Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

When i was 15
i heard him sing
House of the Rising Sun
on my little transister radio
i did not know what the future
would bring
but that song,
that song seemed to rise right
up the middle of me
because the blues, the blues
and Eric Burdon's voice, just
let me feel, let me feel, where i was
goin
i was goin, i was goin to be like one
i was goin to live my life like i knew
i was one, and lord, i knew, i knew
i did not know when i would see the
house, or when i would see that sun
risin in it, but i could feel myself
goin down that road and see the blues
up ahead, i did know who wrote that
song
or who sung it so long ago
i was just 15 and and i was really green
and i had smoked my first cigarette
at 14 and kissed my first 12 year old girl
had drank my fill of whiskey and beer
and for more girls i had that yearning
that yen, i knew nothing about Buddha
or zen
it was then, and this is now, but then
it was Dylan and Beatles and Rolling Stones
and the Animals
and i knew almost nothin about the blues
but i could feel the New Orleans spirit in
that song, that a teenager like me needs
a teenager like me bleeds, and knows
he is gonna drink a river of whiskey
or somethin, cus this teen had not
smoked his first joint yet
had not dropped my first
hit of LSD, not heard Hendrix
or Jim Morrison, had not heard
the wind cry Mary, or broken
through to the other side
had not ride that serpent

Today i ran into Eric Burdon
and i said "hey its Eric Burdon"
and he being the cool one
moved his shades down his eyes
and said something in another language
i did not know what it ment, but i looked
deep into his eyes, and saw the House of
the Rising Sun there, and he put his arm
around me for a beat, turned and went deeper into
the little health food store
and i knew he was one
and he was the singer and the sung
and i was one in the rising sun house
and i see the saints, and sinners, the blue's men
and women singin from them roots in Africa, the
clowns and freaks, the jazz bands and the poets
marchin in a New Orleans dawn, long gone long ago
when we were young, when i was and they was one

((amen))

by the way, i really did see Eric yesterday in the health food store, he lives in the area(Joshua Tree), has been off and on since the late 60's, it just so happens that i had just finished reading his book 'Don't let me Be Misunderstood' that was written by some writer, as dictated by Eric.It came out in 2001.Eric had a very interesting life, he was friends with a lot of famous musicians, and others like Steve Mcqueen.I really wanted to know about his friendship with Jimi Hendrix and what happened to Jimi.Near the end of the book, Eric actually finally gets to see the real House of the Rising Sun, a very poetic return indeed.

i've always liked Eric... he has (had?) a voice that was very powerful and unique... his 'winds of change' around the psychedelic period was very cool i thought and when i saw him with War at the fillmore that cinched it - the man sang with a voice he had been searching for for all his career... blew the house away.

never could understand why he was not recognized for his past whe so many others from the same time have been kept alive... some day his dues will pay him well... i did see him about a year ago on some tv concert deal that was recorded pretty poorly... but his presence so cool.

...in order to understand that, you would have to understand the ins and outs of the music business.Eric was ripped off for money he should have gotten , by his music manager, early in his career.Also Alan Price(piano player in original Animals) got his name on the House of the Rising Sun song label because of a bad choice,Alan took all the money for that.And so it went throughout Eric's career, he had to keep on the road, and kept forming groups just to keep going.I think Eric's career took a strange course, in comparison to a lot of famous super groups.So Eric is not super rich, but he owns a nice house in the desert.He, really connected with the blues.It's interesting how he knew people like Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, John Lee Hooker, Rahsaand Roland Kirk.

I have had this feeling for some while now, about how important the connection between music, music lyrics, and poetry.In my life i met some famous poets, and some not famous, and a lot of them are gone now too.My best friend in high school, who was a musician,the guy i first took LSD with, and lived with for a year in Capitola California when i left home, just passed several months ago, from the big C.When i was living with him he was in a band with a famous musician, Jerry Miller from the Moby Grape.Later he played on a Crosby Stills and Nash album, and also played with Emmy Lou Harris for a year or two, he was a violin player.Wayne moved to Australia in the 80's and went to school to get a masters in music, and played around with a lot of different groups.
He never made it big in the music world, but music was his life.

Nice "day in a life" piece -- though I wonder if song lyrics might be more appropriate here.

Tune? Why, the Animals' song of course -- or some variation.

just a thought.

i'm curious, "appropriate" to whom would this "more appropriate" apply?

to you?

it seems i could say what i see as more appropriate, but then we seem to be talking about some altogether different subject, the one that you are really thinking of.

whatever that is.

Well, many of your allusions are to music. Your later explanation concerns the music industry.

Made sense to me: appropriate for your content.

Of course, you could also argue against a more song-like approach for any of a number of reasons.

So, why this way and not some other?

how to separate the music from the music industry?

is that like separating poetry from the world of poet-critics and or the current intelligentsia, or avant-garde, from those who are famous and those who are not so famous? And, i could go on in this vein until it reaches the mother-load.

likewise, how do you separate, say Dante' from the religious world at the time he was writing in? My answer to that would be to read Dante', and read Dante some more, but then you would eventually, have a reason to read Virgil, who is the "Master" he refers to.

there is no key to my above poem, it is not about the music industry, it is about the effect the music had on my young psyche, it is also about how i see music as a key to how i write how i feel the language like music.Also, how and why i have begun somewhere along the line to appropriate bites of lyrics and my own lyric bites in the field of the poem.On top of that it concerns the effect of synchronicity on that, in this case, my running into Eric, a week or so after i finished reading his book.

and i could have added more about the actual song, the House of the Rising Sun, as far as the actual history of the song.

if i were to compare my style to, say, your style, where would i begin? does one begin in the beginning? Did Eric Burdon know where his life would go when he suddenly became an over night success? Did he know he had made a deal with a devil? Kinda like Robert Johnson? but that's the blues.

oh and the above poem took me about 30 minutes to write, a tweak here and a trim there, and another poem gets punched out on the assembly line....