The Music Court

We’re going to play a game. Guess the lyricist whose hit song is about a yellow female pleasure instrument. Appalled? Yes, and it is even funnier that he is the #88th greatest lyricist of all time. Guess the lyrics actually sounds like an intriguing idea. How about we do a section here where we post lyrics and you guess what song they came from. Oh wait! My roommate had that same idea and is going to be running that exact section a couple of days a week, one of them that is already posted. Don’t you feel fooled. Okay, that was simply stupid. Let us get to the lyricist.

Did you guess who it was? Do they call him mellow yellow? Yes, they do, and his name is Donovan Leitch, a.k.a Donovan or British Bob Dylan. That title of British Bob Dylan has tracked Donovan’s music for the majority of his career which began as a young busker (street performer) in 1964. Late in that same year he recorded ten tracks for Pye Records in London, one of which included my favorite Donovan song entitled “Catch the Wind.”

Can you imagine that conversation?

The album also revealed Donovan’s tribute to both Woody Guthrie and Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, two men who particularly influenced both Dylan and Donovan. Dylan, Donovan, same interests in music, similar folk music style. Get the comparisons.

Yet, in 1966, Donovan became simply Donovan. Dylan’s folk comparisons dropped and Donovan became a British “flower power” machine. His music also switched to a fusion of eastern music, jazz, blues, and mainly pop. The psychedelic “Sunshine Superman” was released, conga, harpsichord and sitar was introduced, and some very odd lyrics started to pop up in his music. Lyrics that we will profile right now. How does that sound?

Like the majority of these lyricist profiles I would like to focus on two different songs. With Donovan this is not tough to accomplish. Let us focus first on an abstract song entitled “Atlantis,” which may actually be about love but more about love’s concept. Here are some lyrics

“The continent of Atlantis was an island
which lay before the great flood
in the area we now call the Atlantic Ocean.
So great an area of land, that from her western shores
those beautiful sailors journeyed
to the South and the North Americas with ease,
in their ships with painted sails.

To the East Africa was a neighbour, across a short strait of sea miles.
The great Egyptian age is but a remnant of The Atlantian culture.
The antediluvian kings colonised the world
All the Gods who play in the mythological dramas
In all legends from all lands were from fair Atlantis.
Knowing her fate, Atlantis sent out ships to all corners of the Earth.
On board were the Twelve:
The poet, the physician, the farmer, the scientist,
The magician and the other so-called Gods of our legends.
Though Gods they were –
And as the elders of our time choose to remain blind
Let us rejoice and let us sing and dance and ring in the new
Hail Atlantis!”

If you listen to the song you will realize that the lyrics are spoken. Yes, it still counts as a song. Yet, look deeply into the lyrics. The words represent a tender, beautiful ode to a land long lost. The people who left the land of Atlantis knowing their fate are attempting to spread their knowledge and civilization to the far reaches of an unknown world. If you listen to some more lyrics in the song you will notice that Donovan starts singing about his “antediluvian baby.” Antediluvian means old by the way. This can establish that Donovan is searching for some sort of true love that may still be in this mysterious island of Atlantis. The love goes directly into the next song, “Catch the Wind.”

“Catch the Wind” first appeared on the horribly misspelled “What’s Bin Did and What’s Bin Hid,” where it hit success as a single. Here are some lyrics:

“In the chilly hours and minutes
Of uncertainty
I wanna be
In the warm hold of your Loving mind.

To feel you all around me
And to take your hand
Along the sand,
Ah but I may as well try and catch the wind.

When sundown pales the sky
I wanna hide a while
Behind your smile,
And everywhere I’d look, your eyes I’d find.

For me to love you now
Would be the sweetest thing,
‘T would make me sing,
Ah but I may as well try and catch the wind.”

The simplicity of this song makes it good. Donovan is demonstrating his love in the song and is also realizing that while he wants her so badly he is attempting to catch the wind. Catching the wind is pretty impossible and this is an unfortunate subject in an otherwise beautiful song.

“Atlantis”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leI7sfmipuI&feature=fvst

“Catch the Wind”:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LREIPfDLYks

Wow it feels like I have not done a segment of top 100 lyricists in a long time. I guess that would label me as a slacker. Well, I’m up and ready to go and #89 is ready to be profiled. 89 is an interesting number. I was born in the year 1989. Santana Moss (former football Jet and now Washington Redskins wide receiver) is number 89. Yeah, that is about it. But, I needed something to premise the lyricist who I will be profiling today. After discussing the hard, heavy, and realistically depressing music of James Hetfield of Metallica it is nice to focus on a lyricist today whose music is just more uplifting. Much under appreciated by the masses (and once by me, skipped over on my daily search for new music) Amos Lee’s music is feel-good rock with attached emotion on each album sleeve.

Let me tell you how I came on to Amos Lee. After skipping over him in my search, my roommate Josh found him on one of his searches. He became obsessed (now when he gets obsessed with a song the song is constantly occupying a spot in his head and is played and sung around 30-40 times a day) with “Night Train,” one of Lee’s slower songs. After weeding through his endless singing and constant suggesting that I too get into Amos Lee, I caved, and I am happy I did.

The lyrics of Lee travel from truthful odes to classic love songs with a twist. His quirky and unconventional lyric most likely was a result of the first music he started getting into. While in the University of South Carolina he received a job at a record store that specialized in Jazz music. Now many of you are probably thinking, what is this dude stupid, jazz has no lyrics. Yes, you would be correct on that most of the times, but, the music itself is interesting, eccentric, and well irregular. Jazz has a way about it and it certainly affected Lee.

The two songs that I would like to focus on are a love song and a universal truth. I believe this gives a broad range of Lee’s talents and plus they are also two great songs. Firstly, let us start with “Arms of a Woman” which appeared on his debut self-titled album in 2005.

Looking cool...

“I am at ease
In the arms of a woman
Although now most of my days are spent alone
A thousand miles from the place I was born

When she wakes me
She takes me back home

Now most days
I spend like a child
Who’s afraid of ghosts in the night
I know there ain’t nothing out there
But I’m still afraid to turn on the light

I am at ease
In the arms of a woman
Although now most of my days are spent alone
A thousand miles from the place I was born”

There are two ways of thinking when it comes to this song. Amos Lee is talking about his mother or a Love (he either has or once had). Let us take the latter way of thinking for this particular post for I believe this is most likely what he is getting out. The woman he is in love with is gone and now his days are spent alone, afraid, and lonely. I am a fan of his delicate metaphor which encompasses the second verse of the song. A child afraid to turn off the light even though he knows nothing is there. Lee is describing how his character does not want to be alone in the dark without the warmth of the love he once had (or is just far away). Classic loss of love song or long-distance relationship?

Symbolism in album covers is always well-respected

Next, we have my favorite Amos Lee song entitled “Supply and Demand,” which appeared on the same-titled 2006 studio album

“
Somethin’ gotta give with the way I’m livin’
Seems I’m gettin’ down everyday
The more I strive, the less I’m alive
And seems i’m gettin’ further away

Oh well all my superstitions
And my crazy suspicions
Of the people that I care about
I’ve been doin’ more screamin’
Than I’ve been doin’ dreamin’
And I think it’s time I figure it out

Baby i need a plan
Oh, to understand
That life ain’t only supply and demand”

Already one can see the range of his music. This is no where near love. It focuses on one of the most written about concepts in human history. Life is too short to waste on only thinking about work. Hence why Lee says, “Somethin’ gotta give with the way I’m livin, Seems I’m gettin’ down everyday, The more I strive, the less I’m alive, And seems i’m gettin’ further away.” In this opening verse he is explaining that the more he does in his work the less he is alive. He has been doing too much working and less focusing on his dreams and his family and he thinks it’s time to figure out that life is not only work (Supply and Demand). Great lyric. Kind of funny that Lee is writing it. He is a musician, and a good one at that. He most likely will never need to worry about anything of this song happening to him.

“Arms of a Woman”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymXPT62lYMI

“Supply and Demand”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbadOsEmFlM