In O! Lucky Man, Lindsay Anderson's savage film about post-war Britain, someone observes that you won't make it in the catering business unless you know what to do with the leftovers--and so complete is my agreement with this food-station insight that I'm about to apply it to "Overture," the audio file embedded in this post. But before we can get to it, to its what, we need to detour through the vaguely akimbo why . . .

Copyright 2010, Atlas/Sheridan

Okay, I'll admit that I'm intrigued--the posted reading of "Jimmy," intended for my reference use and not public performance, has been doing doing, er, rather well in terms of visitors. A smarter individual would pretend that this development had been foreseen, but trust me, it wasn't.

There's been surprising amount of positive feedback on "Limitations," the most recent excerpt from the on-going work-in-progress--and, intriguingly, a number of readers have asked about the rhythm of the prose in this sequence: was my intent to be formal or conversational? To which, of course, the answer is yes.

The Twelfth Excerpt From a Work-In-Progress

Without limitations, everything's possible--and that's the problem: everything's possible.

Studio World makes it easy to get lost chasing digital perfectibility. Here, creation is decoupled from time and space and--frequently--any sense of perspective. (Which, you suppose, says something about the world, since God had worked under similar conditions.) Most stillborn projects aren't the result of drugs or writer's block. Rather, it's the seduction of 52 tracks and the lure of endless tweaking: a song that can be perpetually fixed-in-the mix instantly becomes addictive, and then every few hours that little musical problem turns out to be Not Quite Dead. Even in the studio most of us do things that just aren't good for us. 

Bryan, after Jimmy, there at the dawn of music's digital age: trapped for seven self-indulgent years inside 50 desk-direct recordings. Obsessively laying tracks and then endlessly deciding among the infinite "final" mixes. And so, in the end, the big surprise wasn't that the album never came out--it was that something quick-and-dirty did: a collection of covers recorded in three weeks; a release in all senses of the word. 

Jimmy, before Bryan, in someplace inaccessible during the old analog days, with his master tapes actually wearing out; their ferric oxide scrapped off edges-first by endless runs across play heads. Jimmy had been looking for Perfect Mixes, and, in retrospect, he'd been having a breakdown. But the legendary, self-destructing masters was only the most repeated story; the one sane enough in later years to share with dinner guests. The last song completed had been something musique concrete, but approached almost as if it were dub: the vocal was Jimmy, heavily reverbed, speaking a session guitarist through a blistering solo note by fucking note--however, all of the guitar had then been replaced by a digital cello carefully programmed to ignore everything Jimmy had commanded. Thus "No, goddamnit, it's E before G; right there at the 5th fret" tore through the dark chocolate melancholy often and to no avail. Like a tape loop--until it finally sunk in that someone had done this in real time. After which it became disturbing in a way that even edgy performance art isn't, and eliminated any need to wonder whether Jimmy ever recorded
again . . .  

The Eleventh Excerpt From a Work-In-Progress

Red Vector, the biggest summer film of the decade, tells the story of a spy forced out of retirement. Harrison Ford had lobbied hard for the role because it allowed him to play his age. And he most effectively leveraged the no-longer-young angle in the seaside cottage scenes bookending the film. A new agent, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, is sent to convince Ford to again serve his country and, of course, they fall in love at his secluded waterside home. Two hours later, the action returns to the cottage on the cliff: the main baddie (Christopher Walken, naturally), whom Ford thinks he’s killed in the middle of the third act, turns out to be--big, collective gasp from the audience--Not Dead, Heavily Armed and Really Pissed . . .

A music department assistant had run love-, water- and sand-based searches across the back catalogs acquired by the Global Entertainment Group: old songs were filtered through these queries, distilling those with meanings that might fit the new context of the film. But there'd been no search for autumn because the screenplay's slugline simply stated exterior. seaside home. So in the end it was beach that had snagged your song, and then the rest of the very cinematic lyric had gone on to clinch the deal.

By shooting and cutting the film's love montage to a song it already owned, GEG also managed to create most of the video needed for VH1, and then promptly distributed the costs across both the music and film divisions--something the accountants found far more stirring than any ballad ever written. Afterwards, they stood you in front of a green screen and had you lip-sync the chorus for a couple hours, so that later, intercut with footage from the film, there's just under 45 seconds of you in the six-minute video of your song . . .

Red Vector ends on a downbeat note--which probably accounts for all that bewildering acclaim for a blatant Big Summer Movie. And crucially, this undermining of expectations was your second lucky break. The original climax would have had Christopher Walken shotgunned off the cliff, and then, as Ford pulls Gyllenhaal to his chest, smash-cut to black and credit roll--which would have reprised Sharpnel's "Armageddon Outta Here" from the second car chase in the film.

But the project's director, both sensitive and French, had tired of making Euro-inflected action films, and so over a long weekend at the Chateau, he'd rewritten the predictable ending: Gyllenhaal is now revealed to have been a double agent, and is shot by Walken just before he’s blasted off the cliff. Ford rushes to her side for some forgiving, final words, and then audiences everywhere go weepy. As he cradles no-longer-with-us Gyllenhaal, a slow reverse-zoom aerial shot reduces him to a dot in an existential universe. (Being French, the director had insisted on calling this--yes--his Vertigo Moment.) After which there's fade to black and credit roll--with what else but “Autumn Beach?” The full vocal version because now the song is about Harrison Ford alone with his memories. And of course, it's also a certainty that the audience's mood is now autumnal.

Saddened filmgoers filed out of theaters to a Dolby remix of “Autumn Beach” that you had had nothing to do with. And this was the version of the song that became a hit. However, if the studio hadn't lost its battle for the uncontroversial Focus Group Ending, the deluxe, hit-bound iteration of the song would have appeared a full three minutes into the credits, accompanying the names of craftspeople in esoteric technical groups and therefore only heard by geeks in nearly empty auditoriums.

But Harrison Ford had intervened--he'd seen Maggie's New Death Scene as the chance to do his first real acting in more than two hours: he could emote over the lover dying in his arms or snarl an Asta la vista variant--as choices go, it wasn't hard. And so, with no second thought, Ford made a call and got the Vertigo Moment made by cashing-in one of his career chips . . .

Without limitations, everything's possible--and that's the problem: everything's possible. However, that won't be an issue here because there are parameters built into the sessions. All that's needed is to clean-up the tracks; to be worthy of the 24-Bit Sampling line on the back of the lyric booklet. Get in, meticulously scrub and then get the hell out. Things that just aren’t good for us.

It means some badly needed cash, to say nothing of the rush that comes from being right all those years ago when you had stood firm regarding your own Vertigo Moment; when everyone else--critics, listeners and even Jack--couldn't have been more wrong.

This is why you're at Limbus Sound, in this swivel chair, on this oriental rug, in this cone of glacial light, with your cane on the floor beside you. Except it isn't the real reason.

Your presence here has nothing to do with networking or savvy management or personal persistence or the obvious quality of the song or even the hard work (which, after all, had occurred 10 years ago). Your resurrection-fantasy-come-true is the result of the acquisition strategies of a global conglomerate, the database skills of a corporate research assistant, the accidental alignment of song subject with a story created by a politicized committee of screenwriters, the fortuitous choice of a literal title, the overweening ambitions of an dead-ended action director and the second agenda of an international film star. 

Within significant limitations, only certain things are possible.

These are the fading details of your second chance--and why a version of "Autumn Beach" mixed by someone else will bump the original to the end of your re-release or, more likely, simply replace it.

The Tenth Excerpt From a Work-In-Progress

"I'd like to be very honest with you, yes? So let’s have a candid discussion." And here you jump because the Engineer is now just behind your eyeballs, as if psycho-acoustically leaning forward to better share a secret. "There's something strange about Formal Absences, and I wonder, perhaps, if you can't hear it because you're still so close to the work?" And then a long pause while he finds neutral language and rehearses its delivery. “The songs, well, they often seem at odds with the collection's production--sometimes only slightly, but also in larger ways, yes?"

And you jump once more, but this time because the observation shakes you. As a producer back there in London, maybe the Engineer had been the real deal. Or perhaps he's just approaching the tracks with fresh ears and 10 years' distance. Nevertheless, the collection's feel has always niggled at you: base level, it was what you intended, but not quite what you meant. Which, in retrospect, might have been the reason The Formal Absences of Precious Things had crash-landed in the stores and burned up in reviews. Heartbreaking and, yes, unlistenable.

"At odds? In what way? Specifically, I mean." Not said defensively because for the moment the complex politics of the re-release have been put aside; it’s a kind of time-out--or something like one--where The Engineer is no longer channeling the dry caution of the company.

"Well, it's like a double exposure in photography, yes? Two things at once--one on top of the other? Most of the time, the songs are saying this, while the production is implying that. And it can be quite disconcerting--I mean, well here you go, have a listen . . ."

You’d always anticipated there’d be time to prepare for that flip into the earlier version of yourself. But in the end, it turns out to be like the dentist, where the lip is jiggled as a distraction before the needle goes in: first the diversion of the Engineer's concerns, and then the sudden jab of playback that is, despite the metallic taste in your mouth, the opposite of Novocain. You haven't listened to Formal Absences in the last ten years, not even to prepare for remastering. There's been no need because somewhere deep inside the songs have never stopped playing. Indefensible stuff, really--well, just look at them, Darling.

Punched into the corner monitors of the speaker array, the carefully constructed stereo image of "Post-Modern Pop Song" materializes. The phantom bassist, 45 degrees left of center, pumps out the minor-key reggae riff. And then, from an illusory stage right, the entrance of someone you no longer are and yet somehow remain:

When you went, you took the light;

now there's only darkness inside of me

Though I crumble out of sight,

you would never know it to look at me . . . .

Beatrice: that dead-of-winter when she’s gone, equidistant from fall and spring; a place where the old colors have been forgotten rather than faded and the new ones are nowhere in sight; those words that permanently stain your heart with the gray-scale of that afternoon; the dirty snow, the dun-colored clouds and the early nights of too-short days that are also somehow endless. Only darkness is left inside . . . .

Grasping the sides of the swivel chair, thumbs digging into the seat cushion . . . .

Beatrice: months, maybe years, gone away from living; hiding yourself in the everyday, turned inward and inside-out, self-medicating and self-loathing; yearning to no avail, serving the self-imposed sentence by writing sentences; journals that might someday make sense of this--messages to a future self from a place that has no future; forever drowning and then writing yourself back to the surface. Crumbling out of sight . . . .

Face expressionless, eyes unseeing: night terrors, but you're awake . . . .

Beatrice: an autumnal afternoon, a half-remembered eternity later, with steadier hands and transfixed by the day after a residency in darkness; your life once more thrown into relief next to a golden sun beam illuminating dust motes as you’re finally able to write what you’ve been unable to say to anyone. When you went, you took the light . . . .

Swept away in a current of time that's not the one flowing around the Engineer . . . .

Beatrice: now suddenly unseen spring; behind studio walls conjuring up the undead and giving voice to the unspeakable; the pantomime propriety of taping confessions after long-passed judgments, all in the name of art-as-commerce; unarticulated loss now strictly metered and click-tracked, so that which changed everything forever could be expressed as a momentary, disposable pop song; the attempt to balance on the taut lines of craft above the abyss of your own creation. You would never know it to look at me . . . .

The instantly reconstituted past closing over your head; the sinking into it, the surface shimmer of the studio growing dimmer and more distant as you descend through a deepening twilight.

This is how she reenters your life.

The Ninth Excerpt From a Work-In-Progress

The Eighth Excerpt From a Work-In-Progress

Downstairs at the bar in Black Gang Chine, anticipating this meeting with Jack, you light a Gauloise and contemplate how best to explain yourself. Thus far Cult Artist, cliched or not, sounds pretty good--if said fast and with authority, not allowing questions to form, it captures and conveys the essence of what you’re still calling your career.

 And yet when you are recognized, it's most frequently through the writing you've done for others, and less--with that one massive exception, of course--for any of the music that you kept for yourself. So there’s a problem of accuracy in this self-labeling: your own songs are appreciated by a small base of fans, but too few for even a cottage patronage of your work. You've come to call this Fractal Economics because the alpha’s always the omega--because no matter how small an endeavor is, it's still all about the fucking numbers.

Black Gang Chine is beneath The Gosford, which in turn is below Frontera, and you've arrived a full 30 minutes in advance to compellingly re-edit yourself. The actual bar is slyly Kubrick: an antiseptic light from within the thing diffuses through the translucent counter--it’s like drinking on top of a medical light box that awaits the x-rays of your broken career. And although you've no desire to examine that damage, it's impossible to ignore the florescent glow because the only other light in this subterranean room comes from a few scattered, alcoved candles . . . .

You look out over the glinting sea of lofted, disposable lighters, and then take care of business with the crowd-pleasing anthem about a spectral woman . . . .

No, goddamnit, begin again. The most important thing is you’ve written the best pop songs never heard by a mainstream audience. Best in this case meaning nuanced, uncompromised pieces that only meet the listener half way. You don’t write hits; you pen songs that sometimes are modestly successful for other artists. But, as “Not Really Green Eyes” clearly proves, if called upon, you can construct a monster. These days, however, you have little interest in chart wars and the business end of music: these days there are lines you just won’t cross, no matter how much money stands to be made. Said fast and with resolute authority, not allowing questions to form.

But once again, there’s that matter of accuracy. Because it’s much more than the refusal to cross certain lines: it's also the fear around three in the morning that you only think you know how to write hit songs. That sitting down and consciously trying to conjure-up one might prove--to yourself and the world--that the one time had been a fluke. And the essence of your career . . . .

In the men’s room, puking in a urinal; haunted by the last thing she had said . . . .

Third try, then. Big, deep breath. You’re the guy who wrote “Not Really Green Eyes.” Yes, that one--the one on the radio; the one inescapable all that summer; the one that was stately and progressive and about the woman you were living with at the time. So obviously you’ve got The Touch, and, well, any label needs artists with that. Which makes the deal you’re discussing now that much more attractive--and also cost-effective because these days there’s just you. Back when the song had topped the charts, there'd been a band--though in truth, Dark Victory’s revolving membership had made it more of a concept than a group. But nevertheless, you’re solo now; like someone militantly single after a bad divorce. And to keep yourself from wincing here, you light another Gauloise.

The exposed-brick walls of Black Gang Chine are those of a 19th century cellar. In contrast, however, the furnishings of the club extend the tone of the luminous bar: you’re seated in the middle of an antique fever-dream of a tomorrow that never happened: where the Ripper’s Whitechapel is collided into Lang’s Metropolis--and this intrusion of each into the other, with no effort made to meld them, produces a temporal yin and yang; an entanglement, but with demarcations.

One more time, but with all the cards on the table--and therefore not for the meeting: you've no explanation why “Not Really Green Eyes” climbs to number one. As in not a single clue. As in no-fucking-idea-whatsoever . . . .

She’s just gotten sick, and your concern, while great, is shaped by television narratives: She’s the beloved guest star, so despite test results, it’s bound to be fine in the end. Because that’s always the way these things work out in all the medical dramas--some dodgy touch-and-go in the second act, followed by a cure. Said fast and with nervous authority, without pausing for questions to form.

But make no mistake, in spite of appearances, this is survival, not denial: unavoidably sometimes the informed and the clueless arrive at the same destination. Because yes, you fully comprehend the horrors yet to come, you’re already deep into sleepless nights, but during the day you do your best to cling to hope--it keeps you from drowning in all the bad news.

It’s been a season filled with grim diagnoses: Dark Victory is on life-support and your songwriting's been  seriously ill--and there the simple prescription is, of course, the bashing-out of better tunes. It’s time to work-up a new collection both you and the public can live with, but the constant worry over Jan and the group and what’s left of your professional future is a less-than-ideal place from which to storm the fortress of popular taste.

But then to your astonishment, you simply manage to succeed--you back into the formidable barriers and, shockingly, they tumble down. It’s like knocking over the most expensive vase on entering a high-end boutique, and then finding that the accident has made you the new owner of the shop. The initial impulse to flee, however, stubbornly remains. And so when people offer congratulations, you learn to give them a knowing smile--as if The Plan is working like a charm; as if everything is Right On Schedule. Signaled slyly and with authority, not allowing questions to form.

Except that there is no plan, and certainly no schedule: Elton John topples from number one, and you’ve no clue how you did it. As in What-the-hell-did-I-just-do? As in no-fucking-idea-whatsoever.

“Not Really Green Eyes” is a story about the various stations of love; a miniature epic moving from doubt to heartfelt certainty. Maybe the self-exposure of the lyric grounds the studio majesty of the cut, the significance of what’s being said equal to the wide-stage, stereo grandeur. Maybe the music buyers like confessional transformations that play-out in six pop-song minutes. Maybe radio programmers think they’ve found “Born To Run,“ finally unburdened by cars. Maybe deep inside you’re certain of what the disease will do to her. Perhaps the song is actually your oblique and ungentle goodnight. Afterwards, when all you have left is time, you’ll endlessly ponder these
things . . . .

One more run at it--there’s just enough time--once again for yourself, and not Jack . . . .

As her health unravels and the band falls apart, the blurring shock begins to fade, and you find yourself finally able to focus on caregiving and careful writing. Both demand putting the needs of others before your own, and you develop a meticulous servility about medications and theoretical hits.

“Not Really Green Eyes” is intended to be just another cautious, machine-tooled lyric, but something unexpected occurs: spontaneity and inspiration connect. The moment is entirely without drama; there’s no enlightened sense of occasion--you’re merely giving yourself a brief holiday by working in the old way again. She’s across the room, napping on the couch; something she’s never done in the past. It’s late October, and the thinning light is as golden and brittle as the leaves. You watch her sleep in the silent apartment, and, to better keep the time, meter each line to the beat of a heart that you’ve always hidden away.

You’ll realize later it’s the last quiet moment before you find a career and lose something precious. Before Death, like a pack rat, leaves something shiny in tragic exchange for her.

The arcing chart-climb of “Not Really Green Eyes” blazes across her final days, descending, then, into the utter desolation that’s left in their wake. The mayfly existence of a hit pop song bookends last-stage illness and burial, which is planned by relatives after private discussions that pointedly don’t include you . . . .

Downstairs at the bar in Black Gang Chine, anticipating this meeting with Jack, you light a Gauloise and contemplate how best to explain yourself.