Sonic Youth - “Superstar” (Carpenters cover)
in the evening i was listening to a u2 live bootleg cd, the band covered neil young’s “southern man” in their very own concert. in the middle of the song, bono, who was obviously in high spirit, told the crowd that there’s no tricks in rock & roll and made his famous manifesto — “just three chords, and the truth”. i’ve read similar quotes for times, but you know i was so touched that i almost took out my guitar to play along. yes the world is changing, the economy is changing, the music is changing, but it’s still a wonderful experience to be emotionally moved, isn’t it?
* * *
he told me on the phone that he is looking for a new job, i replied with an old cliché that fits the situation very well, but he was not too satisified. it would be very dangerous if cliché is now, with regardless of who presents it, with regardless of what’s in or out of vogue, with regardless of its context and its contents, equalivant to kitsch, and thus crap. it’s swinging too hard to the other side of the pendulum.
* * *
it’s actually a pro-election campaign or a protest against misslies on the peace memorial day? anyway, the 500km human chain formed by more than 1 million people down the west coast of taiwan is, at the same time, glorious and tragic.
* * *
it might sound, again, pretentious, but sometimes it’s worth paying attention to the construction of words, and it’s especially true when affixation is involved. in greek, “philo” means love while “sophia” means wisdom. literally, “philosophy” is the love of wisdom. note, it’s wisdom, not intelligence nor cleverness, that we should be dying for.
* * *
don’t be afraid to be silly though. silliness boosts both productivity and creativity. the only problem is that, it doesn’t sound too funny when we put it this way.
Badly Drawn Boy - “Silent Sigh”
it felt so real.
suddenly we found the way out of the labyrinth. we thought we’d never ever be able to leave. we ran through the forest. we ran through the snow. we were running in the rhythm of each other and we were running as fast as we could.
sunset, sunrise, through the twilight struggles, we reached the hillside of wildflowers, surrounding us were the bug sounds of a warm summer evening. closing our eyes, we took a deep breath and jumped off the cliff, but there was no miracle. it’s not as we hoped, we grew no magic wings. i fail to recall what it was like, but we were definitely not flying. we appeared engulfed in a floppy whiteness, the cloud didn’t stop us from falling.
after all these years, we ended up being caught in a green field with fresh lemon smell in the air. i woke up checking if we were dead, and a second later, you jumped up, spat the gum out of your mouth and wrapped it into a dead leave. you looked around, and with a strange smile you went squeezing all the lemons. you told me to take a nap, “relax baby, i shall be cleansing your soul with a lemon aroma.”
then i fell asleep again.
if an voice-over was possible when it was fading out, i’d like to remark: how sweet i was, and how dare you were not.
everytime the day
darkens down and goes away
pictures open
into my head of me and you
silent and clichéd
all the things we did
and didn’t say covered up
by what we did and didn’t do
i thought you knew
now i take it from the top
and make the repetition stop:
it never ever went awaynow i’m scared to leave my zone
we’re both alone
i’m going home
i wish i’d never seen your face
Elliott Smith - “Waltz #1″ (demo)
16. 因為已經沒機會欣賞他的現場演唱。
17. 因為今天忽然什麼也看不開。