Lyrics for Priorities
March 23, 2008 on 11:00 am | In General | No CommentsLyrics for the new CD are posted.
The lyrics of the songs Just Talking and Preening Like a Peacock fit in well with the discussion on the male sex drive and gender issues that I did from August 07- February 08.
In Just Talking I paint a picture of a somewhat cynical and detached manhood created from an adolescence dominated by feelings of sexual rejection.
He thought she smiled at him
She wore that sweater again
She had her friends talk to him
The next day at school she didn’t even look at him
All those years he felt rejected, humiliated and confused
Took a toll on his emotions, his true feelings he withdrew……felt like a tool
Paints her face, eggs him on
Giggles at his jokes and then flirts with Ron
Telephones but says goodbye
She gets his heart then screws his mind
He found he got more action when he played to seal the deal
In Preening Like a Peacock the differences between how men and women view beauty is explored:
A woman feels beauty in every touch
In satin, silks and in a baby’s flesh
A woman smells beauty in every sniff
In perfumes, herbs and floral scents
His temptress, his partner, his goddess his queen
A man finds beauty in a woman’s form
A breast, a thigh, a hip bone exposed
She is the goal of art
She is his anchor and spark
She gives the milk of life
Without her he shrivels and dies
A few handsome faces maybe and the occasional butt
But we’ll never really get it, we’ll continue to strut
Preening like a peacock hormones out of control
In Give I make a common sense appeal for living harmoniously:
Some view war as a part of life, like death, work and pain
But war is hatred at every moment, its unnatural and insane
All of life, does change and mend, every storm, soon does end
Ask what they want, don’t assume they want your lot
Treat each other with respect, live honorably
In Bath of Joy I take my plea a step further by talking of how amazing being alive is:
Bathe yourself in your joy
Be a sun shining forth
Share your gift with everyone
Solve the puzzle make it fun
Don’t vilify uncertainty
Don’t demystify mystery
Come alive suddenly
Bathe yourself in your humanity
Steeped in real life not in dream
Primed to realize all our joy
Life’s a prize a gift and a toy (enjoy)
In Gaps I exhort all to embrace life’s limitations instead of fleeing or bemoaning them:
Be your own idol, be your own best friend
Make the most of silence, let it steady your gaze
Give your best to others neither judge nor blame
Provide all with questions that guide them thru their maze
Adopt a stance that promises to fulfill you
In Blindfold I ask everyone to look at life with their eyes open and not get caught up in running through their life:
Trying to navigate this life blindfolded and deceived
Is kind of like eating apples with no hands and no teeth
The more we live together in community
The more we need to trust each other get validation thru authenticity
Everyone’s in motion, running past what’s dear
Everyone’s in motion, clouding what once was clear
Everyone’s in motion, won’t you shed a tear
In Crashing Down I paint a picture of a woman whose false optimism masks her underlying depression. A depression born of her very need to ignore reality and smile.
She tells every person her life’s going great
Describes beautiful children her partner as soulmate
She believes optimism creates a fortunate fate
Tries to think happy thoughts avoids all conflict
Everything wrong in the world she blames on male aggression
Still her world comes
Crashing down, without a tear
She drowns in silent fear
No sound, no cries to hear
In Exhaustion I present the need for support in my effort to have a realistic and rewarding view of life and human experience.
I watch the hypnotist mesmerize ply his trade
Speech writes for the government the media is his slave
His perspective is everywhere burnt deep in our brain
Creates fear and national pride makes us righteous and enraged
I grow increasingly tired what is real slips away
I need someone else to help me stay strong and brave
An open heart, and open mind that relishes each day
Help me love and play
Help me care for man
Help me make life grand
In When Right is Wrong I expand on the role that spin doctors play in distorting our view of reality and world politics that I outlined in Exhaustion.
I can see you have the power
Controlling all their heart and minds
I concede you own the table
We are witnesses to your genocide
Put freedom in a cage set the world aflame
It’s hard to be contrite when doing right makes one wrong
Hard to put up a fight when you’re feeling alone
There’s not much I can say, the games rigged that way, where I won’t foster hate
When wrong is viewed as right, when day becomes night,
Are our tears the last thing that’s free?
In After the Storm I talk of the rebirth and regeneration that can occur after a war or natural calamity.
Search for the missing in the rubble
Do the heavy lifting fight for survival
Mourn for the dead with deep respect
Live on again after the storm
Build a new life after the storm
Remember how to smile after the storm
Take pride in the new after the storm
Learn what is true after the storm
In Sometimes I discuss how often good things can come from the most unexpected place.
Sometimes silence is the answer
Sometimes the deaf can have you hear
Sometimes it takes a blind man to make you see
Sometimes a mute will correct speech
Sometimes thru death we feel alive
Sometimes sickness makes us most healthy
Sometimes poverty breeds wealth
Well that’s a short intro to the lyrics for Priorities please go to music and listen to the album. The words are meant to be read while listening to the music. Again I would love to hear your thoughts on my art.
Jim Guido
New CD Released: Priorities
March 13, 2008 on 6:11 pm | In General | No CommentsMy most recent CD Priorities is now available on the site. Go to music and click on Priorities. I will have the lyrics posted for all the songs by Saturday. Soon after that I hope to post a short description of each song’s style and subject matter.
Let me know what you think of the tunes.
Jim Guido
Art Posing as Music
March 9, 2008 on 3:30 pm | In General | No CommentsThe following is sort of like a mission statement regarding my music. Later this week I will be releasing a new CD entitled Priorities which up to this point has only consisted of two posted songs.
Modern music is everywhere. It’s on TV, radio, the net, movies, elevators, telephone waiting lines and in almost every store you enter. Modern society abhors silence and every moment is filled with either or both music and dialogue. The competition to get and hold your attention is incredible. Considering this, it is not surprising that most of modern music is transitory. The demand for modern music to be immediately catchy is strong. The business expectation of music being highly marketable challenges the artist to create sounds which grab the audiences attention and stay with them the rest of the day.
The commercial aspect of the music world forces an artist to hone his skills at representing his feelings to as many people as possible. The drawback is that appealing form is often valued over artistic content. With so many artistic choices available it is understandable though regrettable that many listeners give a song less than ten seconds before looking elsewhere, just as many readers will only give a novel a paragraph or so to grab their attention before checking out the next book.
I am a very passionate and reflective person. This is apparently a rather rare combination as most intensely passionate people are doers and most reflective people are rather subdued in nature. Yet, my music has always been lush, intense and highly self disclosing. Though much of my music is danceable, my sense of rhythm is unorthodox and somewhat complicated. My lyrics are also unconventional and you will hear many words sung for the first time.
Recording companies have always showed a wary interest in my music. While claiming to personally love my music they add that it is too diverse, sophisticated and intelligent for the mass listener. They feel that my music is an acquired taste far outlasting the attention span of the marketplace.
The goal of all my art is to successfully articulate our shared reality while at the same time disclosing my personal reality. I find life fascinating and captivating and I long to share every insight and discovery with the world.
The title of this post is Art Posing as Music because my music is not just entertainment meant for aural consumption, but a full bodied way to live and portray life. Art is a combination of form and content. Much of my music presents snapshots of my life or observations of our lives and portrays them in a comprehensive manner. I do this by taking thoughts, feelings and questions and blowing them up so that they all become complete pictures, separate photos which provide their own existence and ambiance.
Many people pose feeling and thought as being competing or separate realities. I find thought devoid of the sensual to be empty and the sensual bereft of thought to be blind. Therefore, in my music you will be challenged physically, emotionally and intellectually. Passion is a way of being in the world and includes all my thoughts as well as my visceral sense experience.
The goal of my music (art) is to share, express and inspire, rather than make money. That is why I’ve posted my music on the internet. Since I no longer perform out, I do miss the audiences response to my music. Please fill that void by writing me of your responses to my music.
Since my music is so lush and diverse it cannot be absorbed or understood through one listening. Please take the time to savor my music and its images. Let them wash over you and open you up to the world I’m attempting to understand and portray. A sensual world full of meaning and joy.
The new CD Priorities should be posted in the next few days. I would greatly appreciate any input you may have in terms of song order for the CD. My songs are like my children and I have a hard time choosing one over the other or comparing their accessibility to a listening audience.
Jim Guido
PS For those interesting in the male sex drive and gender issues from a unconventional perspective please read my posts from August thru February.
Alu
March 2, 2008 on 9:33 pm | In General | 1 CommentThe following lyric and reverie I wrote some time ago.
If you want to listen to the song go to music, click on the “Take Me” CD and then click on the song ALU.
Alu came from he land of light
Man take Alu when great trod asleep
Trod spat as boat pass by
With Trod eye Dala pull Alu into the sea
No more Trod land, without spirit Alu no live
Alu hungry, Alu tired, Alu see no beast
To hunt, bring down, no breathe, eat
A god in sky
No could be
Trod is stronger, hotter piercing gaze
Made Alu blink, made Alu see Alu feet
Alu scared now, without Trod
No tribe, no family, no woman, Alu no live
Alu work fleece many tiny tree
Learn work, move fast, Alu do please
“I ” want it that way
Alu hear cries of man take away
Back puff up, bleed, when man say “I” angry
Alu eat food now, Alu never see beast
“I” give Alu plenty
Alu scared, Alu proud
Alu work hard, to please, to praise, to beg
God is everywhere, bow down,
“I” see always
“I” give what Alu need
Alu bow down, no more Trod land
Alu live where “I ” see everything
Alu becomes “I” when Alu fleece
Alu bow down, kiss the land of milk and honey
Alu bow down, pray to the god, the god of salvation
REVERIE:
This song tries to incorporate a few linguistic and cultural tendencies of what we commonly refer to as primitive people while telling the story of a man abducted from his homeland to become a slave in a land unlike his own. Rather than having the victims be speaking and thinking like 20th century western man, and effort was made to reconstruct the thoughts and feelings of a man from a radically different life world than modern western society. Many essential linguistic tendencies were modified so that the sentences could retain enough English grammar to remain moderately intelligible without losing sight of the fact that this man views and interprets the world from a drastically foreign, emotional and conceptual perspective.
Many cultures do not have a clearly defined concept of the personal ego. In fact most languages did not, and some still do not, contain a first person pronoun such as the term “I” as in our language. The individual ego as having a unique or separate existence is foreign to many cultures in which a person is defined by a totemic system or a lengthy and complex cross-reference of social relations. The belief that the individual ego has been a slowly developing human concept finds support in historical and anthropological studies. In many cultures, the belief in an in an individual ego would be not only blasphemous, but nonsensical. The main character of this song is named Alu, and when referring to himself, he always calls himself what others call him, Alu.
In the beginning of the story Alu talks of his homeland and his traumatic removal from there. The god Trod is a sun god who was asleep (night time) when Alu was taken. Trod’s sister (the ocean) spat at the boat as Alu was taken. Reliving the myths of his people tht speak to extended boat travel, Alu feels that he has been pulled into the sea (drown) and is in a state of chaos (with Dala in her sea kingdom).
This feeling of chaos is furthered by the fact that the god of Alu’s people is a sun god who is tied to the land of Trod. As Alu drifts from the land of Trod he no longer is with , seen or protected by Trod. Alu, therefore, is no longer alive. He is essentially living a shadow existence. It is interesting to note that there are some ancient tribes that have a totemic pole that symbolizes the center of the world and when that pole breaks they cease to exist in any real (sacred) manner. Entire tribes have been known to just sit and wait for death to overtake them for their spiritual life expired the moment the pole was destroyed.
Alu looks out at the great expanse of the sea and sees no animals to kill. Since his language contains no word for death,he describes the process of acquiring food, “Alu see no beast to hunt, bring down, no breathe, eat”. Alu terrified and truly alone spends the rest of the journey in a trance like stupor surviving in living conditions not fit for an animal.
When Alu arrives on his new land he feels like a coward for even continuing to live. Yet, the idea of dying without the presence of his own people is too terrifying to consider. Alu wonders if he is alive or is this the land after death. Alu is astonished to see a sun in the sky, and decides that it cannot be a god for it is much weaker than Trod. Trod was so bright that you could never look directly at his presence. Trod’s “piercing gaze made Alu blink, made Alu see Alu’s feet”. Alu quickly becomes introduced to the life of a slave. Alu is comforted by seeing people more like himself and even has found people from his own tribe. Alu again wonders if he is alive or dead.
Alu, being a hard worker, is treated better then many of the other slaves. Alu hears the white people talk about this “I”. “I” wants things, I gets angry, I is pleased and I rewards hard work with food. Alu becomes fascinated by this “I” and decides that I must be the god of this very strange world. I punishes those that don’t work hard or somehow fall out of his favor. Alu never sees beast yet his is always provided with food that magically appears from “I”. This I is truly amazing and is everywhere in this land of I. Alu becomes content serving I by fleecing these odd little trees that I wants so badly. Alu feels that he actually becomes I when he immerses himself in the work of I. The harder Alu works the more he feels the heat of his homeland and the presence of I. Alu, grateful and tired, praises this land of I. Alu bows down and kisses the magical land of I and feels that all of his work is constant adoration of this magnificent god. In the fields Alu and many others would sing songs of praise and glory. Alu at these times, worked even harder being filled with the spirit of I and again sensing the sense of family that he so dearly missed. The song ends in an orgiastic chant like phrasing in which the spiritual mood of Alu is evoked.
The phrase that Alu becomes I when Alu fleece is also very revealing from another point of view. When Alu picks a lot of cotton he receives praise and recognition for his efforts. Ones sense of self and personal esteem are greatly influences and created by positive recognition. So Alu is correct when he states that he becomes I (has an ego) when he picks a lot of cotton.
The sense of wonder that Alu felt for I is echoed in us when we reflect on the complexity of human feeling and experience. What else is more captivating than man in the midst of his world, feeling, sharing, believing and loving? Man, the creature that incorporates and solves is flexible and creative in his efforts to survive and come to terms with a world that cries out to him for meaning. All of us so independently interdependent, reading our environment and interpreting all that comes in our path. We, all different yet so much alike, need look no further then ourselves to experience awe and revere life.
The tempo and rhythm of this song plod along at a slow walking pace. The world created by the music allows you to drift with Alu through his personal odyssey. You can feel the rocking of the boat, him walking in the land of I, and rhythmically working in the fields with the other slaves. Some of the sounds in Alu are very earthy depicting his simple roots. The island/African sounds provide Alu with a homeland and seem to cry out for his return. The peculiar mix of electronic and acoustic flavors are designed to give the song a haunting eerie flavor having you sense Alu’s confusion and bewilderment.
When I listen to this song I’m placed in a relaxed meditative state. The bowels of the earth bass lines and drums, shared by at least three instruments at a time create a sleepy calm in my belly.The marimba heard off in the distance incites me to take in a deep breath and feel refreshed. The slow crescendo that the song inches towards carries me into dream. The horns are like splashes of color on a darkened sky, giving contrast to the earthy world the lower toned instruments create. It is this sky that I begin to drift towards as the song delicately builds. As I float upward I am met by Alu’s cries as his voice rises above the chants of the others. As “Alu bow down” is repeated, I gently drift back down to earth feeling light and relaxed at songs end.
This song demonstrates how man can turn tragedy into beauty, how he can adapt to almost any situation creating a home out of chaos. This song is a celebration of man’s ability to create meaning in their life, while calling into question the absolute truth or superiority of any of these amazing creations.
Jim Guido
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