Gary Numan - “Cars” (1979)
—August 24th, 1979—“Cars,” the solo debut single by Gary Numan from the album The Pleasure Principle, was released. A pioneer of electronic music, complete with an androgynous robotic on-stage persona, Gary Numan’s first solo single was an immediate success. Within a month of its release, the song hit the number one spot on the UK Singles chart. The following year, the song had hit in North America, taking the top spot in Canada and peaking at number 9 in the US. In addition, the song was a top 20 hit in the UK in three successive decades: its initial release in 1979, a remixed version reached number 16 in 1987, and its use in a beer advert led to its charting again at number 17 in 1996
Changing of the Guards
Sixteen years
Sixteen banners united over the field
Where the good shepherd grieves
Desperate men, desperate women divided
Spreading their wings ’neath the falling leaves
Fortune calls
I stepped forth from the shadows, to the marketplace
Merchants and thieves, hungry for power, my last deal gone down
She’s smelling sweet like the meadows where she was born
On midsummer’s eve, near the tower
The cold-blooded moon
The captain waits above the celebration
Sending his thoughts to a beloved maid
Whose ebony face is beyond communication
The captain is down but still believing that his love will be repaid
They shaved her head
She was torn between Jupiter and Apollo
A messenger arrived with a black nightingale
I seen her on the stairs and I couldn’t help but follow
Follow her down past the fountain where they lifted her veil
I stumbled to my feet
I rode past destruction in the ditches
With the stitches still mending ’neath a heart-shaped tattoo
Renegade priests and treacherous young witches
Were handing out the flowers that I’d given to you
The palace of mirrors
Where dog soldiers are reflected
The endless road and the wailing of chimes
The empty rooms where her memory is protected
Where the angels’ voices whisper to the souls of previous times
She wakes him up
Forty-eight hours later, the sun is breaking
Near broken chains, mountain laurel and rolling rocks
She’s begging to know what measures he now will be taking
He’s pulling her down and she’s clutching on to his long golden locks
Gentlemen, he said
I don’t need your organization, I’ve shined your shoes
I’ve moved your mountains and marked your cards
But Eden is burning, either brace yourself for elimination
Or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards
Peace will come
With tranquillity and splendor on the wheels of fire
But will bring us no reward when her false idols fall
And cruel death surrenders with its pale ghost retreating
Between the King and the Queen of Swords
WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN
Copyright © 1978 by Special Rider Music
As there is the brewing fuss about the hagiography of Jackson in the film world Popbitch come’s up with this:
"When Jacko died fans turned the “Michael Jackson” star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame into a shrine. However, the star in question belonged to an LA radio host who was also called Michael Jackson. The actual MJ star was at the time covered by a red carpet set up for The Chinese Theatre premiere of Sasha Baron Cohen’s Brüno."
Don Van Vliet
"Parapliers The Willow Dipped", 1987
Oil on canvas.
198 x 147 cm / 78 x 57.75 inches
Here is Don's own description of his painting, from an interview with his friend Rip Rense in 1988:
"Hmmm. Looks like a landscape. There's a veridian mountain. There's also... I started to say an elk, but it isn't an elk, it's a carp... down at the bottom, under the mountain. Naturally. The carp is Hoggar blue, flesh, has two eyes, and various blues and greens. And a big Hoggar blue tail! And I'm trying to hold the thing down with my finger! Above that, there are some non-objective markings in black. There's a clicking time (clock) on this landscape and above that is violet, kind of... God, you know, it's hard to talk about paintings!"
Here is the link to Don's interview with Rip Rense:
John Prine - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 2-4-1974
I'm enjoying (and thus prioritizing) posting these Ebbets Field concerts for several reasons. 1) Most albums I post have issues, requiring a lot of tinkering to get things fixed to my satisfaction. That's much less the case with these broadcasts. That's probably a reflection of how well they were recorded in the first place. 2) Most of these are very rare and hard to find, with the exception of a small number. So I'm pleased to reveal these to a wider audience. 3) When I look at the concerts that took place in this venue, I'm really impressed. I find myself wishing I could have attended the vast majority of them. I've long felt the late 1960s and early 1970s were a peak of musical creativity in general, so that's part of it. But I also think the people who booked the music acts for this venue must have had very good musical taste.
Speaking of how rare these Ebbets Field broadcast bootlegs are, I was only able to find this one on YouTube. So I converted it to audio and chopped it into mp3s.
At this time of this concert, Prine had released three albums. He was touring to promote the third one, "Sweet Revenge." According to the crowd-sourced ratings at rateyourmusic.com, that album gets the highest ratings of all his albums other than he debut. So this is a good point to hear a concert from him.
The music is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent.
This album is 53 minutes long.
01 Spanish Pipedream
02 talk
03 The Accident [Things Could Be Worse]
04 talk
05 Sweet Revenge
06 talk
07 Illegal Smile
08 talk
09 Illegal Smile [Reprise]
10 talk
11 Donald and Lydia
12 Sam Stone
13 talk
14 Dear Abby
15 Rocky Mountain Time
16 Pretty Good
17 Hello in There
18 talk
19 Grandpa Was a Carpenter
20 talk
21 Christmas in Prison
22 Paradise
23 talk
24 My Mexican Home
(all songs John Prine )
Now we’re talking!
I struggled for the longest time to listen to any John Prine after his death from his last bout of cancer and the after effects of COVD-19 hit him when he was at his lowest (one of the first we lost to the epidemic) as I have mentioned before and only recently been able to listen to the later work. This however is a joy and an earlier set from 1974 so full of the early classic songs from Spanish Pipedream to Paradise
Enjoy! I know I did
