Sinister: The Song Snake

[Gregory John Prickman]

On Tue, 3 Feb 1998, Honey wrote:
> 
> John Johnston CT (uh?) mentioned ee cummings.  Uh oh, that's four of us 
> now on Sinister who love little eec - let's try a few more cultural
> grenades - Dylan Thomas anyone?  Stanley Spencer?  Jorge Luis Borges?  Oh
> 

Hands up here on Dylan Thomas. Does that make me uncool now? I have no
idea these days...it's funny how his name pops up like this as I've
recently been rediscovering his work due to a project I'm engaged in at
work that's tangentially related. I hadn't really read any of his stuff
since high school, though it's probably good to take a break for awhile
since my own responses to life have changed. 

And now, (this being my first post to Sinister after months of mimicking
my real life personality by sitting in the corner and listening rather
than participating), the B&S connection, with Dylan Thomas that is, at
least in terms of how the things you absorb influence your reactions to
them. In one of the things I was reading there was a reference to the
difficulty of successfully realizing "Under Milk Wood" lying in the need
to create a "web of sound" with the voices, so that the rhythms and tones
of the speech culminate in an overall effect that envelopes the audience.
It seems to me that this could be an interesting distinction to make in
terms of, er, "rock" and "pop" music. Much has been said and done
regarding the "wall of sound", to the point where it's taken for granted
in many instances. One of the things that I find refreshing about B&S is
the way the arrangements of what are essentially quite simple songs
create a (and I don't think this is really that great a term) "web of
sound" - the instruments compliment and enhance each other in a way that
is *subtle* and fluid...in fact, I've seen references to the way B&S songs
build into these great big orchestrations throughout a song, but I don't
really think that's always the case. Take "A Century of Elvis", for
example. That song has such a wonderful momentum throughout it, right from
the start, that twists and spirals behind the irregular pattern of natural
speech, always moving forward but not in a way that manipulates you into
the big ending, the payoff - instead, there's a point towards the end
where the separate violin and guitar lines converge onto the same note
right before the lines about how "me and wee pam came to live there", and
suddenly there's this moment like an intake of breath, where the story
moves from the description of an eccentric character to a more personal
story about two people and their life, and the music keeps the pace and
doesn't overwhelm the occassion, it's intimate and fleeting, but captured
in a way that makes it resonate...

Somehow this *does* relate to the starting point of Dylan Thomas, but
probably in a way that doesn't come across well here...oh well, I tried.

Speaking of cultural grenades, someone recently mentioned Sylvia Plath's
name on this list...anyone have a reaction to Ted Hughes' new book? Over
here in the States it's not quite the "event" it seems to be in the UK, or
am I mistaken? Has there been much reaction at all?

take care,
Greg


       



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