Welcome to Marlinspike Hall, ancestral home of the Haddock Clan, the creation of Belgian cartoonist Hergé.
Some Manor-keeping notes:
Navigation is on the right, with an explanation of the blog's fictional basis. HINT: Please read the column labelled "ABOUT THIS BLOG." Enjoy the most recent posts or browse posts by posting date in the Archives. Search the blog for scintillating, obscure topics.
Enjoy your stay! There are some fuzzy slippers over there somewhere, too.
This land is a lovely green, it reminds me of my own home.
Such children I've seldom seen, even in my own home.
The sky is so bright and clean, just like my home.
Kind people as have ever been, won't you take me back to my own home?
Jump up behind me, my love, jump up behind me.
Old Dan can bear us both, jump up behind me.
We follow this road till we reach the sea, jump up behind me.
We'll catch the tide and set Dan free, jump up behind me.
I've been in this world awhile and I've seen a lot of country.
Many days and many miles, all various and sundry.
I've had my way and I've had my fun and I've had my chance to run free,
burning hot beneath the sun, freezing cold and wintry.
Jump up behind me, my love, jump up behind me.
Old Danny can carry us both, jump up behind me.
We follow this road till we reach the sea, jump up behind me.
We'll catch the tide and set old Dan free, jump up behind me.
I know now, only one thing matters in these day.
One thing, true love, love and love alone, true love.
Came out of a dream last night, thought I was back in my old home.
Mom and Dad were both still alive and the babies not yet born, no.
Felt like a festival and it felt like a Christmas morning,
felt the darkness fall away even as the world was turning on,
I mean even as the world was turning on. La la la la la, la la la la. I say.
Jump up behind me, my love, jump up behind me.
Follow the road to the western sea...
Good afternoon, sweet readers. Maybe you're at work, maybe you're going to bed, maybe you're contemplating getting up, maybe you're making the gang a warming, soothing soup. Maybe you're stuck on the highway. Maybe the big toe on your right foot itches. But enough about your possibilities. You're not the boss of me.
Let's just dive right in, shall we? I've seen JT in concert, I don't know how many times. Great communal events, good weed passed down the rows. However, there was the incident of being beaned by an empty Nivea bottle, for no discernible reason. Did not break the bottle. Did not break my head.
Uploaded by Josie Sharp to YouTube about 10 months ago
As I lay here contemplating whether this blog retains enough value to merit continuation, one of JT's songs popped into my head -- one, of course, that is not included on this hour's worth of concert video. It's a song he wrote after his brother Alex's death: "Enough To Be On Your Way." He wrote it in Paris, and that tugs at me, as much as anything, mostly because he gives the place import but there's not a bit of my experience of Paris in it. I cannot fathom such... such a song being written from inspiration of walking those streets, rues, and avenues. Mesas and mountains. It's part of the general magic of JT.
You don't stumble on songs like this in my Paris. He claims a bit fell out of this doorway, another from some cobbled side street. I cannot do the fathoming, but then, I said that already.
So enjoy the first 62-minute vid, but it's this one that has my mind in its bony, bendy JT clutches. Without searching out the date of my prior bad act, I know that I've posted it before. Just like I could post a certain Springsteen song every day, and two or three Townes van Zandt bits of simple brilliance, shining brilliance. Songs so good that the struggle to reenact their creation -- an old bad habit from which I refuse to be disabused -- is like dashing one's self against the old smoothness of Helm's Deep, water on stone.
Before the white-handed sun-abiding orcs, when a good siege was worth the trouble.
Okay, so I've been hiding out in Lothlorien.
But it's a JT day, this day of pondering this blog's fate.
This is what he wrote of "Enough To Be On Your Way" in the Sony liner notes:
My brother Alex died in '93 on (not for) my birthday. We all went down to Florida to say goodbye. The day after we flew home (the day after his cremation) a giant mother hurricane followed us north through the Carolina's; trashing everything in its path and finally raining record rains on Martha's Vineyard (home). In Paris, a year later I changed his character to a hippie chick named Alice and the location to Santa Fe; but my soulful older brother is still all over this song like a cheap suit.
The sun shines on this funeral
The same as on a birth
The way it shines on everything
That happens here on Earth
It rolls across the western sky
And back into the sea
And spends the day's last rays
Upon this fucked-up family
So long old pal
The last time I saw Alice
She was leaving Santa Fe
With a bunch of round-eyed Buddhists
In a killer Chevrolet
Said they turned her out of Texas
Yeah she burned 'em down back home
Now she's wild with expectation
On the edge of the unknown
Oh it's enough to be on your way
It's enough just to cover ground
It's enough to be moving on
Home, build it behind your eyes
Carry it in your heart
Safe among your own
They brought her back on a Friday night
Same day I was born
We sent her up the smoke stack
And back into the storm
She blew up over the San Juan mountains
And spent herself at last
The threat of heavy weather
That was what she knew the best
Oh it's enough to be on your way
It's enough just to cover ground
It's enough to be moving on
Home, build it behind your eyes
Carry it in your heart
Safe among your own
It woke me up on a Sunday
An hour before the sun
It had me watching the headlights
Out on highway 591
'Til I stepped into my trousers
'Til I pulled my big boots on
I walked out on the Mesa
And I stumbled on this song
Oh it's enough to be on your way
It's enough just to cover ground
It's enough to be moving on
Home, build it behind your eyes
Carry it in your heart
Safe among your own
Uploaded to YouTube on December 27, 2009 by Astralionica
James Taylor is singer-songwriter James Taylor's debut album. Released in 1968, it was the first recording by a non-British artist released by Apple Records, and would also be Taylor's only release on that label. The album was released under the title First Album on the South African market.
The album was produced by Peter Asher, who was A&R head for The Beatles' newly-formed label Apple Records.[2] Taylor recorded the album from July to October 1968 at Trident Studios, at the same time The Beatles were recording The White Album.[3][4] Trident was the most technologically advanced studio in England at the time and was in high demand; some session time booked by The Beatles was used instead to record Taylor's album. Paul McCartney and Peter Asher brought in arranger Richard Hewson to add orchestrations to several of the songs and unusual "link" passages in between them; these would receive a mixed reception at best.[5][6]
Notable songs include the Taylor classics "Something in the Way She Moves", "Carolina in My Mind" and "Rainy Day Man". McCartney and an uncredited George Harrison guested on "Carolina in My Mind", whose lyric holy host of others standing around me made reference to the Beatles, while the title phrase of Taylor's "Something in the Way She Moves" provided the starting point for Harrison's classic "Something".[5][7] (Coincidentally, Taylor has said he had meant for the song to be called "I Feel Fine" - after a dominant line in the chorus - but the title had already been taken by a Beatles song.) Taylor also recorded a very early version of "Fire and Rain", which would be his breakthrough hit on his second album, but Asher did not choose it for the album release.[8]
The album was released by Apple Records in December 1968 in the UK and February 1969 in the US.[1] Critical reaction was generally good, including a very positive Jon Landau review in Rolling Stone that said "this album is the coolest breath of fresh air I've inhaled in a good long while. It knocks me out."[6] The record's commercial potential suffered from Taylor's inability to promote it due to his hospitalization for drug addiction and it sold poorly.[1] "Carolina in My Mind" b/w "Something's Wrong" was released as a single in the UK (APPLE 32) in February 1969, but failed to chart.[1] It was released as a single in US (Apple 1805) in March 1969, but only reached #118 in the US.[1]
Because of the difficulty of obtaining licensing rights from Apple during the 1970s, "Something in the Way She Moves" and "Carolina in My Mind" were re-recorded in 1976 for Taylor's Greatest Hits album.
"Don't Talk Now" – 2:36
"Something's Wrong" – 3:00
"Knocking 'Round the Zoo" – 3:26
"Sunshine Sunshine" – 3:30
"Taking It In" – 3:01
"Something in the Way She Moves" – 2:26
"Carolina in My Mind" – 3:36
"Brighten Your Night With My Day" – 3:05
"Night Owl" – 3:38
"Rainy Day Man" (Taylor, Wiesner) – 3:00
"Circle Round the Sun" (Traditional arr. Taylor) – 3:24
"Blues Is Just a Bad Dream" – 3:42
James Taylor – guitar, vocals
Peter Asher – percussion, vocals
Louis Cennamo – bass
George Harrison – vocals on "Carolina in My Mind" (uncredited)
Richard Hewson – strings, bassoon, oboe
Skaila Kanga – harp
Paul McCartney – Fender Jazz bass, guitar, vocals on "Carolina in My Mind"
Bishop O'Brien – drums, percussion
Freddie Redd – keyboards
Don Shinn – keyboards (misspelled "Schinn")
Mick Wayne – guitar
I love his version of "Circle Round the Sun": (starts around 31:24)
Now, I love my baby, and she's bound to love me some.
Yes, I love my baby, and she's bound to love me some.
Now, she throws her arms around me just like a circle around the sun, yeah yeah.
I lay down last night just to try to take my rest.
I said I lay down last night, Lord, I was trying to take my rest.
But my thoughts they just kept wandering just like them wild geese in the west, babe.
Now I know that sunrise, sunrise, it's gonna shine in my back yard someday.
I said I know that sunrise, sunrise, sunrise, it's gonna shine in my back yard someday.
And that wind's just bound to rise up, gonna blow, blow all my blues away, hey, hey, hey,
I love my baby and she's bound to love me some.
Hear me say that I love my baby, and she's bound to love me some.
Now, she throws her arms around me just like a circle around the sun.
what? so i need a little eye candy. i'm only human.
My brother Alex died in '93 on (not for) my birthday. We all went down to Florida to say goodbye. The day after we flew home (the day after his cremation) a giant mother hurricane followed us north through the Carolinas; trashing everything in its path and finally raining record rains on Martha's Vineyard (home). In Paris, a year later I changed his character to a hippie chick named Alice and the location to Santa Fe; but my soulful older brother is still all over this song like a cheap suit. Almost Fuck-free.
