I dreamt it swallowed us under;
the waves were roaring applause.
Kelp ribbons and iodine, my
muscles strapped around yours.
The lunettes of your jawline, darling,
the crescent stripe of your hand.
You clasp my spine, we move tight now
brushing half-moons in the sand.
My alter-ego, intergalactic cowgirl Baby Blue, will be playing a bunch of shows at this year’s Perth Fringe Festival (Fringe World). Expect big hair, much glitter and covers of Townes Van Zandt, Flying Burrito Brothers, Loretta Lynn and Skeeter Davis songs. All shows are 100% free!
FRINGEWORLD SETS:
Fri 27th Jan - 7.30 - 8.30pm - Wonderland (Urban Orchard) Stage
Sun 29th Jan - 7-8.15pm Treasure Chest Stage (Old Treasury Building)
Thurs 2nd Feb - 7 - 8.15pm Treasure Chest
Tues 7th Feb - 7 - 8.15pm Treasure Chest
Wed 8th Feb - 7.30 - 8.30pm Wonderland Stage
Mon 13th Feb - 7.00 - 8.15pm Treasure Chest
Thurs 16th - 7.30 - 8.30pm Wonderland Stage
Please note that while all shows are free, you’ll need to sign a release form to get into the Treasury Building shows. On the upside, it’s the first time it will be open to the public in fifteen years so it’s basically an amazing adventure! Looking forward to seeing you there.
More info about the venues is available on the Fringeworld website.
Here’s one of the treats in store…
Buffy Sainte-Marie: Oh my gosh. Just play. Don’t wait for some kind of mythological businessman to come along and recognize you. You’re already great. If you’re writing songs and playing music, play for your friends, then play for some more friends. Then play for their friends. Play every place that you can and write and don’t worry about the music business. I mean, it’s almost nonexistent right now. Now is the time to create your works and put them on the internet. It’s almost like the sixties. It used to be a very welcoming place for musicians and artists and songwriters in the sixties, and then it closed up and you couldn’t get into a gallery, you couldn’t get a concert, you couldn’t get a record company. All of that is falling away, and it’s back in the hands of the people. So, look at each other’s music, enjoy each other, put yours out there too. It’s a free world.
I’ve read in a few places some towns flip the switch on their Christmas lights when the soloist hits that note. I’m glad not to live in such a town as I don’t think my constitution could handle this. My eyes prickle just thinking about it.
There are many versions of this song. Perhaps because the melody itself is crafted so majestically, none that I’ve found have totally hit the spot for me. Unfortunately the inherent drama of the melody means that most singers are incapable of handling it without melismatic fuckery and as such there are scores of histrionic, sexed-up treatments littering the internet. In my mind, though, exists a Platonic ideal of this song with a sweet, unfettered beginning and a choir of angels in the end, a version that commences life in the gutter and ascends to the stars. I don’t know who sings it. Roy Orbison maybe.
This Sufjan one is probably my favourite of the versions on Youtube. It has its drawbacks - the instrumental is a little too hokey even for my deeply sentimental tastes - but the simplicity of the vocal, the warmth of the second verse, those warm thick harmonies, the moment the drums kick in, the way it draws back at the end - win me over.
This one is good too; you can’t beat choirboys for those beautiful unembellished notes. But you know what, I’m not convinced they nail the top note. I’m not blaming them! It’s a tough song! I’m just saying, it’s hard to know how to giftwrap perfection.
Happy Christmas.
Calling and Not Calling My Ex by Okkervil River is my favourite secular Christmas song. There is not a word of it I don’t wish I had written. Every line fits together with such unexpected and satisfying perfection it’s like a jigsaw, and the picture in the jigsaw is a very tall girl with wide-set eyes and pronounced hipbones and a pissed-off, jealous dude hunched in a duffel coat standing together in a snowfall, angry white breath escaping into the sky.
Every time I consider quoting this song it ends in disaster because the way the song is written one line tumbles into the next and then I think I like the next line even better and realise that if I want to include my favourite bit I will just have to post the lyrics to the whole song, and no one over the age of sixteen needs that.
I hope your holiday preparations are going well. I’ve been spending more time than necessary printing gift paper with octopus stamps, dancing to Slade and making compilations of holiday songs.
LOVE LOVE LOVE
CAROLINE J. DALE
(insisted that she’d visit; that you write)
