Song Of The Day: Good Wyrd
Word Of The Day: Synomosy / An oath-bound brotherhood or conspiracy
Well, my new album is here. I am SO excited about it. I've always been honest. I tell you when they suck (Big Energy Dream) and I tell you when they're KILLER (¿What). This new album is my favorite so far, and I say that after waiting SIX months to release it. That's right. But it was worth it worth it worth it. There is not a single song, and not one moment of this album that I'm not totally behind. I've had the luxury of lengthy review and consideration. It's perfect. It's a perfect album, thanks to producer Alex Gibson, and my band (Nate Jenkins), and executive producer Rupert Hine, and the musicians, designer (Tanja Niggendjiker), and photographer (Sheila Ryan) I am nuts about the whole thing, and I'm going to work my ass off getting on the road to promote and tour on this album in the next year. It will be much, much easier to do knowing how good it is thanks to all those people. I've been wanting to make an album like this for a long time.
On the artwork, I wanted the look to be as clean and beautiful as possible, so we did not put the lyrics in the artwork. I really love it, but I also understand people want to be able to read the lyrics if they so choose, so I decided I would do a sort of "Cliff Notes" on the album right here in my blog. So, over the next couple weeks I'm going to post the lyrics to the song one by one, and give my reflections on each one. Let's do it sequencially. Start with Good Wyrd.
So, the first thing to know about Good Wyrd is that the word "Wyrd" stems from the Old English for "fate, destiny", but I've also heard it used to mean "way", as in the "Tao." It only acquired its association with oddity in Middle English. So, the word has a very cool history. It's also been associated with turning, becoming. In this song, its given special status in signifying that surreal, Deja-Voodoo feeling you get when you are plunged -dunked- into your fate, your karma, your lot. It is that Good / Wyrd moment of profound, disorienting vertigo, where you understand (not intellectually, not merely cognitively) with deeper recognition that "You" are the property of the Mystery, and your life is not actually about the little personal narrative you've constructed. That's a seductive decoy. Actually, you've been participating from a deeper level of consent (soul, etc) with a magnficent turning, becoming (weird), and your head, that cranial repository of frontal structure perched over your shoulders- is the fucking last to know. First verse, we see a precocious (and exchibitionist) bodhisattva doing a non-dual dance on a mound of garbage, celebrating the simultaneous impermanence of all phenomena, and its power to liberate if recognized. Next verse, suppressed homosexual realizes he's fated to hatch a flock of doves out of that secret-stuffer. His greatest fear will be his ultimate release. Last verse, the we get the "recipe" for creating something from nothing (key: dark matter, and we mean "dark" in all senses of the word) and the pain specific to moving into a post-conventional spirituality. Is there a religion "after" the cannibalistic perversion of orthodox, dogmatic instituttions? Stay tuned (reincarnate) and find out...
Teacher took my mother to watch me on the playground
I had a habit of climbing up a trash mound
stripping for a crowd of rowdy adolescents
in a parody of puberty and human evanescence
Wyrd
(Good wyrd)
Wyrd
That's wyrd
What am I feeling?
Wyrd
Good wyrd
I damn near died at the moment of conception
my-my-my daddy couldn't keep his erection
but you'd never guess it to see me today
because I stand up straight like a typical gay
With flock of baby birds that are stuck in my mouth
I wanna gag and gag till they come fluttering out
I'm living with lock jaw and egg-shell cheeks
I keep dreading the day that they discover their beaks
(Refrain)
Gimme your wyrd, gimme your good wyrd
Gimme your fear, gimme your good fear
Gimme your tears, gimme your good tears
How to bake space:
Pay attention to the batter!
Fluff it up good, whip it fatter and fatter
One part dust, detonated and scattered
and ninety-nine plus of a dark matter
But you shutter at the thought of a cook or a kitchen
ever since you were six you could smell the religions
boiling all the love into poisonous glue
recruiting the kids like cannibals do
(Refrain)
