Tuesday, March 13, 2007
The Jimi Hendrix experience
I saw Jimi Hendrix standing in a bar down the road last night
He seemed kinda sad, but apart from that, alright.
He looked pretty young, considering his years.
It never occurred to me that he was dead.
It seemed perfectly right that he should be standing there,
So natural in fact, that nobody stared.
And he picked up his glass, raised it to his lip
But on reflection, I never saw him take a sip.
The walls of the bar were purple,
The air was kinda blue
And I couldn’t hear the music through the haze
of everybody’s conversation
Or were they just talking
‘bout what they would do at the weekend.
You’d think if you saw someone as famous as that,
You’d ask for his autograph,
or pat his back and say:
‘How’s it going Jimi, you’re my hero.’
But he looked so content, standing alone
like this is where he should have been all along.
Standing at the bar, without even a guitar
It never occurred to me that he was dead.
I thought I’d leave him in his peace
Pushed back my chair, and he looked up,
We caught each other’s eye for just a second
I smiled, then turned my head away,
that was everything I had to say.
And it never occurred to me that he was dead.
He seemed kinda sad, but apart from that, alright.
He looked pretty young, considering his years.
It never occurred to me that he was dead.
It seemed perfectly right that he should be standing there,
So natural in fact, that nobody stared.
And he picked up his glass, raised it to his lip
But on reflection, I never saw him take a sip.
The walls of the bar were purple,
The air was kinda blue
And I couldn’t hear the music through the haze
of everybody’s conversation
Or were they just talking
‘bout what they would do at the weekend.
You’d think if you saw someone as famous as that,
You’d ask for his autograph,
or pat his back and say:
‘How’s it going Jimi, you’re my hero.’
But he looked so content, standing alone
like this is where he should have been all along.
Standing at the bar, without even a guitar
It never occurred to me that he was dead.
I thought I’d leave him in his peace
Pushed back my chair, and he looked up,
We caught each other’s eye for just a second
I smiled, then turned my head away,
that was everything I had to say.
And it never occurred to me that he was dead.
Monday, May 22, 2006
The Big Bang
Don't you just love the anticipation of an empty page. Space. Ready to be filled with something. What do you do if you can't think of anything? Just sit down and start writing. It all comes out. It's a process - puts your memory into gear. The only problem is you can just carry on. It's like painting: you pick up a pencil and make a mark; then more; then you pick up the brush and squeeze out the paints and set to work. Before long the original marks have disappeared. But not gone. When you've finished there's no sign of what you started with, but you wouldn't have got there without making those first few marks. Of course you could just sit there and think about what to do. But that won't get you anywhere. It's the life of it that counts. The doing of it. It's like all the good ideas that anyone who smokes dope have; only while you're sitting around thinking, someone else is out there doing. It's easy to say what you're going to do, or going to be. But you are what you do. Me? I write. I paint. Live some kind of life. The pain is having to earn money. How many great writers, poets, musicians or artists haven't we enjoyed because they've been too busy earning a living? The only reason artists suffer is because they have no validity. This society is not geared towards creativity, except for making money. You have to waste so much time 'working', and squeezing minutes out of the day to create. But if you're successful, there are plenty of people who want to jump on board to share the credit. Give you an OBE or some other patronising 'reward'. We invent excuses to go to war, but you really have to fight if you want to live a creative life. It's a question of value. I value the act of creating, it has value for me. All I really want to do is to make a modest living, and be able to get on with writing and painting. There's a strange paradox, in the fact that you can only be successful once you're successful. Once you're successful, you can make a living at it. But there's lots of machinery in place that makes the decision about what is and isn't succesful. And fundamentally, it boils down to what will and will not make money. Like I said, it's a question of value. But there are different types of value. I don't believe in God. Not the religious ones anyway. But I do believe in a fundamental creative spirit. The force behind the Big Bang. Maybe that's what we should call this real, spiritual, creative god - 'the Big Bang'. Anyway, real progress is all to do with creativity, not destruction. (Although I think there are those that will argue that destruction is creative - I think the Futurists thought along these lines.) But there's so much in our day to day lives that destroys potential and spirituality (the Big Bank?). If you really want to be successful, then you have to fight to be creative, not matter what. And do it for yourself, because you can. Don't worry about criticism, especially from critics. Just create what you feel you have to create. Enjoy the potential of that blank space.
