This song was in heavy rotation on MTV and radio during the summer I lived in Bloomington in the early 90s. For some reason, this, and not one of the hundred other songs that were out at the time, is my Bloomington song[1]. So I get it stuck in my head at odd times. I don’t know what, exactly, invokes it, but I spend an awful lot of time with this song bouncing around in my head. This morning, it showed up while I was walking across the Target parking lot.
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1. Seriously. Why? I played the hell out of Little Earthquakes that summer. The same for REM’s Out of Time and Nirvana’s Nevermind, but I don’t associate any of those with this place. Weird.
I’ve been listening to this song just about non-stop. The whole album is good, but this track is special. The lyrics are sort of nebulous, in a way that makes me think of something new every time I hear them.
(I think some of the lyrics are wrong in the video, but I have no idea what the actual words are.)
I’ve been listening to this song just about non-stop. The whole album is good, but this track is special. The lyrics are sort of nebulous, in a way that makes me think of something new every time I hear them.
One thing I’ll say for the less travelled way
Doesn’t have subtlety
Has twice the gravity
Get in and go and you’re one with the now
Turns inconsistently
Arcs in a symphony
Make your mind sharp and aware of the holes
Fall through them steadily
Slip through them readily
Watch your watch spiraling out of control
It’s beyond all that anyway
Time is dead anyway
Passenger song on the dark radio
Wheel’s in your other hand
And home’s in your other mind
Lights on the screen and then shut by the door
Voice their inner frames
The eyes which are all the same
Follow the path until it falls away
Hurry it’s dangerous
Some say it’s glamorous
Charge through the past and the future and now
Come to it sparingly
With what you are carrying
Notes on the pages and notes in the bars
Cheers and we thought it scars
It might make you see the stars
Show me and told me then show me to bed
Collapsing anyway
The edge is starting to fray
Oh right, you are right, you are right, you are right
Left from the interstate
‘Cause you can hardly wait
One thing I’ll say for the less travelled way
Doesn’t have subtlety
Has twice the gravity
I talked to my brother yesterday, and somehow, the discussion wandered off into music, and then to John Prine. We grew up with a huge variety of music–from folk, country, and classic rock to heavy metal, glam, and disco. And our step-dad listened to a lot of public radio, so there was a good bit of classical added to the mix, too.
Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore by John Prine
Jesus don’t like killing, no matter what the reason’s for.
When we were kids, the grown-ups would hang out, playing guitar and singing folk songs. John Prine’s music was always a favorite. It’s just as good–and relevant–today as it was then.
Sam Stone by John Prine
I was listening to this one in the car this morning, as I was driving out to Unionville. It made me weepy.
Jesus Christ died for nothing I suppose.
I’m not particularly religious, but that line has always struck a chord with me. All those men and women who volunteered to go to Iraq. All because of a big, fat lie told by petulant, little men. And they’ll all come home–the ones who aren’t killed–damaged. Whatever their personal reasons for going to Iraq, and whatever your personal feelings about wars and the ethics of volunteering to fight them, those soldiers deserve to be told the truth about why they’re fighting.
And those petulant, little men want the world to think that they’re good Christians, while all the while they’re lying and stealing and killing tens of thousands of men, women, and children. It’s mind boggling to think that, if the polls are remotely accurate, roughly half the voters in this country are prepared to put our people, our soldiers, and the people of Iraq, through four more years of this nightmare.
I’d like to wake up from this bad dream on Wednesday morning.
In my seemingly never-ending quest to find the best solution for handling my music and my iPod without iTunes, I have been playing with J. River Media Jukebox.
I’ve been looking as much for a replacement for my beloved, much out-of-date, and long defunct MusicMatch Jukebox (R.I.P.). I’ve been using the same old piece of software for almost ten years, and it was time to upgrade. The problem was, there wasn’t anything out there that did everything I needed it to do. I wanted good, flexible metadata handling (including custom fields), playlists, drag-and-drop adding for folders and sub-folders, flexible multi-column sorting, ripping, burning, file conversion to multiple formats, iPod syncing (with cover art, if possible), and YADB or CDDB look-up. And it would help if it weren’t a ginormous resource hog.
J. River Media Jukebox does all of that. I’ve been using it for a few weeks now and am impressed. It’s also free. More or less. I had to purchase an mp3 encoder, which cost US$10. And, for US$40 you can upgrade to J. River Media Center, which will allow you to run your TiVo/TV/sound systems through it, play music through your computer network, and other fancypants stuff, but I’m not really interested. The free version does everything I need, and it does it very nicely.
red paper boat 