Vickie, Hope you have a great day!Vickie wrote: Love and best wishes to anyone celebrating Thanksgiving... my favorite American holiday.
Ah Alan, some good insights there! I know it’s too late to say “Don’t catch a summer cold” but I hope it won’t last long! Maybe some apples dipped in honey (and lemon or is that Leonard ) will help it on its way https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J10bR_IuJuE
Jean, thanks for your words and as always you give me food for thought and I have to chew slowly to digest it properly. It is known that this way is most beneficial for your body and mind
4, I enjoyed your analogy on A Bunch of Lonesome Heroes and thanks for your other comments. Interestingly, all of those three songs you first mentioned were never sung in concert and another thing they have in common is that they all have some military mention. LC said if his father had lived he would have probably followed him into the army. His father was a Lieutenant in the Canadian Engineers in WW1. Leonard has always had an affinity to what the army represents as an orderly instructional organization. As you know he called his first tour (of duty) band The Army. In other songs there are a number of references to soldiers and war. And still speaking poetry-wise, Leonard said about Book of Mercy that he received letters about it from soldiers and people who weren’t poetry readers.
The complete song of The Captain was not sung but recited three times that I know of in the USA in 1985 at New York, Boston and Philadelphia below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIFqt5w2nrE
The Captain is mentioned in these other songs -
Go tell all the brave, young Captains at war
~ Come Spend The Morning
Everybody knows that the Captain lied
~ Everybody Knows
Nor the Captain on the hill
~ God is Alive, Magic is Afoot
And I sing this for the Captain...
You must keep it for the Captain
~ Heart With No Companion
Now I sing this for the Captain
~ Thirsty For The Kiss
From the (Captain’s) horse’s mouth, so to speak:
I began this song four years ago and it has 30 or 40 verses. I had to choose among them. This selection does not guarantee an achievement but at least proves the will of achievement. Among others, there are two lines that I find true: "Whatever makes a soldier sad, will make a killer smile." In other words, we are really a predatory species. We are unique so far as we kill for pleasure. We have to understand that we're going to meet with some people who, naturally, are killers. It's not like a soldier or self-defence. We have to get ourselves ready, otherwise we're going die by naivety. And this is the topic of "The Captain," a passing on during which the corporal and the basic soldier are really taught by the captain because he's the one who understands he has to fight. But the soldier considers that, in light of so much pain and bloodshed, his only way out is to escape from the place of war. But the captain furthers his education, saying to him "There's no decent place." ~ Paroles et Musiques Magazine 1985
I always liked Stories of the Street from when I first heard it and I would say it still is the one I prefer best of the three songs.
You know, it’s not always about what you say but how you say it .... the power of words, I’ve always loved this -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzgzim5m7oU