[Proposal] Cosmos Café - Music Edition

I’d always heard of Patti Smith but never listened to her music. Somehow it just never crossed my path, even though in high school my friends and I would listen to other New York rock/punk artists in a similar gritty, poetic vein (e.g., Lou Reed).

But I got onto her through researching the photography of Robert Maplethorpe (for @johnnydavis54’s newly published story) — she’s was Maplethorpe’s partner for a long time — and wow, I think I’m in love. I haven’t felt this excited to ‘discover’ a new musician in a long time…

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Know what you mean. I missed her early on, caught her late.
But found out too she’s a very gifted writer. Her biography of the love between herself and Robert and a little memoir about her early childhood are my favorites.
Blakean angels! That’s a bit of what we need. And music from the heart.
The Living Beauty of the World, as the doctor says!

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She lived for a long time in my neighborhood, once long ago, when it was a lively place to live. I saw her recite poetry at St Marks Church, many decades ago. She comes out of a deep tradition of protest and witnessing , going all the way back to the great Emersonians.

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Citizen of the Planet Lyrics

[Verse 1]
I start up in the north
I grow from a special seed
I sprinkle it with sensibility
From French and Hungarian snow
I linger in the sprouting
Until my engine’s full

[Verse 2]
Then I move across the sea
To European bliss
To language of poets
As I cut the cord of home
I kiss my mother’s mother
Look to the horizon

[Pre-Chorus]
Wide eyed, new ground
Humbled by my new surroundings

[Chorus 1]
I am a citizen of the planet
My president is Guanyin
My frontier is on an airplane
My prisons, homes for rehabilitating

[Verse 3]
Then I fly back to my nest
I fly back with my nuclear
But everything is different
So I wait
My yearn for home is broadened
Patriotism expanded
By callings from beyond

[Pre-Chorus]
So I pack my things, nothing precious
All things sacred

[Chorus 2]
I am a citizen of the planet
My laws are all of attraction
My punishments are consequences
Separating from source the original sin
I am a citizen of the planet
Democracy’s kids are sovereign
Where the teachers are the sages
And pedestals filled with every parent

[Verse 3]
And so the next few years are blurry
The next decade’s a flurry
Of smells and tastes unknown
Threads sewn straight through this fabric
Through fields of every color
One culture to another

[Pre-Chorus]
And I come alive and I get giddy
And I am taken and globally naturalized

[Chorus 3]
I am a citizen of the planet
From simple roots through high vision
I am guarded by the angels
And my body guides the direction I go in
I am a citizen of the planet
My favorite pastime edge stretching
Begotten with human condition
These ideals are born from my deepest within

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Threads sewn straight through this fabric
Through fields of every color
One culture to another…

Peace. Gratitude.

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Born to Sing

Van Morrison

Man can be king
Seems to have everything
But it comes with a sting
When you were born to sing

Reason doesn’t walk in
It’s not done on a whim
Passion’s everything
When you were born to sing

Feeling good
Singing the blues
It ain’t easy
Keep on paying dues

When it gets to the part
Well let’s not stop and start
Deep down in your heart
You know you were born to sing

When you came in
No original sin
You were a king
Because you were born to sing

Reason doesn’t walk in
It’s not done on a whim
Passion’s everything
When you were born to sing

Lord, feeling good
Singing the blues
Keep on keeping on
Paying them dues

When it comes to the part
Well let’s not stop…

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“This Glass World”

In this glass world, we stop feeling pain
Going nowhere, we’ve got everything
In this glass world, people who live below
Wish they were here, just looking in

In this glass world
In this glass world
In this glass world

In this glass world, we bathe by starlight
No troubles here, that’s on the outside
In this glass world, sittin’ without a cake
No need to move, it’s way too nice up here

In this glass world
In this glass world
In this glass world

Yusuf

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The rap gods are like, you’re welcome.

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Capitalism, according to many thinkers, is over. The bubble has popped, the Ponzi scheme collapsed, the Federal Reserve has lost its nerve. So what happens next?

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Many, and ever more, it would seem, yet the scramble is great to silence the pop and shore up the scheme, and even the Fed outed itself about its money magic when we went over the pandemic cliff. So what happens next? Good question.

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Us, and them

And after all were only ordinary men.

Me, and you.

God only knows it’s not what we would choose to do.

Forward he cried from the rear

And the front rank died.

And the general sat and the lines on the map

Moved from side to side.

Black and blue

And who knows which is which and who is who.

Up and down.

But in the end it’s only round and round.

Haven’t you heard it’s a battle of words

The poster bearer cried.

Listen son, said the man with the gun

There’s room for you inside.

I mean, they’re not gunna kill ya, so if you give em a quick short,

Sharp, shock, they wont do it again. dig it? I mean he get off

Lightly, cos I wouldve given him a thrashing - I only hit him once!

It was only a difference of opinion, but really…i mean good manners

Don’t cost nothing do they, eh?

Down and out

It can’t be helped but there’s a lot of it about.

With, without.

And wholl deny it’s what the fightings all about?

Out of the way, it’s a busy day

Ive got things on my mind.

For the want of the price of tea and a slice

The old man died.

It Seems the Old Farts here at Cosmos are Channeling some Ghosts from the Past
manifesting in the Present,we did find Music the salve for our particular Zeitgeist?

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Geist is the German word for “ghost” (and more. In other contexts, it is “spirit” (cf. John 3:8), or even that English catch-all, “mind”).

Some “ghosts”, it would appear, are more time-bound than others, or than we thought, or are they?

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There are the ghosts of old farts lurking in the background but I am very careful to avoid the old fart category as much as possible I have seen that label used to abuse the elderly. I take cold showers, work out, eat well, draw, dance, sing and watch the metaphors people use. I feel youthful which is not the same as feeling young. I don’t want to feel young again. Music is a wonderful way of touching a non-linear complexity. The songs that we choose have a time and place and a cluster of memories. Good music also has something timeless working through us and beyond us, music is spooky action at a distance. It is sad that we do not live in a country for old men. In Africa, it has been said, that when an old man dies it is like a library being burned down. I want to become a burning library!

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It seems John we have some resonance & dissonance arising it seems. I take your point that a metaphor can be used in a abusive fashion, I for one can sense when it’s being used as a form of endearment ,as my son & nephews do & when it comes across in the fashion U seem to point out . The Use of Language is a Powerful Ability for the User of & the Hearer Of:

Therefore I request that U give me the benefit of the Doubt,we’re both Sensitive in this area for our own reasons. I come from a willingness to own the ability to respond in interacting with the Power of Language for Good or Bad.I Hear your come from & yet I don’t come from there,words like any objects of our creation can land in hurtful ways and also it depends on the thrower & the catcher,like U have expressed there are Language Games, I was engaged in one. All this to say I find “Old Fart” as I used it a Artistic Expression in a specific context .

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You have more than than the benefit of my doubt, Michael, I totally support your use of the word, for the resonance it has for you and others. You can be an old fart ( when you want to be) and it can be a form of self-mockery that is totally acceptable. So, old farts of the wold, let it rip!?

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“I Contain Multitudes”

Today, and tomorrow, and yesterday, too
The flowers are dyin’ like all things do
Follow me close, I’m going to Bally-na-Lee
I’ll lose my mind if you don’t come with me
I fuss with my hair, and I fight blood feuds
I contain multitudes

Got a tell-tale heart like Mr. Poe
Got skeletons in the walls of people you know
I’ll drink to the truth and the things we said
I’ll drink to the man that shares your bed
I paint landscapes, and I paint nudes
I contain multitudes

A red Cadillac and a black mustache
Rings on my fingers that sparkle and flash
Tell me, what’s next? What shall we do?
Half my soul, baby, belongs to you
I rollick and I frolic with all the young dudes
I contain multitudes

I’m just like Anne Frank, like Indiana Jones
And them British bad boys, The Rolling Stones
I go right to the edge, I go right to the end
I go right where all things lost are made good again
I sing the songs of experience like William Blake
I have no apologies to make
Everything’s flowing all at the same time
I live on a boulevard of crime
I drive fast cars, and I eat fast foods
I contain multitudes

Pink pedal-pushers, red blue jeans
All the pretty maids, and all the old queens
All the old queens from all my past lives
I carry four pistols and two large knives
I’m a man of contradictions, I’m a man of many moods
I contain multitudes

You greedy old wolf, I’ll show you my heart
But not all of it, only the hateful part
I’ll sell you down the river, I’ll put a price on your head
What more can I tell you? I sleep with life and death in the same bed
Get lost, madame, get up off my knee
Keep your mouth away from me
I’ll keep the path open, the path in my mind
I’ll see to it that there’s no love left behind
I’ll play Beethoven’s sonatas, and Chopin’s preludes
I contain multitudes

When I recall just how it felt
When I went walking down by the take
My soul was free, my heart awake
When I walked down into the town

The mountain air was fresh and clear
The sun was up behind the hill
It felt so good to be alive
On that morning in spring

I want to sing this song for you
I want to lift your spirits high
And in my soul I want to feel
The beauty of the days gone by

The beauty of the days gone by
It brings a longing to my soul
To contemplate my own true self
And keep me young as I grow old

The beauty of the days gone by
The music that we used to play
So lift your glass and raise it high
To the beauty of the days gone by

I’ll sing it from the mountain top
Down to the valley down below
Because my cup doth overflow
With the beauty of the days gone by

The mountain glen
Where we used to roam
The gardens there
By the railroad track
Oh my memory it does not lie
Of the beauty of the days gone by

The beauty of the days gone by
It brings a longing to my soul
To contemplate my own true self
And keep me young as I grow old

And keep me young as I grow old
And keep me young as I grow old
And keep me young as I grow old

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He loves gold-

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Blues Run the Game

Jackson C. Frank

Catch a boat to England baby
Maybe to Spain
Wherever I have gone, wherever I’ve been and gone
Wherever I have gone, the blues are all the same

Send out for whisky baby, send out for gin
Me and room service, honey
Me and room service, baby
Me are room service, well we’re livin’ a life of sin

When I’m not drinking honey, you are on my mind
When I’m not sleeping, babe
When I ain’t sleepin’ mama
When I’m not sleepin’,
Well you know you find me cryin’

Livin’ is a gamble, baby
Lovings much the same
Wherever I have played
Whenever I throw them dice
Wherever I have played,
The blue have the run the game

Maybe tomorrow…

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