Lefty

I live on a battlefield
Surrounded by the ruins of the love we built
And then destroyed between us
The smoke has cleared
As I stumble through the rubble
I’m dazed, seeing double
And I’m truly mystified
My new home is a shell hole filled
With tears and muddy water
And bits of broken heart
All around there is desolation
And scenes of devastation
Of a love been torn apart
I live on a battlefield

Song by Nick Lowe & Paul Carrack
Recently recorded (I think) by Nanci Griffith
My imagination’s ear can hear Lu singing this one, too

In a word, Nick Lowe was superb last night. Just him & his guitar.

Article:

http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/nick_lowe_at_your_age_/Content?oid=463146

Excerpt (referring to his new record, “At My Age”):

The album opens with him singing, “In my life I’ve done things I’m not proud of,” in a convincing tone of redemption. But two songs later, he offers “I Trained Her to Love Me,” in which he takes great pleasure in damaging the women with whom he is involved. The song is evocative of his 1979 hit “Cruel to Be Kind,” in which he labored over the head games that arise in affairs of the heart. But while the older song romanticized psychological antagonism, “I Trained Her to Love Me” paints Lowe out to be a character who is both sinister and cynical.

“When we did that song everyone in the room was chortling away over it and said, ‘You know … Lucinda Williams could really do a great job singing this song,’ but the room went silent when somebody else said it’s much heavier when a man says it,” Lowe recalls. “That was absolutely right. You tend to naturally think that this is how a woman would put it, anyway; they train us to love them. But when a man says it, it’s just so much more chilling … So I didn’t ever show it to Lucinda!”

NY Times review of an NL show last month (the writer nails it, imho):

Nick Lowe – “At My Age”
Dave Edmunds – “…Anthology (1968-90)”

For me, these two will always be linked.
Going to see Nick next week in Albany.

Bob wins a Pulitzer…

SPECIAL CITATION: Bob Dylan, “for his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.”

You deserve some kind of prize for writing a song like this…

Chimes of Freedom

Far between sundown’s finish an’ midnight’s broken toll
We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
An’ for each an’ ev’ry underdog soldier in the night
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

In the city’s melted furnace, unexpectedly we watched
With faces hidden while the walls were tightening
As the echo of the wedding bells before the blowin’ rain
Dissolved into the bells of the lightning
Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake
Tolling for the luckless, the abandoned an’ forsaked
Tolling for the outcast, burnin’ constantly at stake
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail
The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder
That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze
Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder
Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind
Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind
An’ the unpawned painter behind beyond his rightful time
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Through the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales
For the disrobed faceless forms of no position
Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts
All down in taken-for-granted situations
Tolling for the deaf an’ blind, tolling for the mute
Tolling for the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute
For the misdemeanor outlaw, chased an’ cheated by pursuit
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Even though a cloud’s white curtain in a far-off corner flashed
An’ the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
An’ for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Starry-eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Copyright © 1964; renewed 1992 Special Rider Music