Wednesday 18 June 2014

Doll by Doll - I Never Saw the Movie More Than Twice



That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
Robert Browning, Home Thoughts, From Abroad

It's Jackie’s birthday and it seems like a good time to post a piece on this great Doll by Doll tune from their second album, Doll by Doll.

You hear a song like this again, or it comes into your head and everything you were when you first heard it comes back to you. Songs have such power to evoke a mood, an era, in this case, youth and possibility. You realise that it’s in you, has infiltrated your blood, your consciousness, has got under your skin, is imbued in your very sinews. You played it so much, taped from someone’s vinyl, loved it so much, that you will never forget it. The song’s soul is part of your soul.

Doll by Doll, more so than Jackie Leven solo, make me want to use words like glory and majesty. They make me go all Biblical. I can only express myself in superlatives, in hyperbole, absolutes because Doll by Doll dealt in nothing else. They did nothing by halves.

There’s a palpable joy when Jackie launches into 'She asked me/Would I like to see her again/Forget that bedroom/I just want to be friends/She once told me something/I was not to repeat/And I know she was right/But I feel like making love tonight', a rush like a jet taking off. It comes crashing along, with so much vitality and hope, like the wave of the century and you’re carried on the momentum to a place where all love is eternal (as if there were any other kind of love with Doll by Doll), swept up in the slipstream. Simply hearing those lines today, sung with Jackie’s inimitable intensity, I feel the same surge of emotion I did then.

Now the almost tangible elation that resounds through that stanza and that I feel when I hear it, is interlaced with sorrow that Jackie is gone and will be forever missed and my life is no longer fresh and new and maybe my dreams never amounted to much but I know that I once rode the crest of the perfect wave with Doll by Doll and  shared it with people I really cared about.

There are many Leven fans who only know Jackie’s solo material. I didn’t know about Doll by Doll until some time in the 80s when they were no longer together but my belated immersion in their sonic grandeur meant that years later, when I saw Jackie’s name in a gig list in 1994, I was there, so excited: to be able to hear him sing, perform live, to think he was still making music, music that I could buy. It was like a reprieve from a sentence I didn’t know I was serving.

And now, despite the sadness, we still have songs like this and the moments we shared with friends at the 12 Bar or in some civic hall in Bromley or a crypt in Clerkenwell. I’ll quote Abba here: 'And I've often wondered, how did it all start?/Who found out that nothing can capture a heart/Like a melody can?/Well, whoever it was, I'm a fan.'

So thank you Doll by Doll and thank you Jackie. Gone but not forgotten.





Sunday 25 May 2014

helmut berger as konrad in visconti's 'conversation piece'



released
your bondage at last, is broken
free of weakness
free of shame
unleashed
incorruptible
amoral
you breathe
you rise again

beyond
your body
uncoiled
like smoke
exhaled
untightened
undone
each move
in the darkness
flickers with light
each shudder of flesh
communes with the night
unfrightened
unsung
and unsoiled

understand
there is peace
in understanding
he is gone
believe
in his pale, wrecked face
but you
an old man
must live
and in his bloodless pain, his lifeless hands
discover
what ... grace
and know
in an unshattered morning
there is nothing he can forgive.





Helmut Berger is mentioned in another blog of mine, Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.

To check out my reviews on Amazon, follow this link.

Tuesday 13 May 2014

gordon gano - (im)pure charisma

he pleads
he needs
he’s on his knees
he pants
he purrs
he prays

he lies
implies
he pacifies

he’s free
he sells
he pays

part-serpent in the garden
part-jesus on the cross
he slithers and he suffers
for everything we’ve lost

only listen

so intense
he’s so insistent
this eternal adolescent
in the picture in my head
i never was a follower
but by him i could be led

leans in close to whisper
stammers to a sigh
sinks to quiet menace
and meets the camera’s eye
at once he’s kind of innocent
twice he’s sort of sly

a warning and a siren
leads you down
and leads you on
with a shout, he is triumphant
he can trump you
with a song

mutters and he stutters
mumble rises to a scream
so affected
so affecting
this breathless sexy teen

[whispers and he wonders
accuses and condemns
but merciful and mischievous
he saves you yet again

roars and rises from the ashes
phoenix soaring from the flame
he would be your gordon gano
and you would be born again]




Monday 21 April 2014

i’m on fire – shakey graves



stripped down to this …
creepy lo-fi intensity

a dirty phonecall
to the babysitter
in a horror sequel
not a promise, more a threat

from springsteen’s strong arms
to shakey’s sweaty palms
all wet

something far less straight-
forward
than love or lust
more crooked,
moves back-
ward
off the beaten track
crab-scuttles sideways
a cockroach down a crack

his insistence sinister
background vocals
doppelganger,
whisper
and insinuate

bruce’s pure passion perverted
dragged off the main drag
this sidles down a seedy sidestreet
shadowy, illicit
before you know it
it’s too late


Check out my other Shakey blog Are You Trick or Are You Treat?