morphine therapy

I hadn't ever considered it before, but "Cure For Pain" is definitely a concept album.

You're back? And STILL listening to that same cd?

Yep and yep. I should have noticed before - and maybe i did on some subliminal level - but the music tells a story, if you listen to it as a whole and not piecemeal. As i generally listen from first to last tune, i can pick up on a theme, if the artist had meant there to be one. Or maybe even if they had not.

And the theme of "Cure For Pain"? The message locked in the lyrics?

You're making fun of me, but that's okay. Sometimes you can be a bit obtuse. The theme, dear, is dealing with relationships and lovers.

Let me set you straight, buttercup. Almost EVERY song IN THE WORLD is about dealing with relationships and lovers. And you know why? Well, do you? I'll tell you. That theme is everywhere because people everywhere have that same issue, unless they live out in the woods or in a cave, alone. Oh, and let's not forget that guys in rock bands want to get laid and singing about lovers and relationships tends to be instrumental in accomplishing that. And, yeah, that double entendre was deliberate.

Really. (Sigh.) As i was saying before your rant, i hold that the songs in this compilation were not randomly placed, but are deliberately loaded in the order given. Taken in sequence, one sees a relationship begin between the singer and a dark-haired beauty in the audience.

No, no, no, let me stop you right there! Nowhere in "Buena" does he speak of the girl's hair color!

I didn't say he did, either, did i? No. We don't find out that particular fact until two songs later. So, in "Buena", he meets her and asks her to "come on a little closer to the front of the stage, come on a little closer i got something to say". Then they have a helluva good time, with him calling her a devil called "buena buena".

You're inferring quite a lot from that short little song.

(Sigh.) May i continue? Thank you.
In the next song, "I'm Free Now," he's "free now to direct a movie sing a song or write a book about yours truly" and why is he suddenly free? he's screwed up the relationship somehow, causing her to not even talk to him for about a week. He pleads with her, crying " the last thing i want to do is ever cause you pain." Then his lament continues in "All Wrong," missing her "black hair like ravens," her "smile that swerved all over the road," her laugh that makes him "travel back in time" and "collapse inside." It's rather touching, those lyrics, while the music wails and rocks behind him.

Niiice.

Stay with me now! Okay? Okay. In the next song, "Candy" has moved on, but is unhappy and wants him with her "down in candyland," but he's not going. She even talks about what if she were to die and he tells her "no you can't do that to me because you love me way too much for you to ever leave." But he stays put, findng he has "A Head With Wings" during a drug overdose. He even thinks he can "see the shadows fall" across her face.

Drug overdose? Where does it say THAT? No drugs are mentioned in those lyrics, or in any of the others on that cd, for that matter.

Oh, yes they are! Well, maybe not specifically in THAT song, though they do show up in a later tune. Let's continue, shall we?

Hey, it's your party. Carry on.

And so i shall. "In Spite Of Me" bemoans the fact that she succeeded in her suicide attempt, when he had thought she would be coming back to him. Now, all he has is the video of her and he watches it late at night in his living room.

Oh, brother.

Then, he has an affair with a married woman, an affair on "Thursday" afternoons, meeting "for a couple of drinks and a game of pool." But he had to give that up because her husband was a "very violent and jealous man," leading to his leaving town to avoid a beat down. Then back to the drugs as a "Cure For Pain," the pain of losing at love again, the pain of having his self control "crawling helpless on the floor."

How very maudlin. Truly.

Ignoring the peanut gallery, yes, i am. The next song, he's back to questioning the reason why "there's no map and there's no clue" to let a man know "who to dog and who to ride and who to hold forever by your side." "Mary Won't You Call My Name?" Still trying to find the right woman, he suggests "Let's Take A Trip Together", though he may well mean that figuratively rather than literally as he speaks of "breathing the cold black space with the glistening edges." Then again, he may just want to get her away from all the "anxious questions" and the "nervous wrecks." Quite possible!

Are you done yet? Time is tick, tick, ticking away here...

Almost!!! Oh, ye of little patience. We were almost done, and you had to go and interrupt! Such a bad habit, you really MUST work on that.

Later. Which it is now. So?

Fine. So, here we are at the last song, a mellow number about yet another woman. Her name is "Sheila" and this seems to be a languid, post-coital poem about her and her cat. But is it the cat under her spell or is it him? Hmm? My money says he has found another woman to bemuse him for a while.
Ta da! All done!

(Yawn.) Time for bed, now that your little fairy tale has come to a close. Say good night now.

Good night now!
hahaha!

cure for pain

I love Morphine. Once, i had quite a few of their compact discs, but now i only have the one. The last time the ex was in town for the holidays, i gave him all save one: Cure For Pain. That one has some lyrics i can really get behind, lyrics that let me know that not only am i not alone in my madness but that others have trod this path. Actually, i've just realized as i was typing that madness is not IN my head so much as a state of being, another space in time which anyone may occupy on occasion, but hopefully not forever. Right?

Girl, you're NOT quite right, are you?

No, but i'm getting better, i swear i am. And we all know how well i can swear! :)

:)

The music on this album - as is my default designation for solid matter on which music is deposited (and that's as far as THIs digression into the woods is allowed) - really speaks my language. Lots of brass, lots of dirty guitar, a drumline built for my hips! "Scuse me while I dance to Thursday.

Say what? Today just happens to be Tuesday, or did your lack of work cause you to forget days of the week?

Ha ha. You are sooo funny. No, the song is titled "Thursday" and talks about the weekly trysts between a guy and a married chick. Yes, it does violate my Second Law, but those Laws cannot be applied to others, only myself. Clearly. Else i would not even be writing this as i would not be living in my AD, i would most likely never have started this blog, and would not know all these new folks in my life. Yeah. But i digress yet again, as so often is the case of late...

Hello? Are you there? You seem to have drifted away?

Yeah, maybe a little. The lyrics on this particular song are all over me. "Let's take a trip together, headlong into the irresistible orbit." I so need to wake up somewhere different.

Well, hang in there, sunshine. You do have that trip coming up at the end of the month.

Yeah, you're right, i do, but you know very well that's a business trip and not the same thing as what i mean.

Well, it won't be all business, all the time. There will be plenty of time for play, too, in the evening.

If i say "sure" will you just drop it?

I don't know. If i drop it, will you kindly step out of your head and back into the real world? Off the nebulous turf of Madness and onto the solid surface of Reality?

"Solid surface of Reality"? Do you jest?? You, off all people, speaking of Reality as some fixed concept, state of being, frame of reference, when it is at least as ethereal as Madness? You, who have ranted time and time again about perspective and its effect on personal Reality? Spare me your inference that Reality is a firmer "place" to be than is the other.

Okay, i can see i've hit a sore spot, so allow me to rephrase and reiterate. While the weather is clear, perhaps you should get outside, do something constructive. Perhaps, just perhaps, you should take a step back from your emotional and mental states and concentrate on something in the physical world, something your hands can touch? Better?

My hands ARE touching something physical. Or at least my fingers are. My white-tipped fingers.
And thanks to high school, i'm actually typing this with my figners over the keyboard in the proper location, rather than hunt and peck, as was my Grandpa's style. You'd think that with his constant writing, he would have found it helpful to have learned typing strategy, so as to minimize his time spent with the typewriter, but he was pretty quick, probably quicker than i am. Hell's belles, THAT is probably true!
Yes, i do feel better. Thanks for asking.
And out i go! But next time, i AM going to finish this topic of me and my relationship with music. Oh, yes, i am.