The Keys To My Heart
“The story of evolution unfolds with increasing levels of abstraction.”― Ray Kurzweil
What says HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY than Doug Sahm’s Give Back The Keys To My Heart ? OK….NOT MUCH. Yes, it is a break-up song…a teary eyed yarn of a partnership gone bad because of addiction. The singer drowns in the sentiment of losing the touchstones created during a nurturing relationship, obviously still very much in love. But is he really saying goodbye? Just read the lyrics to the chorus:
Give back the key to my heart
And let my love flow like a river
Straight into your heart, dear
The protagonist seems to be wanting to cut the ties that bind the beloved in order to rise with the tide of loving friendship.
I have been on a major Doug Sahm kick lately. My friend Bill Bentley forwarded me an old interview he did with Doug in 1975 that he just republished on the Neil Young Archive’s page. The article takes place four years after the groover returned to Texas, after fleeing a number of years before for the beauty of Northern California (you can hear him tell the tale in his song Texas Me). Doug would always pontificate about the Texas/California connection, practically whispering his philosophy through a bull-horn he would make with his fingers and thumb. Him returning to Texas—Sir Douglas who took the world by storm with his first hit, She’s About A Mover—was big news and the interview is a wonderful deep dive as to where Doug’s mind was at during the time.
Doug Sahm to me is the Ray Davies of American music: an iconic, likable singer who befriended his fans as he dabbled in all sorts of musical genres, always writing great songs and always figuring out the next project in which to funnel his artistic drive (given Ray’s love of Americana, it is a safe bet to think he would view the comparison as a major compliment).
After reading the interview, I went back and re-listened to some of Sahm’s records he produced during the era…such as The Return Of Doug Saldaña, which was released after his return to California, 1+1+1=4 which was recorded in and around San Francisco, with a gatefold street band shot (that I wish I could figure out its SF location), and Rough Edges, a compilation record released by Mercury when Doug jumped to Warner Bros. Records, that included recordings done around the same time as the first two aforementioned records. These three records salute an amazing artistic time for the Texas Tornado, with a sound that incorporates a 50s Imperial Records signature (ala David Bartholomew) with the then current psych vibe, some Texas-border horns infused with soul and the country influence that hangs in the background. Doug was a master blender, who created record after record, records for the most part that have been lost in time, that are just awaiting a re-discovery. “Come,” they say. “Come find out why Jerry Wexler thought of Doug as the most talented artist he ever worked with.”
When is Doug Sahm going to get into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame?
Happy Valentines Day to you all (especially to you, My Barbara)
Besides Doug Sahm I have been listening to a lot of Blind Willie McTell and his song Dying Crapshooters’ Blues from his last session consumed me a few evenings ago….and I went deep. He says that he wrote the song at a certain time for a certain reason (listen here) but it turns out parts of it have a deeper history….
Lucinda Williams on Her Life, Her Lyrics, and Everything In Between
Deepest interview done with Lucinda (that I have seen) since her stroke.
“Dunnock: the Cinderella of the bird world. Sweeping up underneath the other birds, and always missing out on the celebrity invitations (try finding a dunnock on a Christmas card). However, like the robins and wrens, dunnocks are all around us, and they bring some welcome music to the winter months. The sweet, high-pitched stream of notes sounds somewhat thin, almost fragile.” (Go to the newsletter to hear the song of the Dunnock!)
Sarah Goodridge’s Beauty Revealed to Daniel Webster
This is SUCH an interesting story from the Public Domain Review website. Before sex-ting, hook-up websites, and the like…a painting was the closest thing to showing oneself off at a distance. Painted by Sarah Goodridge for the eyes of politician Daniel Webster.
Saying Your Names
By: Richard Siken
Chemical names, bird names, names of fire
and flight and snow, baby names, paint names,
delicate names like bones in the body,
Rumplestiltskin names that are always changing,
names that no one’s ever able to figure out.
Names of spells and names of hexes, names
cursed quietly under the breath, or called out
loudly to fill the yard, calling you inside again,
calling you home. Nicknames and pet names
and baroque French monikers, written in
shorthand, written in longhand, scrawled
illegibly in brown ink on the backs of yellowing
photographs, or embossed on envelopes lined
with gold. Names called out across the water,
names I called you behind your back,
sour and delicious, secret and unrepeatable,
the names of flowers that open only once,
shouted from balconies, shouted from rooftops,
or muffled by pillows, or whispered in sleep,
or caught in the throat like a lump of meat.
I try, I do. I try and try. A happy ending?
Sure enough — Hello darling, welcome home.
I’ll call you darling, hold you tight. We are
not traitors but the lights go out. It’s dark.
Sweetheart, is that you? There are no tears,
no pictures of him squarely. A seaside framed
in glass, and boats, those little boats with
sails aflutter, shining lights upon the water,
lights that splinter when they hit the pier.
His voice on tape, his name on the envelope,
the soft sound of a body falling off a bridge
behind you, the body hardly even makes
a sound. The waters of the dead, a clear road,
every lover in the form of stars, the road
blocked. All night I stretched my arms across
him, rivers of blood, the dark woods, singing
with all my skin and bone Please keep him safe.
Let him lay his head on my chest and we will be
like sailors, swimming in the sound of it, dashed
to pieces. Makes a cathedral, him pressing against
me, his lips at my neck, and yes, I do believe
his mouth is heaven, his kisses falling over me
like stars. Names of heat and names of light,
names of collision in the dark, on the side of the
bus, in the bark of the tree, in ballpoint pen
on jeans and hands and the backs of matchbooks
that then get lost. Names like pain cries, names
like tombstones, names forgotten and reinvented,
names forbidden or overused. Your name like
a song I sing to myself, your name like a box
where I keep my love, your name like a nest
in the tree of love, your name like a boat in the
sea of love — O now we’re in the sea of love!
Your name like detergent in the washing machine.
Your name like two X’s like punched-in eyes,
like a drunk cartoon passed out in the gutter,
your name with two X’s to mark the spots,
to hold the place, to keep the treasure from
becoming ever lost. I’m saying your name
in the grocery store, I’m saying your name on
the bridge at dawn. Your name like an animal
covered with frost, your name like a music that’s
been transposed, a suit of fur, a coat of mud,
a kick in the pants, a lungful of glass, the sails
in wind and the slap of waves on the hull
of a boat that’s sinking to the sound of mermaids
singing songs of love, and the tug of a simple
profound sadness when it sounds so far away.
Here is a map with a your name for a capital,
here is an arrow to prove a point: we laugh
and it pits the world against us, we laugh,
and we’ve got nothing left to lose, and our hearts
turn red, and the river rises like a barn on fire.
I came to tell you, we’ll swim in the water, we’ll
swim like something sparkling underneath
the waves. Our bodies shivering, and the sound
of our breathing, and the shore so far away.
I’ll use my body like a ladder, climbing
to the thing behind it, saying farewell to flesh,
farewell to everything caught underfoot
and flattened. Names of poisons, names of
handguns, names of places we’ve been
together, names of people we’d be together,
Names of endurance, names of devotion,
street names and place names and all the names
of our dark heaven crackling in their pan.
It’s a bed of straw, darling. It sure as shit is.
If there was one thing I could save from the fire,
he said, the broken arms of the sycamore,
the eucalyptus still trying to climb out of the yard —
your breath on my neck like a music that holds
my hands down, kisses as they burn their way
along my spine — or rain, our bodies wet,
clothes clinging arm to elbow, clothes clinging
nipple to groin — I’ll be right here. I’m waiting.
Say hallelujah, say goodnight, say it over
the canned music and your feet won’t stumble,
his face getting larger, the rest blurring
on every side. And angels, about twelve angels,
angels knocking on your head right now, hello
hello, a flash in the sky, would you like to
meet him there, in Heaven? Imagine a room,
a sudden glow. Here is my hand, my heart,
my throat, my wrist. Here are the illuminated
cities at the center of me, and here is the center
of me, which is a lake, which is a well that we
can drink from, but I can’t go through with it.
I just don’t want to die anymore.
