Northern Psychedelia

If you’re listening to this song
You may think the chords are going wrong
But they’re not— We just wrote them like that

If you’re listening late at night
You may think the band are not quite right
But they are— They just play it like that

And it doesn’t really matter what chords I play
What words I say or time of day it is
As it’s only a Northern song . . .

It doesn’t really matter what clothes I wear
What words I pair or if my hair is brown
‘Cause it’s only a Northern song . . .

If you think the harmony
Is a little dull and out of key
You’re correct— there’s nobody there

And it’s only there’s no one there . . .

All Too Much

Mar16

All-time favorite psychedelic song:
a swirling synaptic overload set to music.

I always wondered about the strange syllables before the transcendent feedback at the start of this song. I now know that John L. was saying “to your mother” but before learning that, I always heard it as some sort of primordial mantra of creation—
like saying “Let there be light”, as if he were speaking a very powerful syllabic combination in a state of meditation:

**TU – YO – MOH !** ♫♪♫♪

and then the worlds and the cosmos are brought forth into being.
Those first bursts of melody from the organ undo my soul completely.

That’s what beautiful psychedelia does to me.
This song is so full of celestial synesthesia; it has often reduced me to tears. Part of it is because I had the album as a child and I loved the music in an innocent way for years before I ever knew or cared about altered states of consciousness. The Beatles generally affect me in that way. I was very sad when George passed away…
If you like this song as much as I do you may enjoy the image I found by Mati Klarwein to accompany it (although no mere image will ever do justice to the empyrean vibrations of this universal anthem). Lyrics are HERE

Another Klarwein painting that brings this song to mind:
SUSAN BERNS by M. Klarwein

…and check this blog too !

Voice of Grace

May13

(This live performance from 1966 sounds better on audiophones)

Grace really is slick: articulate and intelligent.
Listen to her wisdom. Pray for her salvation.

INTERVIEWS

00:00 Sally Go ‘Round The Roses 06:35 Didn’t Think So 10:00 Grimly Forming 13:57 Somebody To Love 18:20 Father Bruce 21:57 Outlaw Blues 24:26 Often As I May 28:10 Arbitration 32:12 White Rabbit 38:24 That’s How It Is 43:00 Darkly Smiling 45:35 Nature Boy 48:50 You Can’t Cry 55:30 Daydream Nightmare 1:00:06 Everybody Knows 1:02:42 Born To Be Burned 1:05:57 Father

Say Lovely Nymph, where dost thou dwell?
Where is that Secret Silvan Seat,
That Melancholy, Sweet retreat,
From whence, thou dost these notes repel?
And moving Syllables repeat?
Oh! Lovely Nymph, our Joyes to swell,
Thy hollow, leafy Mansion tell.
Or, if thou only Charm’st the Ear,
And never wilt to sight appear,
But dost alone in voice, excel,
Still with it, fix us here.

Where Cynthia, lends her gentle light,
Whilst the appeas’d, expanded air
A passage for thee, does prepare,
And Strephon’s tunefull voice, invite,
Thine, a soft part with him to bear.
Oh! pleasure, when thou’dst take a flight
Beyond thy common mortal height,
When to thy Sphere above thou’dst press,
And men like angels, thou would’st bless
Thy season be, like this fair night,
And Harmony thy dress.

Anne Finch 1696

Möbiustripshow

Apr28

pre-Genesis,
she adumbrates in artifice
as you orate, then hesitate
before the portal of unnamed being,
reconnoitering.You gather your forces
to exploit her resources
aroma of Soma:
illimitable subliminal bliss
limned in liquescent lucidity. . . Tantric hat-trick:
pull a white dove out of the universal yoni
when her lingam penetrates your third eye
your chakras align and you hit her cosmic jackpot:
all sevens in unknown Proto-Indo-European tongues.
The apsaras invite all the devis over
for Christmas in Jerusalem
Pangea cracks, spreads apart in differentiation;
incontinent continents drift
then recombine
in individuation . . .Your anima gets an enema
as the Beast melts down
and the heavens descend.