Always the conflict between the desire to reveal and the desire to conceal:
"Among many morals which press upon us from the poor minister's miserable experience,
we put only this into a sentence: 'Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world,
if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred!'"
Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter) 📘
I was sitting in my Shanghai apartment in late 2007, trying to come up with lyrics for "The Ballad Of Henry Jekyll"
(which I never finished). I ended up writing "Sometimes Like Strangers" and "Hallelujah" instead.
I didn't finish another song until "Alone At The Party" in 2009. It was a rough time in my life.
In much of Cohen's song he identifies with David. My version was written more from
Uriah's point of view, about things he might have said and done if he hadn't been killed.
(I once wrote a poem from Arthur's point of view and credited it to Uriah Pendragon.)
"Bathsheba was another man's wife
but he wanted her, so he took a life.
Yet everyone still sings his Hallelujah."
"But then - Then HE came along
and everything started to go wrong.
And I suppose that's the point of this song.
Now my baby's gone
and I'M ALONE AT THE PARTY."
"The heart asks pleasure first, and then excuse from pain.
And then those little anodynes that deaden suffering."
🤡 The worst years of my life:
My wife was involved with another man.
I spent my days working for an incompetent idiot who made my life hell.
I lost both of my parents.
I got stabbed in the back by two people I trusted who I thought were my best friends.
(The psychotic and the sycophant: one, a narcissist obsessed with proving himself right,
and the other, his enabler.)
My love life gradually disappeared. 🦋
I came to realize that no one really cared about me or the things I was interested in,
and that I was a failure as a musician and a poet.
I had no friends, my dreams were dead, and the best part of my life was in the past,
but it was the betrayals that bothered me the most.
I don't think I will ever completely recover from that period.
It robbed me of some of my self confidence and self esteem,
led to my use of alcohol as a pain killer,
often made suicide seem like a tempting option,
and contributed to my becoming a recluse.
Many of these events are reflected in the things I've written.
Η επιδίωξη της απάθεια:
Accipere res ut sunt. 🧙♂️
L'amour est le seul rêve qui compte.
NOW AVAILABLE!
This book is a limited edition, and copies are hand numbered. It will NOT be available through Amazon or other distributors. You must purchase it directly from the author or from this site. It is hard-back (not the spiral bind seen
Contraband Marriage, traveling along the hemline of loving after incarceration, is a love story written in lyric and free form, set in reality with a different ever after.
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"Among many morals which press upon us from the poor minister's miserable experience,
we put only this into a sentence: 'Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world,
if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred!'"
Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter) 📘
I was sitting in my Shanghai apartment in late 2007, trying to come up with lyrics for "The Ballad Of Henry Jekyll"
(which I never finished). I ended up writing "Sometimes Like Strangers" and "Hallelujah" instead.
I didn't finish another song until "Alone At The Party" in 2009. It was a rough time in my life.
In much of Cohen's song he identifies with David. My version was written more from
Uriah's point of view, about things he might have said and done if he hadn't been killed.
(I once wrote a poem from Arthur's point of view and credited it to Uriah Pendragon.)
"Bathsheba was another man's wife
but he wanted her, so he took a life.
Yet everyone still sings his Hallelujah."
"But then - Then HE came along
and everything started to go wrong.
And I suppose that's the point of this song.
Now my baby's gone
and I'M ALONE AT THE PARTY."
"The heart asks pleasure first, and then excuse from pain.
And then those little anodynes that deaden suffering."
🤡 The worst years of my life:
My wife was involved with another man.
I spent my days working for an incompetent idiot who made my life hell.
I lost both of my parents.
I got stabbed in the back by two people I trusted who I thought were my best friends.
(The psychotic and the sycophant: one, a narcissist obsessed with proving himself right,
and the other, his enabler.)
My love life gradually disappeared. 🦋
I came to realize that no one really cared about me or the things I was interested in,
and that I was a failure as a musician and a poet.
I had no friends, my dreams were dead, and the best part of my life was in the past,
but it was the betrayals that bothered me the most.
I don't think I will ever completely recover from that period.
It robbed me of some of my self confidence and self esteem,
led to my use of alcohol as a pain killer,
often made suicide seem like a tempting option,
and contributed to my becoming a recluse.
Many of these events are reflected in the things I've written.
Η επιδίωξη της απάθεια:
Accipere res ut sunt. 🧙♂️
L'amour est le seul rêve qui compte.