Fool.
Terminator menu system-like, I see a short list of possible angles and ledes…
1) Since the beginning of time, the fool has symbolized man’s ambivalence about the relationship between knowledge, wisdom, and grace…
2) The idiot. The savant. Are they not two sides of the same illusory coin of enlightenment…?
3) In the medieval courts, who better than the sovereign’s own chosen fool to plumb the inner machinations of that court or even to orchestrate those intrigues…
I dunno.
Here are two songs that both have the word fool in the title.
The first is something of an oldie, going back to the early 80s but here rearranged somewhat, different chords, a slightly darker feel.
The second is, even by the rough standards of AYoS, pretty sloppy. Intentionally sloppy — but that’s like intentionally ugly in a painting: you have to be an artist to make it work. Here, we just have sloppiness. Still, there’s a cheery, who gives a good goshdarn exuberance to it that matches the relatively optimistic lyrics.
Relatively optimistic, that is, for this writer. I still manage to get in a line about falling down the well of one’s own soul, bottomless, hell, yadda yadda. So, anyhow…
4) None of the above.
No Fool
Internet Archive page for this recording
previous versions
9 November 2005
19 February 2006
No Fool
Sitting all alone
by my telephone
Waited all day
but that’s okay
I could wait all night
and that would be all right
for a woman like you
I would wait all my life
Sometimes I pull myself together
and I go downtown
I’m all dressed up
and I wander around
and I feel like a fool
I can’t stop thinking of you
When you’re all alone
this city’s so cruel
I walk along the river
until the stars come out
I sit by myself alone in the dark
and I wonder
Oh yes I wonder
I’m just like a child
but I am no fool
I know it’s over
(C)1980, TK Major
I Should Stop Being Such a Fool
Internet Archive page for this recording
previous AYoS version
Friday, October 13, 2006
I Should Stop Being Such a Fool
I told my self
Life has no meaning
I told myself
I should stop dreaming
I told myself
I should stop being such a fool
I told myself
love’s just a lie
I told myself
I should get wise
I told myself
being kind is just being cruel
Lookin in my heart
was like lookin’ in a well
and if there was a bottom
you couldn’t really tell
as dark as midnight
all the way down to hell
one day I looked in
and then I just fell
Then I looked in my soul
and I saw that it was empty
and I said to myself
just like the rest of them
and i said out loud
from here on
it’s all ’bout number one
But I added that up
and I factored in forever
I subtracted my dreams then
divided that by never
When I saw the bottom line
I sat down — I knew that
I was done
Lookin in my heart…
Back then I told my self
Life has no meaning
And I told myself
I should stop dreaming
Then I told myself
I should stop being such a fool
But then I thought to myself
what’s it all for?
and I thought to myself
must be something more
and I realized all at once
there’s more than one kind of fool
(C) 2006, TK Major
