Thursday, March 7, 2013

Overread at Booth 2: Be-Bop Deluxe's "Crystal Gazing"

Song of the Day for March 7, 2013

Be-Bop Deluxe
Crystal Gazing

The man who owned the heartache
That lived on the stairs
Passed me in the night whistling "Memories of You"

I stared to frightened to move
For fear my eyes shown a light
On the darkness he drew like a cloak
All around his shoulders

And the church on the corner
Marked the time for the mother
Who was giving birth to a child across the hall

And I waited half in anger half in sadness
For an answer to the call for help
I had written on the wall

And the rain fell like jewels
On the heads of all the fools
Who wandered crazed with their souls ablaze for me

And the blessing of the hour
Was the twilight and the tower
With it's golden bell from the bottom of the sea

And the moon through the window of the bedroom
Where lovers slumbered
Made a silver dance of such dust beneath the bed

And I waited for a moment in the lamplight
Crystal gazing
Listening to their hearts
And the changing of their breath
Listening to their hearts
And the changing of their breath
Listening to their hearts
And the changing of their breath



 These lyrics are soooo disturbing on a deep reading, because they seem to be indicating that the narrator is somehow secretively spying on the two lovers.   Perhaps he is a former lover?   Or perhaps he is simply a voyeur.   Either way, he is a poetic voyeur, but there is something darker to the lyric.   I've asked my class to delve deeper into it and produce a paper on the deeper meaning behind the song.

[from Phenergan's Wake]





A Poem for the Song of the Day
 
one foot peeps out from underneath the bedsheet
there are cracks in the paint on this windowsill,
as my breath fogs the outside of the windowpane.
 
 
 

No comments:

Post a Comment