I don’t think I’ve ever posted a link to anyone else’s music here before, I don’t think, but I just caught this vid and all I can say is wow…
I never saw Pentangle, myself, but I’ve seen all the members of it at various times over the years — typically playing either solo or in various combinations with each other.
I love this video…
The quality of this video is high enough that you should be able to watch it fairly comfortably in full screen mode — but you’ll have to actually click through the vid to go to the You Tube site to do so. For once I don’t mind losing visitors to YT…
OK. Responsible guys need songs of lust and yearning, too. (Not that I’ve ever been one but us songwriters like to stretch every now and then.)
Actually, the protagonist’s purported responsibility evolved through the course of several revisions. At first, it was just that he’d invoked the line “… if I had you to sleep by my side / if I had you to be my bride… ” (Which I recall thinking at the time was one of the first time one of my protagonists had ever expressed even a slight desire to get married… though those protagonists are, in other respects, a wildly divergent lot, from saints to the worst kind of sinners.)
But that apparently wasn’t good enough for my fevered, novelty-seeking imagination… because in the next revision of the song, a few years after it was initially penned, I decided to point my motorcycle toward the ramp up to the shark tank with this line: “When his girl loses her head / a man’s gotta think for two.”
The delightfully archaic patriarchalism delighted my perverse sense of humor — and actually seemed to bring the whole conceit of the song (“what it’s like to be a man”) home…
Anyhow, it may seem a pretty straightforward take on the new chastity and I suppose, on one level, it is… but that doesn’t mean you can’t get a few chuckles out of it. I know I did…
When I see you
and I look in your eyes
I get a head full of crazy
and a heart full of fire
but I cant talk about it
and I cant act on it
and I couldnt really stop it
even if I wanted
I’m tellin you so that you understand
that’s what it’s like to be a man…
… I work all day and
I sweat in the sun
I’ll work all by life
and I’ll die when it’s done
but if I had you
to sleep by my side
if I had you
to be my bride
if I had you
I’d be glad to be a man
Now I know that you
would really like to stay
but have responsibilities
that must come into play
I must think of what’s right
— what’s right for you
When his girl loses her head
— a man’s gotta think for two
but that’s what it’s like
that’s what its like to be a man (C)2007, TK Major
Ah, well, the one thing we can be sure of is that it once and for all disproves any positive correlation between virtue and longevity. Not that I’m that old. But I’m definitely well past the good die young age band. More in survivor territory, I’d say.
Anyhow, gettin’ old. It’s hell, yadda yadda.
They talk about wasting youth on the young — but, really, I don’t think I could take what I went through when I was young, now.
Or put myself, through, more than anything. But it had to be gone through, apparently: driven by a highly personal vision of my dharma, I plunged on.
At any rate, nowadays I have philosophy on my side — and plenty glad I do. Getting old is hell…
I was just a kid who’d
memorized some lines
I never dreamed
I would hurt you
you said we couldn’t run
from the pain that would come
now you wear that pain
and it suits you
we picked up our places
in the game that went before
the path lay in lies
to be burned through
if I could run back home
I would lay me back down
and suckle at the breast of virtue
(C) 1972, 2007, TK Major
It was the winter of 1958. He had just run away with his lover to Shanghai. They went sightseeing every day and didn’t mind the dark streets or meagerly stocked stores where coupons were used to ration food. Life was just beginning.
Until two plainclothes policemen walked up behind them one day and called out his name.
“Are you Kan Zhonggan?”
Blinded by happiness and love, he said yes.
“Take a walk with us.”
Around the corner, a car was waiting. The couple got in. One officer sat between them. They drove for half an hour and then his lover was told to get out. As she was dragged away, their eyes met.
In the course of events
I’ve seen my goals hanging just like a carrot in front of my nose
In the struggle for those higher attainments, hell,
I’ve been to the top
and I’ve seen the drop on the other side
And I don’t care if your money’s no good
I don’t care if both your legs are wood
I don’t care what your ma says to do
Just come away with me
It takes time to get where you want to go
and its never quite the same when you get there
but that doesn’t stop me cause there’s still a couple things
I’d like to try with you and you never can tell
it might work out all right
You can sit and talk about life all day
as much as you can talk your questions wont go away
it’s a conversation that leads me to say
just come away with me
I’ve been burned before
and I’ll get burned again
I guess that’s the same for everyone
I know what I need
I know what I want
I know what I get —
they don’t always correspond
You can sit and talk about life all day
as much as you can talk your questions wont go away
it’s a conversation that leads me to say
just come away with me
