Arabs at oasis / Eskimos and Chinese / If you feel blue / Look through who’s Who / See La Goulue / And Nijinsky / Do the Strandsky
Verse 6: Weary of the Waltz / And mashed potato schmaltz / Rhododendron / Is a nice flower / Evergreenin’ / It lasts forever / But it can’t beat Strand power
Verse 7 (partial): The Sphynx and Mona Lisa / Lolita and Guernica / Did the Strand
Another pickup from the library. I’m way late to the Roxy Music party, having never listened to them growing up, but never say never. Always too Euro, I suspect, but now I’m hooked.
This song rocks, pure and simple. Look at the confidence of that Brian Ferry guy. Nijinsky? Lolita and Guernica? Amazing lyrics. Check out Brian Eno over there on the gorilla keyboard setup, and Phil Manzanera on the Gibson Firebird (or Thunderbird?) guitar, looking like Blue Oyster Cult just canned him. After watching this, I’m certain this song (and band) was the inspiration for Rocky Horror.
Guitarists grimace a whole lot when they bend strings. I think about this. This phenomenon received some attention in 2005 as something called “guitar face.” As early as 1992, my friends and I referred to the act of expressive facial scrunching as “making a chops face.”
My friend Ron had a website devoted to chops faces (the appropriately titled www.chopsfaces.com. I remember he wrote, “You want to better define chops face? You’d have to put ‘rock’ into words.” Ron’s point was similar to the classic definition of swing by Dizzy Gillespie: “If you have to ask, you’ll never know.”
According to whatever dictionary I’m looking at right now (Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate, Mr. Picky), the earliest use of the word “chops” in literature dates back to 1589. It meant the fleshy covering of the jaws, as in “a dog licks its chops.” In the jazz age, “chops” became a slang term for a musician’s embouchure (a fancy word for, well, “chops”). Working on one’s “chops” meant working on the technique of one’s “chops,” or mouth. Since then, the term has been broadly used to denote the technical facility of a musical performer.
Another meaning came out of rock music lingo. A “chop” (singular) is a musical figure (or a “lick”) that is physically difficult and therefore require years of practice, but it’s rarely used in the singular form. We hear “chops” all the time. A rock-guy who is “working on chops,” then, in addition to working on his/her general technique, is practicing specific “licks.” The point of practicing your chops is to get them so engrained in your muscle memory that your can recall them without thought, so that when you are self-indulgently “jamming” you will not be hindered by the constraints of your fingers. This results in some pretty horrible music much of the time.
In the nineteenth century, Niccolo Paganini and Franz Liszt had chops. Naturally, they had chops faces too. Paganini and Liszt unleashed their chops and chops faces on the public. Naturally, the press characterized these two giants as though they were “transfigured” by the music into a state of intoxication. I once wrote a whole dissertation about it (not really).
In Bible stories, Saint Cecilia was given entrance to the heavenly choir and was transfigured. The downside to receiving chops from the Lord, however, as St. Ceci’s story tells us, is that you are not able to share your chops with anyone. Therefore, if your transfiguration is at all visible to anyone but yourself (i.e. if you flail around wildly like a spaz), you get locked up. Some listeners perceived this transfiguration as the ability of virtuosos to channel Satan through their fingers. Blues legend Robert Johnson is a more recent example of a virtuoso musician who sold his soul to the devil in order to gain chops.
Crossroads (1986) stars guitarist Steve Vai as a shredder who sold his soul to the devil in order to shred – and also Ralph Macchio. Macchio plays Eugene, a conservatory student guitarist facing down a tough jury of music professors. Eugene performs a boring classical guitar composition, full of the requisite arpeggios, sweeps, and rest-stroke/finger style techniques. His face remains vacant and unexpressive. The judges are impressed up to the last second, when Eugene rips into a bluesy run concludes the piece. This makes them sad. Fittingly, Eugene sneers as the blues licks roll effortlessly from his fingers because, well, he feels it. The jury chides him for serving two Lords: blues guys and old, dead Italian guitar-music composers. Silliness. The remainder of the film, as everyone reading this knows (right?), involves Ralphie’s transformation from spoiled conservatory guy to road-weary bluesman as he guides an elderly friend, Willie, a true bluesman, back home to the Delta to renege on his deal with the devil. To complete this “short sale,” so to speak, he must pit young Ralphie against the devil’s shredder, Jack Butler, played by Steve Vai. This is good casting because Vai can play the guitar well. Not only that, he’s a virtuoso chops-face maker. He belongs in the Chops Faces Hall of Fame.
Vai always had chops faces in his arsenal. He once famously won friends by miming Jimmy Page’s guitar break in “Heartbreaker,” and since breaking into the music business in the late ’70s as Frank Zappa’s “stunt guitarist” he has continuously broken new ground in chops faces. During the Crossroads battle, Ralphie himself unleashes some of the acting chops that won him fame in The Karate Kid (1984). Crossroads, in fact, is Karate Kid, The Musical, featuring young Ralph trying to add meaning to his life by practicing the blues, a tradition largely invented, perfected, and maintained by people of color. I do wonder how many takes were needed to capture the right facial expressions for the music scenes.
Pat Metheny deserves special recognition for his role in claiming chops faces for the jazz community. Of course, it is not surprising that the top chops-face practitioner in the jazz world happens to be a guitarist, because it’s hard to make chops faces with a sax or trumpet jammed in your mouth. I’d venture to say that he has greater chops than anyone currently practicing chops faces. See, for example, the video he and his band made for the 1992 album Secret Story. (The real Secret Story, I would argue, is the chops face extravaganza witnessed by the select few who bought the video, which not only gave us Pat in pure grimacing form, it introduced many of us young aspiring players to the freakishly long fingers of pianist Lyle Mays.)
Compare Metheny’s faces to those of John Scofield, whose playing is just as high on the technical scale. Sco’s pose is that of an aging hipster, a bearded, blazered, stoic figure, a professor of angular six-string wizardry. Naturally, his playing style, so different from that of Metheny, is reflected in his chops faces.
Note: this post has nothing to do with the song “Freeway Jam.” It’s a reflection on my recent adventures with what I call “mindful running.” Real runners should NOT read this and think that I am an experienced runner. When it comes to running, I’m a slow chump. I’m a slob. Still, I manage to surprise myself occasionally with stamina and pain tolerance I didn’t know existed, and I credit at least some of that to the way I now approach running, unlike the dozens of other times in my life when I’ve taken it up.
“Freeway Jam,” meanwhile, is a flat-out, balls-out rocker that never gets old. If I did choose to run with music – I don’t now, but that could change – I’m sure this song would be at the top of the playlist. If you don’t already have it – and shame on you – pick up a copy of Beck’s Blow by Blow. KILLER ALBUM. Meanwhile, listen to “Freeway Jam” and get crazy.
MINDFUL RUNNING.
Or, How I learned to stop being a head in a jar.
By Michael Hamad
Copyright 2010.
I step on a treadmill in a large, brightly lit room. One leg at a time, I lunge backward slowly, placing my heel on the floor behind the treadmill while my other foot remains at the higher elevation of the machine. My hands rest on its sides, my head down, my lungs breathing space into the tight muscles around my right calf, the back of my thigh, and my ankle. Pausing for a moment, vaguely aware of other peoples’ eyes focusing on what I’m doing, I continue to breath space into my lower limbs. Now lifting my head, I set the heel of the other foot next to the first one with my hands still on the treadmill’s sides. Carefully, I lift my first foot on the step and lunge forward, head lowering again, slowly breathing space into the muscles that surround my left thigh, knee, and calf. I pause for another moment, and then I repeat the process on the first side and then the second side.
It’s winter in Connecticut, which means that if I’m going to exercise, it’s going to be indoors. I’ve seen people run in the slush and the cold, but it’s not for me. True New England runners will cringe, I’m sure, but I’ve come to appreciate the opportunities with which indoor running – on a treadmill – have presented to me.
I concluded awhile back that I live my life like a head in a jar, totally removed from the carcass squirming around somewhere below “me.” I’ve used and abused it – not with drugs or alcohol or anything like that – but I’ve generally taken for granted that it will always be available for my use. Time and again, with disgust, I’ve watched it break down and eventually heal itself with the aid of ibuprofen, but I’ve never given much serious thought to inhabiting my body, much less training it to be efficient and strong. When my body wasn’t there for me in the past, I cursed getting old. I lost track of what a good thing I had going.
I started running not to get in shape but rather because I was drawn to the time it allowed for introspection and meditation. My day, like everyone else’s’, is a constant race against the clock, and an extra half-an-hour of solitude, disguised as “exercise,” is a treat. I decided when I began that I wasn’t going to waste this precious time watching television, listening to music, or zoning out, hoping for the time to pass quickly. Instead, I decided to watch my thoughts because, Bob knows, they are fascinating enough. (I say “Bob” instead of “God” sometimes.)
The treadmill is the perfect vehicle for meditation. It keeps coming at you, like time itself. It’s unyielding, like the mind, which keeps churning out thoughts just as a saliva gland produces spit. The belt of the treadmill turns and you keep pace, like life, only on fast-forward and for a discrete, pre-set amount of time. The sterile environment of the gym, too, is helpful. There aren’t too many distractions to get oneself involved in or attached to.
Stepping fully on the machine, I stand straight up, noticing the height at which I am now standing. It allows me to see straight ahead into the room, on the row of cycling machines in front of me and further into the mirrored weight room, where one or two people grapple with machines of all sorts, and some carry around dumbbells. It’s ten ‘o clock on a weekday, I tell myself. Don’t these people have jobs? What do they do for a living? Judging, comparing myself to others.
Still standing, I reach back with my right hand and grab the front toe area of my right sneaker, feeling the laces and the intricate weave of the shoe’s design. Lowering my knee with my foot still in my hand, I breathe space into the front of my thigh and feel the stretch in my knee, my left hand holding the side of the treadmill for support. Pause for a moment. Feel the seconds roll by, notice the confidence in my body, aware of the pride I take in myself for stretching at all when I know that others do not. Proud that I am doing this very slowly, deliberately, wondering if others notice my actions.
I place my right foot back on the floor and lift my left foot, my right hand now resting on the treadmill for support. I’m still aware of the height at which I am standing and the expansive view it offers. A few small television screens attached to cycling and elliptical machines flicker with soundless news programs and daytime talk shows. Everyone in the gym has a device of some kind hooked into their ears: iPods, TVs, the occasional CD player. A few fiddle with handheld devices. Breathing space into my left thigh and knee, I pause a bit longer than needed, enjoying the stretch. My legs are feeling limber now, and I start to feel the first inkling of anxiety.
For the first time, I seriously take notice of the treadmill control panel. A small green square lower down on the device says Quick Start. A larger square, cut into two halves, surrounds the green one. One half controls the incline of the tread, and the other the speed at which the belt below my feet will spin, and how quickly I need to move my feet to keep up. Arrows on each half adjust these factors up and down, and the numerical displays at their sides tell me how much I’ve set the machine for and, if I’m interested in knowing, the distance I’ve traveled, the pace at which I’ve walked or run, and the elapsed time of the program. Above these controls are all kinds of other lights and numbers, but they are largely to be ignored.
The earphones of my own handheld device – a 1 GB iPod Shuffle, loaded with random rock and alternative songs – leave my ears for the first time. I don’t run with music or the television on. A last-minute gut check, as if to ask myself, Am I up for this again? I tap the green Quick Start button, and the belt whirs to life. I press my hand on the Speed arrow on the right side of the green button. The numbers on the small readout below climb from 0.0 to 3.2 up past 4.0 as I walk faster and faster, awkwardly trying to keep up. When the numbers exceed 4.0, my brisk walk momentarily turns into a stumbling jog, and when they reach 6.0, I release my hand from the Speed arrow and begin my stationary journey.
This is how the practice of mindful running, which started life as mindful walking a few months back, begins. Since I’ve discovered this approach, mindfulness of the body has taken on a whole new meaning. I’m no longer just a head in a jar.
I came to the practice of running – well, jogging – through the practice of walking meditation. At first, I didn’t get the concept behind walking meditation in general. If pressed on the topic now by a true Buddhist teacher, I’d probably fail to give a proper answer, but my understanding of it is quite simple and pretty easy to explain: The placement of the feet, and the motion of walking, becomes the object of mindfulness, or “bare attention” as it is sometimes called when writers are sick of using the word “mindful.”
Anything, really, can be the object of mindfulness. In particular, we learn to be mindful of thoughts as they arise, to lay our bare attention on whatever floats by with the same weight that we would place a coffee cup on a table. “The Red Sox lost.” Cup on the table. “It’s 15 degrees outside.” Cup on the table. And so on.
It’s a little off-putting to people, I’m sure, when they see a guy on a treadmill for 30-plus minutes staring at a blank screen without any headphones; I thought about wearing headphones to make it look like I was listening to music, but they hurt my ears and they are distracting. I invented a stock answer for when anyone asked what I was doing: I get nauseous, I would say, If I watch television, listen to music, or read while running. I thought this would be better than the answer, My thoughts are interesting enough. In any case, nobody has asked, so it doesn’t matter.
The idea of placing the cup on my feet came to me suddenly when I was sitting zazen with a Monday night meditation group. The group meets in a church once a week. We sit for 25 minutes, then walk around the freezing cold sanctuary – a really beautiful, inspiring place, I might add – two times until the clapper sounds and we go back to our cushions. I really enjoyed sitting meditation and viewed walking meditation as an excuse to stretch our Western legs, which I was happy to do, but I was always anxious to sit back down and settle in again. Somehow I got the notion of shifting the object of mindfulness from the breath to the feet, and in the process I believe I stumbled on the concept of mindfulness of the body, which I hadn’t been practicing during sitting meditation (I was always focused exclusively on the breath and trying to keep up concentration there).
The 6.0 readout remains steady as I begin my jog. My attention is pulled here and there to the phenomena of my visual and audible surroundings. I am aware of my fellow travelers. A couple chats loudly on two adjacent treadmills about their children and their troubles. A woman to my left struggles with a stair-climbing machine. In front of me, an older, somewhat overweight woman in exercise clothes shuffles towards a cycling machine that reclines for comfort, squeezing into its seat and unfurling a newspaper. There will be no outside, electronic or print stimuli for me, I think. No, my thoughts are way too interesting to pass up a chance to watch them. Besides, when I’ve tried in the past to watch a show or listen to music while I run, I’ve ended up nauseous, tired, and discouraged. I notice with regret that my conceit has made me feel temporarily superior to my fellow exercisers, but I know this won’t last long. Soon, because of the physical stress I will soon meet, I will be far too busy to look anywhere but in. To my eyes, the blank television screen reflects an area of my upper torso from the middle of my face to my stomach, just low enough for me to view the graphics of whatever T-shirt I am wearing and my hands and they pump up and down into partial view. It’s the perfect metaphor, I realize, for the inward journey I’m about to take. That’s me up there on the television screen. The absence of the full view of my head, too, is fitting, for I’ve come to see my body as a simple vehicle for transportation. I’m like a locomotive. More on this later. Past the screen, I can still see a great deal of the gym. This will be my view for the next 40 minutes.
I allow my attention to settle below to my feet, which pound loudly on the belt, then notice that mindfulness hovers somewhere between my feet and my heaving breath. I begin to scan my body to see what’s going on. Certain parts of my body are like the chassis of a car: the legs and feet are the wheels, shoulders and sides are the frame, and the heart and lungs are the engine. The mind floats above it all as the systems manager and driver. Wheels feel okay? Check. Frame alright? Check. Engine running smoothly? Check. During the first minute or so, all the latent energies in the body bubble up to the surface. I become aware that I had a cup of coffee and a banana about an hour ago. There are rumblings and the slightest exhaust of fumes, like a car warming up. It isn’t pretty, but I’ve come to expect this every time. It doesn’t last that long. Thankfully nobody is on the treadmill directly next to me.
Running is about working with fear. There is no better way I know of to trigger fear as an emotion, more specifically the fear of dying, than pushing the body physically to its limit. Will I survive? All the other fears are triggered: what if I fail? What is wrong with me that I can’t succeed at anything? The training happens when you watch fear come and then go, either because you finish your run or get a second wind, or it just passes on its own, and you realize that fear is just another thought with only emptiness behind it. You wake up the next day and do it all again. Of course, it isn’t a good practice to invite fear or even come to expect, and hopefully we can run without fear. We never want to deepen the neural channels of fear, just as we shouldn’t beat a pillow senseless when we feel angry. We don’t want to water the seeds of fear. But at least for me, now, at this stage of my experience in running, fear arises, and I welcome it without expectation.
Now that I’ve checked the systems, I begin visualizing my route. My route is the same every time: 4 miles, 3 of which are taken at a leisurely jog and the last mile a full-out run, which for me is still pretty slow. I start out at a speed of 6.2 MPH, or just under a ten-minute mile. The “surface” on which I run is a wide, runway-like path without any markings, grass on each side of the pavement, and nothing in the distance. I’ve taken to thinking of my run as a trip around the universe. Running the first two sides of the square and its two corners, at 1 mile and 2 miles respectively, feels like departing, like traveling to the far reaches of the cosmos. It’s full of excitement and adventure not for what I will see along the way but rather just for the simple pleasure of doing it. We all love taking off somewhere on a lark. I try to allow the feeling of exploration to permeate my visual sense. In a way, I’m a passenger on an early morning train, before the light has come up, slowly chugging off down the track. Heading down the first side of the square, it’s all about seeing what parts of the machine will function properly and which need some loving attention. All the exhaust systems have reported back – sorry, treadmill neighbors – within the first two minutes with expected efficiency. My feet ache slightly, but there’s no cause for alarm. Around three minutes or so, I feel the pain in my side that is known to many as a “stitch.” It seems more inflamed on my in-breath, as though running one’s finger along a splinter. I rest my awareness now on my feet, my breath, and the aches and pains, just letting it stay there as long as they exist. I check the feeling tone of each “report,” and thoughts are generated: Why does my right shoulder always feel worse than the left? Why is the stitch always on the right side of my ribcage? If I lengthen my stride and round my steps more, will the aches in my feet subside? I make a few adjustments to the machine and continue to allow the mind to visualize the path. Sounds and images surrounding me in the gym still arise, but slowly I begin to notice that they take a back seat to what’s going on within, as though the increased strain on my body and mind is filling the space. There simply isn’t room for these external phenomena to take a seat. They are pushed out my awareness of my body, brought on by the extreme conditions brought about by the ceaseless belt of the treadmill, which keeps rolling along, throwing distance my way at a pace determined by the tiny computer in its frame. Settling in, I lay back and enjoy the ride down the first side of the square, mindful of sensations as they arise. Passing the first mile marker, I shift my visual focus left as though actually turning a corner. The corner is really more of a slow bank to the left. Then I head straight down the square’s second long side.
The second mile differs from the first in that it feels like I am now heading towards the farthest point in my trip. The goal line, my “home,” the place I left from, is nowhere in sight. Beyond the second corner lies nothing but pure space. The path, if I chose not to take the corner, would literally just fall off into nothingness. It’s dark and exciting, like walking out on the edge of high bluff with nothing to grab on or walking deeper and deeper into a deserted graveyard at midnight. It’s a pure testing ground to see if fear arises, although it never does at this point. I scan the machine below me again to see what’s changed: the stitch is still there, but I’ve come to accept it now. It won’t kill me, nor is it something that will keep me from reaching my goal of heading home. The wheels are in perfect shape, and I’m proud of the engine, which has become a reliable ally in my journey. I’m in command of a high-performance vehicle: the thought washes over me and I let it pass on. I still see my chin, neck, chest, and pumping arms in the reflective black square in front of my eyes, the headless torso that enables me to be mindful of the machine-like quality of my body in exercise mode. I hear the slow, steady thumping of my feet on the belt, the perfect aural accompaniment to my chugging-train analogy. Chug, chug, chug, chug… on and on, never gaining speed, always steady, so efficient, the lungs pumping air into the heart-furnace, the wheels ever-present but reliable, the chassis reporting back pings and bumps from time to time. I’m heading out towards the blackness, but I take comfort in knowing I’ll soon be banking around that second corner to head towards home, like rounding second base, with both third base and home plate way off on the outer reaches of my peripheral vision.
The last half of the square, miles three and four respectively, clearly feels like a trip home, a glowing orb in the distance, like watching my beloved, shining place of origin coming closer and closer into view. Everyone waits for my arrival. The hard, black pavement, strangely foreign grass, and foggy atmosphere of the first half of the trip is gone now, and I’m more like a spaceship than a train – though still rhythmically chugging. I head down mile three, still running at idle speed. I’ve ratcheted up the MPH a couple of notches from where I began, but I’m still idling, holding back something extra for the last mile, a race car waiting for a red light to turn green. My mental state is one of pure calm, and the machine below me is working efficiently and smoothly: no aches or pains in the wheels and chassis, the engine is humming along without much prompting. It’s all a waiting game now. I know my trip is more that half-finished, though can I still enjoy the journey? Thinking about that last mile ahead, a twinge of fear announces itself in my stomach, the area in my body where I have come to expect the sensation to manifest. Will the last mile will be too scary to handle as I push my body as far and fast as it can go? Stars twinkle to my right and left. My fellow journeymen and women, mostly pushed out of my awareness by the attention my body has demanded re-enter and join the trip, companions down the exhilarating cosmic track. We aren’t racing, that’s for sure, but running together in a line, their footfalls offer a stimulating rhythmic counterpoint to my own, which have grown so regular as to be monotonous. I know there’s one more corner to round, but my energy is focused less on the corner and more on the appreciation of viewing my luminous goal from afar. How nice it is to be able to see one’s goal from a distance and not be hurried to get there, I think. I scan the machine again in anticipation of turning the mile-3 corner, and nothing reports back. Noticing even the fear has subsided, I realize the process of looking for it calls it back briefly, as if to remind me where it comes from – the stomach – and how it feels: unpleasant.
I’m at Mile 4. I know that, even if I were to quit now, I’d still have accomplished the goal of running three miles, which is more than I could even a month ago. I’m still brand new to this activity, and there’s nobody but myself paying attention to my progress. Nevertheless, I know if I stop now it will be a step backwards from yesterday’s running accomplishment. Then it hits me: there’s no way I’m stopping now. I’m not home yet. How can I stop? I’ll be stuck here in space. I suddenly realize the cleverness of the game my mind has cooked up. We come to expect our minds to create obstacles to impede our journeys of self-awareness, but I realize now my mind is attached to the rest of the machine with a common goal: finishing the trip. Of course, I know if I hit the stop button now, I could step off the treadmill and really go home, but I know that’s not going to happen. I’m going to finish this thing I started. It’s just a question of being able to handle what comes up during the last step of the trip.
Mile four is an all-out run. Today I hit it on all cylinders. Now comes the battle with fear: will I finish the course? Fear tells me no. “You suck, boy,” it says. “You’ve got no stones. You ain’t gonna finish, jerk.” I press on, knowing I only have to outlast fear. Only about 8 minutes to go. I scan the machine. Everything looks fine. Nothing hurts. The engine is puffing away like mad, however.
Now the question: is excessive fear going to kill me? What if I just watch it, like I do everything else? I know from experience that I won’t die. I don’t wish to set a precedent for fear to show up in my face every time I hit the fourth mile. Nevertheless, I’ve noticed that gets less up in my face with each fourth mile I run, so that’s got to be good. I must be progressing.
I see the finish line. All my friends and family are standing there waiting for me, but they are just abstract versions of themselves, cartoonish well-wishers like you’d imagine standing there at the end of a marathon, totally abstract. I notice fellow runners on the treadmills to the left and the right, and I invite them (silently) to join me in the last sprint. Their footfalls create a complex polyrhythmic tapestry with my own. I feel like I’m letting a high-performance car truly do its thing after making it idle for thirty minutes, knowing full well I can’t sustain this pace. The digital mile marker crawls along, but I don’t pay attention. I try to enjoy this last ride.
4.00. It’s over. I lower the rate of the belt to brisk walking speed and start the process of recovery, making sure my awareness remains gently halfway between my feet and my breath. My head raises and lowers, and I drop the speed down lower and lower, very gradually, until I’m walking so slowly I start drawing glances from my neighbors. My heart rate drops from an alarming 180 down to 139, and I hit the stop button. A leg at a time, I lunge backward. Heel to the floor behind the treadmill, other foot on the machine. Hands on the treadmill, head down, lungs breathing space into tight muscles around right calf, back of thigh, ankle. Pausing, vaguely aware of eyes, breath space into lower limbs. Lift head, set heel of other foot next to first one, hands still on treadmill. Careful, lift first foot on the step and lunge forward, head down, slowly breath space into muscles of left thigh, knee, calf. Pause another moment. Repeat process on first side, then second side.
Journey complete, my head’s going back in the jar for a while, I know, but it stays there for less and less time every day, which is the point. If there is one.
I got an email from a friend yesterday who uses “The Asse Festival,” the middle section of a song called “Guelah Papyrus” (it starts about 2:03 along) from the album A Picture Of Nectar (1992), in his music theory classes whenever the issue of counterpoint comes up.
It inspired me to dig up this transcription I started about six years ago, around the same time I did the partial “Reba” transcription. So here it is, mistakes and all. You’ll notice I broke it off as soon as things got too hairy… sorry. I’m extremely lazy and can’t pay attention for long. Wait, what were we talking about?
Oh, yeah… this gives me the opportunity to raise a serious question: why isn’t there more of this kind of transcribing thing out there in the Phish community? With all the musically minded folks digging Phish over the years, it is possible there are people with complete transcriptions of “difficult” songs like “Fluffhead,”“All Things Reconsidered,” “David Bowie,” etc. who simply don’t wish to share them? Please let me know if I’m missing something. I’ve always wanted to study these songs on a more serious level but the task of transcribing them is DAUNTING…
So, here are the first 18 measures of “The Asse Festival,” a contrapuntal ditty with a heart. Feel free to point out any errors I’ve made. I didn’t bother clearing out stray rests on Finale, nor did I use “octave above” signs or anything.
I realize that this is sloppy, incomplete work at best. I’m not a transcriber, but someone’s got to pick up the slack (i.e. waste a ridiculous amount of time). That said: anyone want to contribute to this little project?
I’ll post more partial transcriptions when I get bored, stuff like incomplete transcriptions of “All Things Reconsidered,” “The Chase,” etc.
By the way, while you’re here, feel free to look around at previous posts. I’m sure there’s something in there you’ll like…
I listen to Fred Neil and I hear Old Florida. I lived in Florida for, oh, about four years, and I’m aware that hardly makes me a native. I moved there from Connecticut, and now I live in Connecticut again. Just as I got used to living in Florida, I was up and out. Funny, huh? It feels like a dream.
Living in Florida, I was aware of a sadness buzzing around all over the place. It wasn’t the only thing I was aware of, but it was certainly consistent. Naturally, there’s plenty to be happy about in Florida. The weather is spot-on gorgeous ninety percent of the time, and there’s no shortage of visual beauty. But like everywhere else, there are poor, ambitious, and hungry people, and if you don’t have sufficient means or a good job, life down there can be pretty tough. During these last couple of bust years, when construction jobs disappeared along with the cranes all around small cities, families have suffered tremendously.
My band practiced in an old celery packinghouse we called the Rat Hole off of Fruitville Road by the Interstate. People lived and/or squatted in adjacent areas of the packinghouse. It wasn’t a pretty place. Anyway, I used to stop and grab a six-pack at a convenience store on the way to practice. On my way in to the store, a guy outside asked me for some change so that he could buy a cheeseburger. He was a former construction worker whose job vanished along with everyone else’s in that industry. He decided he was leaving town for Orlando and the promise of work there. We talked for a few minutes. He was tired, dirty and discouraged. I went inside and bought my beer, and I brought him a tall can of Budweiser. He didn’t ask, but I just thought that would help his mood tremendously. He was so thankful, but I could tell he was somewhat embarrassed.
A lousy can of Budweiser doesn’t make me a Bodhisattva, of course. I’m not a charitable person, and I probably should have bought him a cheeseburger, anyway. The image of him along the Interstate that night, though, heading north to look for work, isn’t one I’ll forget. One can of beer and one genuine interaction with another human being in four years, or so it seems, was a gift that he gave back, one more valuable than a beer.
All of this, of course, has nothing to do with this song by Fred Neil, who was raised in St. Petersburg, Florida. Legend holds that, growing up, his father went around Florida filling jukeboxes with the latest records, and that young Fred got his hands on an inordinate amount of music. A checkered past, reform schools, it’s all in there. You might as well make it up for yourself.
By the time Bob Dylan got to Greenwich Village in the early sixties, Neil was already there. He put out a great album called Fred Neil in 1966, and wrote a song called “Everybody’s Talkin’” that was a huge hit for Harry Nilsson when it appeared in the movie Midnight Cowboy in 1969. Neil was a huge influence on David Crosby and Gram Parsons (another Florida native), and other leading figures of folk and country rock.
But Neil had a drug problem. He took his royalty checks from his few hits and headed to Coconut Grove, Florida, where he spent the rest of his life living in the paradise of relative obscurity. He wasn’t terribly prolific or ambitious. Read the lyrics of “The Dolphins.” It’s pretty clear Neil didn’t see himself as a protest singer. He was content to look for the dolphins and think about the past. He died in 2001.
Exhuming a previously discarded life feels, in a way, like being in a sand timer. While on the bottom, you don’t notice sand piling up on top of you. It’s a gradual feeling of suffocation, and when it’s flipped, you become aware that all those attachments are running out from underneath your feet. When, of course, you get shot through that narrow opening just like the rest of the sand, it’s not always a pleasant feeling, but it’s exhilarating.
This old world may never change / The way it’s been / And all the ways of war / Can’t change it back again / I’ve been searchin’ / For the dolphins in the sea / And sometimes I wonder / Do you ever think of me
I’m not the one to tell this world / How to get along / I only know the peace will come / When all hate is gone / I’ve been searchin’…
You know sometimes I think about / Saturday’s child / And all about the time / When we were running wild / I’ve been searchin’…
This old world may never change / This world may never change / This world may never change
Album info: Fred Neil (1966).
Tim Buckley recorded this song as well, and did a pretty good job of it, if you care to check it out, but I’m partial to Neil’s version.
I first started playing the guitar when I was in sixth grade. Actually, I really wanted to play the bass. I was inspired by the bass parts of Wailers songs and “New Year’s Day” by U2. But when I got to the music store in Garwood, NJ with my dad, who was willing to get me an instrument, the salesman convinced us that the guitar was the way to go, and that I could always learn bass later. I was kind of bummed, but the argument made sense. My dad bought me an Aria Pro II guitar and a Stadium 30 amp, with a red DOD distortion pedal. I kept that guitar until college, when I left it in a rehearsal room and it got swiped. Some fucker has that guitar now, unless they went and smashed it somewhere, which is likely. Before they got it, I carved my initials “M.H” and “’86” with a cool lighting bolt on the back of the guitar with a Swiss Army knife.
Anyway, I took some lessons with a guy named Mark Liberto. My friend Terry Quinn was taking lessons with Mark. Mark played a red Gibson Melody Maker, I think. I used to bring him cassettes of songs I wanted to learn and he used to teach them to me. He’d write down the name of each song at the top of a piece of staff paper. Underneath he’d spell the chords I needed to practice for each song. When I went home, I had to remember which chords went with which part of the song in question. Eventually he taught me the pentatonic scale and some basic lead patterns. I can’t remember why, but eventually I stopped going, but I think it was because I started being able to figure out the songs on my own. But Mark was a cool guy. I remember him gamely singing along with Motley Crue’s “Shout At The Devil,” even though it was clearly not his thing. I Googled “Mark Liberto” recently and came up with nothing. I wonder what happened to him.
Early on I was playing stuff by the Rolling Stones, including “Brown Sugar,” “Honky Tonk Woman,” and “She Was Hot” (anyone remember that gem?). Then, a few months later, my sister started dating this guy named Kurt Petchow, whose Dad owned a pretty successful service station. I remembered Kurt from a few years earlier, when he was in sixth grade and I was in third at Washington Elementary School. I think Kurt was over at our house one day and he noticed some of the cassettes I had, stuff like Motley Crue, Quiet Riot, and Van Halen’s 1984. He said something like, “Yeah, that metal’s cool, but you should check out AC/DC.” At that point he leant me Back in Black, For Those About To Rock, We Salute You, and Highway to Hell.
I learned all about the distinction between Brian Johnson and Bon Scott, the roles of Angus and Malcom Young, and the succession of drummers after Phil Rudd. I studied all the album covers, which still are pretty damn cool to look at. Mostly, though, I spent hours and hours learning all the riffs, how to move power chords all over the place, how to syncopate my playing against the steady drums, how to make a guitar sound distorted without sucking.
Then there were the leads. I practiced and practiced every lead on Back on Black, Highway to Hell, For Those About to Rock, Let There Be Rock, High Voltage, and so on. Basically, I think this taught me everything I know about how to play the guitar. For all the bullshit surrounding AC/DC – and there isn’t that much – Angus Young can really play rock. And not only rock solos that you make up on the spot – those solos that he recorded are the ones he played live as well. They are actually well-constructed. No, he wasn’t Eddie Van Halen, but who cares. You don’t always need to eat crème brulee. Sometimes you need to eat a steak.
I picked this song because I always liked it and it never got much airplay. Plus now I still enjoy pre-Highway to Hell AC/DC more than any other era. It’s probably my fondness before the band’s sound before Mutt Lange got his paws on it.
I remember in seventh grade there was a videotape for sale of the AC/DC Let There Be Rock movie for, like, a hundred bucks, which is unbelievably steep. Again, I convinced my parents to buy it for me. It had all kinds of inappropriate language and behavior in it, but the movie was awesome, full of great Bon Scott-era performances. I still have that tape, even though I nearly wore it out. I also remember my friend Keith and I always battled over who was better, his crappy KISS-style glam-metal bands or old school blues-metal like AC/DC. I think time has told that I won. Sorry, man.
So there you haven’t. It isn’t lowbrow and it’s not even cool anymore, but I still dig it.
Album Info: Powerage (1978).
Diamonds and dust
Poor man last, rich man first
Lamborginis, caviar
Dry martini’s, Shangrila
I got a burnin’ feeling, deep inside of me
It’s yearnin’, but I’m gonna set it free
I’m goin’ in to sin city
I’m gonna win in sin city
Where the lights are bright
Do the town tonight
I’m gonna win in sin city, let me roll ya baby
Ladders and snakes
Ladders give, snakes take
Rich man, poor man, beggar man thief
You ain’t got a hope in hell, that’s my belief
Fingers Freddy, Diamond Jim
They’re getting ready, look out I’m coming in
So spin that wheel, cut that pack
And roll them loaded dice
Bring on the dancin’ girls, and put the champaign on ice
I’m goin’ in to sin city
I’m gonna win in sin city
Where the lights are bright
Do the town tonight
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