"It Still Moves"

[tomEisenbraun]

So I'm listening to Strangulation last night and one of the last lines rolls around:

"but I know there's someone who loves up above
and wants to fix you a dream"

but I was in my kitchen and the stereo was in my living and I distinctly heard: "who moves up above"

Strange, so I alert Ms. Whothrewthecake and we both listen back, and sure enough, it is not "loves" as the lyrics would have it, but "moves".

Which brings the entire album of It Still Moves into perspective. If one of the final statements of At Dawn is about Jim's conception of what lies above us, then It Still Moves reiterates his beliefs and then offers up even more of that same power.

Quite interesting.

I don't know if I can really analyze any further than that, but I think it's very cool to have that tie from one album to the next like that. Even if it wasn't direct, it still makes that statement and gives us more of an idea of what exactly is doing the moving.

:)

[colleen]

That is interesting. Had never noticed that. Perhaps this has been discussed before but isn't "it still moves" also a reference to the story about Galileo where after he was required in court to recant his view that the earth moves around the sun, he muttered under his breath, "and yet, it still moves."  

[marktwain]

I hear him sing "who moves up above" now, too.  Huh.    I like that, Tom.  Good find.  I had always thought that there was some connection to the poem below, but maybe I'm wrong.  I love this poem, though, and I think it still applies - that search for meaning, the feeling that something is moving "up above," that can help make sense of what is here below.

 Somewhere It Still Moves

I was having dinner with my friends Howie and Francine.
The restaurant was old, maybe five hundred years:
whitewashed walls great black beams on the ceiling,
no windows. We felt we were in the midst of history.
As Americans, the past seemed absent from our country.
The waiter kept knocking his head with his fist, trying
to explain something. The only words we knew were Pivo-
beer and Dobro-good. Hitting his head like that,
he seemed to be telling Howie he was stupid. First
he would form his hands into a circle, then he would give
his forehead a smack. The waiter wore a white jacket,
black pants. Perhaps he was twenty-five. Okay, said Howie,
sure. Bring it to me, whatever it is. This was Sarajevo,
the spring of 1989. A week of poetry readings, meeting
other poets, strolling with ice creams, attending the Saturday
night dance at the old hotel, no different than dances
I had attended in Iowa or Pennsylvania or Detroit.
Near the Princip Bridge a pair of bronze footprints
were set into the sidewalk. We each placed our feet
into these bronze souvenirs. This is where Princip stood
when he shot the Archduke and his wife. When the waiter
bought our dinner, there were our plates and on Howie's
plate a paper bag., like the bag in which a schoolboy
packs his lunch. Howie opened it carefully. Brains
in a bag, lamb brains cooked in a paper bag. We recalled
how the waiter made a circle, then knocked his forehead.
This was Howie's dinner, He was delighted. He could
barely breathe for all his laughter, We all laughed
and drank red wine. The other tables were filled
with happy people, men and women eagerly discussing
the subjects of their passions. When the door opened,
there was music from the street and a warm breeze
smelling of foliage and the dust of a thousand years.
There was the constant clatter of silverware on dishes.
The waiter laughed with us. He is probably dead now.
Killed by a sniper as he crossed a street or stood
by a window. The restaurant, the entire block, has been
transformed into rubble, so many rocks at a crossroads.
I've seen pictures in the papers. And those other diners,
those easy eaters, those casual laughers? Some
on one side, some on the other, some blown to pieces,
some shot in the head. Scattered, scattered.
But all that came later. On one particular evening
The waiter brought his tray with a paper bag on a plate
And we laughed. A fragment of that sound is still traveling
so far out into the dark, and arrow perhaps glittering
in the flicker of distant stars. Somewhere it still moves.
I must believe that. Otherwise nothing else in the world
is possible. We are the creatures that love and slaughter.

By Stephen Dobyns

[BH]

that poem, "moved" me.  thanks for sharing.

[sonicsprawl]

This is actually the performance that got me into MMJ. I had heard about them and checked out the online videos, and the Conan "Holiday" must have been watched 10 times in a row. I went out the next day and grabbed "Z" and worked my way backwards. Now this Friday will be my first MMJ show here in Knoxville, can't wait!

[MMJ_fanatic]

Enjoy sonicsprawl--it will be an experience!

[sonicsprawl]

Sorry, I totally meant my post to be in another thread. Sorry

[ultravisitor]

Now this Friday will be my first MMJ show here in Knoxville, can't wait!

You have no idea what you're in for.