2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten (REDUX)

just received the cd. great work, man. i was glad to hear the versions that tom tracy sent to robert.

Lots of great discussions on this song in this thread and also the Junebugs vs. Hurricaines thread.
I did a little more research on the song and found this quote from Radio Paradise.
QUOTE”
Posted: Apr 03, 2006 – 12:09
pixelgato wrote: Decent track, shame about the title.It’s something that kids used to write in each other’s school yearbooks at the end of the school year.
2 Cool
2 Be
4 Gotten
Written as a math equation – that’s her reference point anyway.
End QUOTE”
“
There are 4 or 5 pages of discussion/interpretations for us to ponder.
http://www.radioparadise.com/content.php?name=Music&file=songinfo&song_id=2009&start=0
KOOL
lwj

@punchdrunklove wrote:

since i’ve never seen the book, i wonder if the last part of the song (the girl and her boyfriend on a lake charles bridge) is in any way hinted at the book, or if it’s “pure” lucinda. can anyone help with this?

I have the book, PDL – here is a link to descriptions of the images that I found in it that apparently influenced Lu. I didn’t see any shot that tied into Lake Charles or a bridge. Since the photos in the book are from juke joints in Mississippi and Lake Charles is over in SW Louisiana, I would speculate this imagery is from Lu’s personal experiences…

Tom

the last post kind of proved to me that i’m not able to put together a paragraph for an argumentative text, at least a non-confused one. i read again what i wrote and it’s all very strange, especially when i mention about first-person narrator (just so you know how desperate things can get, i got this expression directly from its version in portuguese – and i was lucky, i just googled it and it seems to be appropriate).

so i’ll write a bit more about 2 kool, this time without those flights of fancy.

i love this song since 2007, the year i first listened to lucinda (the car wheels album). for some dumb reason, the only songs that i kept listening afterwards – not frequently – were “right in time” and “2 kool”, ocasionally “car wheels” (yeah, tracks #1, #3 and #2; i think this is bound to happen sometimes, we prioritize the first couple of songs). cut to april 24, 2009 (since i have a last.fm account is easy for me to get information like that), the day when i listened to car wheels again, and wow, just wow – it blew my mind. cut to getting stuff on the internet (i know i shouldn’t mention this here, but since i did i might as well add that since april ’09 i bought on ebay both austin city limits dvds and seven of her albuns… and a poster too.)/ mix-tapes (not many, though. one of them had “essence”, “steal your love”, “hot blood”, “righteously” and “i just wanted to see you so bad” sequenced; yeah, it was about ONE thing, and no, didn’t quite work.)/ recommending lucinda to every person i know/ mentioning her on twitter on a daily basis (= recommending)/getting an answer from her on twitter (something to do with a friend of mine, “ocasional dj”, saying that if he included car wheels on one of his setlists, people would strip their clothes off while listening to it – lucinda was puzzled with “striptease” and “car wheels” going hand in hand; i swear, this was a great day)/ writing a short film screenplay in which one of the characters (a 30-year-old librarian) is named lucinda (lucinda is a pretty common first name in brazil, btw)/ searching bootlegs like crazy/ planning on seeing her live in europe in 2012/13… now i’m in that fase of beaming like crazy every time i listen to a rare bootleg or, say, to an alternative version of real love.

people sometimes come here and tell stories about the importance of lucinda in their lives and how they became familiar with her work, and this is mine: on april 24, ’09 i simply decided to give another go to car wheels. yes, i’m a huge fan for about 14 months, and yes, i realize i’m out of line in asking for a south america tour at this stage, but this lucinda frenzy is certainly not a fleeting affair. sometimes when i come here i’m almost embarassed in writing stuff along with people that are familiar with lucinda since the 80s, 90s, 00s. it’s a great honor to be here, among comitted fans, i sense that my 14 months will become 14 years in no time. sometimes when i’m listening to, let’s say, an austin concert from 1994 (in which she performed lots of songs from car wheels) and i wonder “how come you just got to listen to her in 2009?”. the answer is quite obvious: in 94 i was a 7-year-old. so i guess i’m coming to terms with the fact that, well, before late than never.

now with 2 kool. in 2007, i had no idea what junebug vs. hurricane meant or what the reason behind those funky numbers on the title. and two years later the only thing i know for sure is that people once wrote some inscriptions on a red wall, lucinda saw them through the eyes of a photographer and the rest is history. i think i want to be familiar with every single aspect of this song because i was already nuts about it years ago, and those 14 months of heavy-listening only made the mystery richer: i’m still unable to grasp this song. it’s not like i need to understand it, and more like i’d love to hear more stuff about it since there’s so much potencial for storytelling in it. i guess i like to hear what people in general have to say about it. that’s why i think that this project from robert (22 versions of the song) is so terrific. if anyone told me on april 23, ’09 that a french guy would be shipping a year later from paris to rio a cd with TWENTY-TWO versions of a single song, i wouldn’t believe it. and then, by listening to every single track of the compilation, you realize that lucinda gave credits to the author of the book that inspired the song every time – and you can’t help but admire how these thinks work, how masterpieces are created almost randomly and how they can bring together two admirers from different backgrounds. of course this can be said of every song, but i always wondered about lucinda’s relation with this one in particular, especially in which sense the second part is linked with the first, how the inscription on that red wall and all signs and details from those mississippi bars brought us those star-crossed lovers at that lake charles bridge.

which is to say: i wonder but i don’t think i really want to know; there’s nothing to know really. the answer is obvious: lucinda’s personal images + lucinda’s astounding craft. it seems such a miracle that this song happened. i guess that when something strikes you as awesome you have a tendency to consider it a happy accident, a one-time wonder, and 2 kool is still the song i listen to the most. it’s almost creepy to imagine what happened to me between 2007 and now, it seems like a watershed on most respects (not only regarding lucinda, obviously), but the idea that 2 kool is still able to entice me just as much as in 2007 is more than a reason to treasure lucinda for life.

well, i wrote too much. i’m saving everything i’ve been writing on this forum. i think it should be… let’s say heartwarming to read it all in the near future.