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"Brothers Under the Bridge" (Bruce Springsteen)
(photograph from Lee Friedlander, "New Mexico", 2001)
"Saigon, it was all gone
The same Coke machines
As the streets I grew on
Down in a mesquite canyon
We come walking along the ridge
Me and the brothers under the bridge
Campsite's an hour's walk from the nearest road to town
Up here there's too much brush and canyon
For the CHP choppers to touch down
Ain't lookin' for nothin', just wanna live
Me and the brothers under the bridge
Come the Santa Ana's, man, that dry brush'll light
Billy Devon got burned up in his own campfire one winter night
We buried his body in the white stone high up along the ridge
Me and the brothers under the bridge
Had enough of town and the street life
Over nothing you end up on the wrong end of someone's knife
Now I don't want no trouble
And I ain't got none to give
Me and the brothers under the bridge
I come home in '72
You were just a beautiul light
In your mama's dark eyes of blue
I stood down on the tarmac, I was just a kid
Me and the brothers under the bridge
Come Veterans' Day I sat in the stands in my dress blues
I held your mother's hand
When they passed with the red, white and blue"
Bruce Springsteen
(taken from the CD 18 Tracks, from 1999)
Jalâluddîn Rumi
(photo by Jean Ferro, Lewis: 1st Street and Temple, Downtown Los Angeles, s/d)
"Using the stone of the philosopher to convert copper into gold is indeed wonderful.
More wonderful still is the fact that, moment by moment, the philosopher's stone (man) is converted into copper - by his own heedlessness"1
Jalâluddîn Rumi (1207-1273)
1 poem taken from the CD of Martin Simpson & Wu Man, Music for the Motherless Child.
Vishwa Mohan Bhatt/Jerry Douglas (Bourbon & Rosewater)
(photo by Marco Barsanti)
"No wine glasses here, but wine is handed round.
No smoke, but burning.
Listen to the unstruck sounds.
and what sifts through that music".1
Jelaluddin Rumi (1207-1273)
1 RUMI, Jelaluddin taken from the CD Bourbon & Rosewater, from Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and Jerry Douglas.
One more time, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt recorded a masterpiece. After listening to his album Saltanah, I decided to listen to his Bourbon & Rosewater, recorded by him and bluegrass virtuoso Jerry Douglas. One more time, a beautiful piece of music by world music label Water Lily Acoustics. Their project of joining two or more musical traditions together is a wonderful idea and, in this case, the results are very good. Kavichandran Alexander, the producer, had always the dream of joining classical indian music with bluegrass. The result is this CD.
Jorge Vicente
Vishwa Mohan Bhatt here
Jerry Douglas here
A Gypsy Carol
(photo from Paul Banner, Opera 2, s/d)
"What are you seeking, you seven pretty maids,
all under the Leaves of Life?
We are searching for no leaves, Thomas,
but for a friend of thine"1
A gypsy carol
1 taken from the CD Kambara Music in Native Tongues, by Martin Simpson/David Hidalgo/Viji Krishnan/Puvalur Srinivasan
St. John of the Cross
(photo from Brian Arnold, #4 Letters, 2005)
"La bianca palomica
al arca con el ramo se ha tornado;
y ya la tortolica
al socio deseado
en las riberas verdes ha hallado"1
St. John of the Cross (1542-1591)
1 taken from the CD of Kambara Music in Native Tongues, from Martin Simpson/David Hidalgo/Viji Krishnan/Puvalur Srinivasan
Kavichandran Alexander
(photo taken from Patti Ambrogi, From the series - The Nature of Culture; Freeing Female Representation, Can She Take Her Tail Off, 1992)
"To the body's ark the heavenly dove descends
across the still ocean of Oneness
hearing the flower of spring.
The turtledove at long last the beloved meets
by the verdant river of life"
Kavichandran Alexander´
Kavichandran is a musician and producer of recording label Water Lily Acoustics
taken from the CD Kambara Music in Native Tongues, from Martin Simpson/David Hidalgo/Viji Krishnan/Puvalur Srinivasan
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Thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird (WALLACE STEVENS)
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
WALLACE STEVENS (1879-1955)