regions of light and sound of god

[APR]

One of the websites that is streaming the song has comments below.  Someone compared the song to Cobra with all the change ups within the song.  I thought that made sense.

[MamaKel]

SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ THESE THOUGHTS IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS IN GOD'S MAN

I've been reading a lot about God's Man, and about how Jim related to the material...the themes of temptation, corruption, love, circumstance, fate, faith, death, life...and although I have only previewed the woodcuts and story (which I, of course, plan on reading), there is this sense that just when the artist thinks he has escaped the darkness...and falls in love, has a child, is happy, etc...that the darkness befalls him again, when he least expects it. And it is the darkness that befalls us all...the unavoidable reality of death, which ultimately compels the awareness of life. And this sort of Manichean symbolism...particularly given that the book is in black and white woodcuts, almost forces one into a sort of duality...a state of conflict. Which I believe is ultimately the trap from which the artist must transcend. Which is why I think it is so interesting that the novel ends with this sort of unwitting, Faustian, deal-with-the-devil scenario...where the artist discovers his fate in this dark, cruel kind of way...which Jim acknowledges inspired the song "All Is Forgiven" on the album. BUT...the album doesn't end there. The album ends with a song called "God's Love to Deliver"...this song, in my pre-meditated opinion, is the transcendence from duality.  It is what lies beyond the curtain of Death. Perhaps when the curtain is drawn back, therein lies transcendent awareness...consciousness...the artist's playground where every work is a masterpiece, so long as you are connected with that force...

Maybe I'm just thinking too far into this, and it just sounded better at the end.

It's prolly the latter. 

[MamaKel]

I also like that the Spin Magazine was done at the McKittrick Hotel...because there's like a real Twin Peaks reference there. And sometimes I feel like those weird coincidences are all part of him being a robot puppet master...

[sweatboard]

SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ THESE THOUGHTS IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS IN GOD'S MAN

I've been reading a lot about God's Man, and about how Jim related to the material...the themes of temptation, corruption, love, circumstance, fate, faith, death, life...and although I have only previewed the woodcuts and story (which I, of course, plan on reading), there is this sense that just when the artist thinks he has escaped the darkness...and falls in love, has a child, is happy, etc...that the darkness befalls him again, when he least expects it. And it is the darkness that befalls us all...the unavoidable reality of death, which ultimately compels the awareness of life. And this sort of Manichean symbolism...particularly given that the book is in black and white woodcuts, almost forces one into a sort of duality...a state of conflict. Which I believe is ultimately the trap from which the artist must transcend. Which is why I think it is so interesting that the novel ends with this sort of unwitting, Faustian, deal-with-the-devil scenario...where the artist discovers his fate in this dark, cruel kind of way...which Jim acknowledges inspired the song "All Is Forgiven" on the album. BUT...the album doesn't end there. The album ends with a song called "God's Love to Deliver"...this song, in my pre-meditated opinion, is the transcendence from duality.  It is what lies beyond the curtain of Death. Perhaps when the curtain is drawn back, therein lies transcendent awareness...consciousness...the artist's playground where every work is a masterpiece, so long as you are connected with that force...

Maybe I'm just thinking too far into this, and it just sounded better at the end.

It's prolly the latter. 

Wow!  I am going to try and digest this now, thank you.  AWESOME!!

[sweatboard]

I obviosly haent heard the whole album yet.  But, this song makes me feel like Jim has carefully knitted a warm blanket that I want to curl up in.  I can't stop listening, I really want to stop because I hate being overwhelmed with a single on an album because it tends to make the album less cohesive for me when it finally comes out.  I just simply can not stop wanting to listen/ curl up with this song. 

[sweatboard]

trippy; like the song, hate the video.

I actually think the video is genius.  It's subtle, it creates a bunch of different levels of thought for me.  Not to sound like a pretentious douchebag.  I just think there are ways of saying things that are both simple and complex at the same time. 

[MamaKel]

Maybe it's a patchwork quilt made of the threads of all the dreamweavers that have hung in his windows since childhood, that now weave dreams of the un-foretold future...

But curling up is TOTALLY the correct verbage.

Also, this song and the ideas that it is spinning in my head made me just deactivate my Twitter account in hopes of finding a hobby or something more constructive to do with my time...like writing weird, tripped-out thought-soup on MMJ's website.

I would move on, but I know they'll need me someday.  :happy:

I obviosly haent heard the whole album yet.  But, this song makes me feel like Jim has carefully knitted a warm blanket that I want to curl up in.  I can't stop listening, I really want to stop because I hate being overwhelmed with a single on an album because it tends to make the album less cohesive for me when it finally comes out.  I just simply can not stop wanting to listen/ curl up with this song.

[sweatboard]

thank you...I think?

[sweatboard]

 

[sweatboard]

I keep having these vivid dreams involving the song "Pictures Of You"  It always takes place in these really intamate settings, like in a tiny barn under a bunch of stars. 

[sweatboard]

Here is another "music video"....


50 Cent - Candy Shop ft. Olivia

[MamaKel]

No! Thank YOU! I feel like your posts the other day about the struggles of young genius artists (bright lights), having to give something up, or take on the burden of darkness...complimented by the whole woodcutting thing...really set the wheels in motion for this whole weird thing that happens everytime I get lost in some parallel universe of great art...and I'm so glad this is happening now, because the winter darkness will seem but a cloak.

Picture of You is one of the only, if not THE only, song that has always eluded me in feeling and meaning...I don't know why. It feels like it should be happy, but it's covering something up...like a cocaine smile, I guess.  But I really like the idea of it playing in a barn with the stars.

I always have these strange cityscape, city-escape dreams with them and their music.  They are these strange, flashing light circuses with echo-locating noises and firescape mazes and strange tunnel buildings and bodega facades and efforts to take every kind of public transportation to the outskirts of nowhere, just to hear the last part of the last song.

I wish there was a song that played. Like...just one song. Just so I could see all the images that my brain has come to associate with that feeling. I'm going to try to do it tonight. Meditate myself into slumber with a song and see if it works...

[sweatboard]

the struggles of young genius artists (bright lights), having to give something up, or take on the burden of darkness...complimented by the whole woodcutting thing...really set the wheels in motion for this whole weird thing that happens everytime I get lost in some parallel universe of great art...and I'm so glad this is happening now, because the winter darkness will seem but a cloak.

[sweatboard]

Blocks of Wood 

[MamaKel]

So I've been working on this painting of Jim for like a year, and during Red Rocks this year, I discovered that the solution to a problem I was having with his face was not in the light, but in the darkness...and it was so concurrent with my life...even opening with The Dark at Forecastle...some say coincidence is God incognito...whatever you call it...I've long been a believer that the solution to your problems is always a 180 degree mental shift.

SO...all this is going through my head this morning, and I thought:

Wouldn't it be cool if Jim, for his tour posters, had artists do remakes of the wood blocks...in their vision? I think it would be so amazing to see a story told through the imagery of a tour, whose album is based on the story...there's so many meta-levels of art in that...I think it would be amazing to see. It's like the symbol of rebirth where the snake eats its own tail...

[sweatboard]

some say coincidence is God incognito

I've never heard that before.  I LOVE it!! thank you.
,
If your idea for the posters on his solo tour doesn't happen I'll be sad.  It's Beautiful

[sweatboard]

I wonder if he shouldn't just give every audience member a block of wood and a knife.

[sweatboard]

and a blindfold.

[BH]

I can't stop listening, I really want to stop because I hate being overwhelmed with a single on an album because it tends to make the album less cohesive for me when it finally comes out.  I just simply can not stop wanting to listen/ curl up with this song.

I'm fighting it hard for the same reason.   I hate having a "single" on an album because a lot of time, down the road, I end up wanting to skip that song.    For some reason I don't think it will be as bad with this song but I'm still trying to keep from wearing it out.   I wish artists wouldn't release songs this far away from the album release.   Feb feels like an eternity away.

[MamaKel]

Aw, thanks...I think these conversations have my head in another, or perhaps a better, zone...so thank you!!!

I think that the Rolling Stones tried to get their fans to carve wood blocks at Altamont. It didn't end well...

Especially if he sings the part in At Dawn..."but that's when my knife rises..." There's a razor's edge between genius and madness...

some say coincidence is God incognito

I've never heard that before.  I LOVE it!! thank you.
,
If your idea for the posters on his solo tour doesn't happen I'll be sad.  It's Beautiful