From:
Marah : Let's Cut the Crap and Hook up Later on Tonight
I figured the first post ought to clarify/refer to the title of the blog.
So here are the lyrics to one of the 5 greatest songs ever written. This is not hyperbole, nor is it a biased appraisal, influenced by some sort of emotional connection or moment in life. I objectively and dispassionately declare that "Formula, Cola, Dollar Draft" is a triumph of a rock song, a spectacular bittersweet marriage of Dickensian tribulation and folk-punk abandon. No less a musical arbiter than Nick Hornby has said as much, and I wholly agree with that beautiful, bald limey. The song never really even ends, it just ascends up to the aether with all the other Platonic solids. It's every night you've ever walked alone with nothing to protect you but your cigarette. It's the beauty from high school who was never your girlfriend but you saw her each day in the same place at the same time and you were still never prepared for just how gorgeous she was. It's your life, it's his life, it's Shakespeare, it's Dylan, it's Marah.
There was a time when I didn't talk
I'd look away, or I'd shrug it off.
Tune it out or turn it off,
Or say something short and soft.
Out of school I took a J-O-B
Makin' buttons in a factory,
Thinking what does life got in for me?
And I didn't wanna know.
In a city full of double deals,
My boss would yawn and roll back on his heels
Like anyone could cop a feel of lady luck.
I was made with my brother Bill
Drinking Muskie Moons on top of Laurel Hill.
It's funny now I'd cheek a poison pill to sober up.
And no two-bit claim of I'm all right
Is gonna turn around and make it right,
So I'm fishing in my pocket for a light
And I'm standin' on the corner on a Saturday night.
I seen pigeons flap their filthy wings
To a freezing sunset in the west,
Rain shit down from their haunted perch
In the bells above St. Someone's church.
The Sexton drinks and dreams in bed,
One eye in a line of light.
When startled by a ghost he screams
His dead wife's name into the night;
Which echoes down a cobbled hall
Bounces off a gray stone floor
Fired down a line of stairs
Where it's silenced by a door
Beyond which I am leaning, leaning
Watching cars and dreaming
As steam rose 'round my body
Like my soul up to the stars.
I guess the devil's had his way with Townes
Now that Willie is in the ground,
And I guess, I guess the devil made me this
When he gave me no one I can't resist.
I got the bill today
Wrote back I moved away
They called me up to say
They know that I'm still here.
So on the 5th day of the 5th month
At 5 o'clock in the dawn
I rolled myself in a T-O-P
And jumped out on Highway One
With a 400 engine hot as a cremation coffin
And a tailgate bangin' like an airplane wing
I was rollin' on the highway
Doing it my way
Whistling "Someday" and singing this song.....
Go listen to the song. Download it. Buy the album. This ain't no damn ad, don't worry. This is just something that in twenty years you can give to your kid and say, "A few of us knew what good music was, even when nobody else had a clue."
Marah : Let's Cut the Crap and Hook up Later on Tonight
8 comments:
All right, Reiberg, I'm buying the album sight unseen, sound unheard. You better be right.
Plus, Gabe said good things about it too.
Plus, I have an iTunes gift certificate that I've been wanting to blow on just such a whim.
This ain't no whim, champ. You'll buy this, listen to it a couple times and if you ain't stuck like white on rice, you'll never listen again. If it does burrow its way into you, it will infect you. Like some Klingon mind control worm. You'll buy every album, you'll go see them any time they're in your hood. And if the sickness really gets you, you'l start posting on the band's message board. It's kind of in a trough as far as activity right now, but I predict a huge Spring surge (pun intended). If you go down that road, there ain't no coming back. So you be careful with your whims ol' chum.
On that note, I hope you enjoy it heartily.
Absolutely one of the very best rock songs ever recorded. It boggles my mind that nobody else has heard of it, and no radio station ever plays it. A real crime. And though Marah is not afraid to record unadulterated garbage, you should also check out their "Kids in Philly" disc. It rocks.
I'm going to agree with you but simultaneously disagree with you. Kids In Philly does rock, but that is a fantastic understatement. Kids in Philly is easily in the top ten albums of the last decade, which puts it far beyond simple "rocking". I'm also going to disagree with the "unadulterated garbage" (You are referencing "Float Away with the Friday Night Gods" I presume) because I think it was heavily adulterated. They were trying to make a glossy Brit-Pop record, which they achieved, so this was no accident. And while I know they will still defend what Owen Morris was trying to do, I think it can be said that his influence and ear thoroughly adulterated what could've been a pretty damn good record. But that's old news. The most recent records, 20,000 Streets... and If You Didn't Laugh... are each great records and rightly eclipse the 2001-2003 slump. As Serge said, "Sometimes we're just painting, man."
Let's assume for the sake of argument that this really is one of the greatest five songs ever written. Let's assume that Good Vibrations, My Sweet Lord, Dreams, Stardust, and Fightin’ Off by Whacktus all did not beat out Marah for that distinction. Let’s assume that all but four of Mozart’s works are worse.
It’s a good number, E. By the way, you should look into selling the band. You and they could probably benefit. You got my 99¢ on iTunes.
E-Mo,
I always forget to include a Whacktus tune, but to my mind, "My Baby's Got a Wooden Leg," stands out as the most immediate and off-beat (literally, the 2nd downbeat comes in about a 1/16th late) of Whacktus's material.
"Good V." for sure, but it loses points for not being the muthatruckin' capstone to Pet Sounds. Could you imagine that album with it on it? SO it might lose top five distinction.
"My Sweet Lord" gets nixed because Georgie didn't write it. Ronnie Mack did, or so says a court of law. And while I think "All Things Must Pass" is the best Beatles-alum solo album, I have to agree that the song was a bit of subconscious / accidental pilferage.
"Stardust" as an instrumental piece is spectacular. I think it might actually be a little weaker with lyrics, something I will rarely say about any song. And Hoagy never gets his propers.
Mozart was one helluva mind, that's for sure. He had a sense of dynamic and rising and falling action that very few have ever matched. Dave and Serge can boast an almost equal sense of dramatic flow, except that when they lose their bearings they get completely lost. But if I want to luxuriate in sheer bombastic melodrama Wagner is the dude. (Personally Ludwig V.B. is my favorite.)
And "Dreams", are you referring to The Cranberries? If so I will simply acknowledge that it's a good song...for Dawson's Creek. If it's another "Dreams" let me know so's I can hear it.
At any rate, "Formula, Coke, Dollar Draft" will remain in my top five. I'll round that list out on another post.
Okay, Fleetwood Mac makes more sense. Buckingham was always strikeout or home run, but that's only from my limited listening.
And yes, it should be "Cola" I made the lower-midwestern mistake of associating all carbonated soft drinks with "Coke". I can't believe I screwed up my own blog.
I'm going to add some non-Marah content tonight so the blog won't seem so Myopic.
And it won't just be your own blog, pretty soon you're going to start wearing oversized stocking caps everywhere, eating Marlboros for lunch, and adding Philadelphian diphtong vowel "sayounds" to your speech patterns. And that'll be before you see a show.
Somewhere in my old Nike shoe boxes rests a cassette tape of an early iteration Marah when one of the lads was working in a Philly law firm mail room. Some 27-28 years later, long retired I come back to this PARTICULAR song three to four times a year. No reason of which I can offer explanation.
My most recent listen a thought occurred to me, “it’s an opus.” I’ve often wished to mine deep into its lyrics and hit gold with some form of meaning. At present, it’s not necessary. Mary dances on her porch. Bruce’s epochal drift from sleep to awakening, birth to death, pain, pleasure, desire to love. A shitting Pigeon, Sexton Screaming, 5-5-5, .400 cubic engine, Rolling the F away from yesterday to tomorrow, all the meaning I need. This is one of Rock and Roll’s most plaintive and desperate cries into the night and soul stirring vocal delivery of a once in a generation lyric. Yes. Pet Sounds. My Love. Mozart. Fill in the blank “genius”. This song, from this band, delivered in the studio on this master recording is equal to such praise.
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