Category: literature

Analysis of ‘Third’

I: Introduction

Third is (as its title already tells us) the third album by the Canterbury Scene/psychedelic/progressive rock/jazz-fusion band, Soft Machine. The album came out in 1970. It’s the first Soft Machine album with saxophonist Elton Dean, and it–with Fourth–is of the two Soft Machine albums with him, original members Mike Ratledge (keyboards) and Robert Wyatt (drums/vocals), and it’s the second album with bassist Hugh Hopper (though he’d previously been their road manager and played bass on one of the tracks on their first album, as well as him getting songwriting credits on three of that album’s tracks).

As with Pink Floyd, Soft Machine (originally The Soft Machine, named after a novel by William S. Burroughs, and which even had briefly included guitarist/vocalist Daevid Allen) was a psychedelic band before venturing into progressive rock and jazz (Floyd having ventured off into what many call progressive rock, but due to the lack of virtuosic musicianship or complexity in their otherwise long songs, I’d just say Pink Floyd’s music is just uniquely their music…defying categorization). Third, though not completing the transition into jazz just yet, is clearly many huge leaps in that direction.

Vestiges of the old trippy, psychedelic sound can be heard at the experimental beginning and ending of “Facelift,” more or less throughout Wyatt’s “Moon in June,” and at the beginning and ending of Ratledge’s “Out-Bloody-Rageous,” with its trippy, repetitive, multi-tracked electric piano parts slowly fading in and out.

The fact that Third is a transitional album between Soft Machine’s original psychedelic rock sound and the jazz-fusion sound they’d eventually settle on is significant, particularly with respect to Wyatt’s place in the band. Significantly, “Moon in June” is not only the sole song on Third to have vocals and lyrics, but it’s also the very last Soft Machine track to have them.

From this point on to Wyatt’s leaving the band after Fourth, he would feel disenchanted about the direction Soft Machine was going in. He wanted to continue as a singer as well as a drummer, while the other three wanted to make purely instrumental jazz. Accordingly, his musical ideas were increasingly rejected by the other three. (Now, while I thoroughly respect Wyatt as a great drummer whose playing was tragically cut short after an accident at a party had left then-drunk Wyatt paralyzed from the waist down, I can understand the wish to play all instrumental music, as–I’m sorry to say this–he wasn’t always a great singer…he tends to sound flat from time to time.) After Fourth, Wyatt cofounded Matching Mole, a band whose name was inspired by, and is a pun on, the French translation of Soft Machine–‘Machine Molle.’ This new band could be seen as Wyatt’s vision of how Soft Machine should have been. They made music for about three years before Wyatt’s accident.

“Moon in June” can thus be seen as the centrepiece of Third, reflecting Wyatt’s “dilemma” of going on making instrumental jazz with Soft Machine, or singing in a different, progressive/psychedelic band.

II: Facelift

This track, being Side A of the double LP, was mostly recorded live at the Fairfield Halls, Croydon, on the 4th of January, 1970. The band performing was a short-lived quintet version of Soft Machine, with Ratledge, Wyatt, Hopper, Dean, and saxist/flautist Lyn Dobson. A brief section was recorded in the Mothers Club, Birmingham, on the 11th of January, 1970. Some recordings are from the 1969 Spaced project. Parts of “Facelift” involve tape collage and speeding up, slowing down, looping, and playing tapes backwards.

The music begins with Ratledge playing a Lowrey organ put through a fuzz box and Wah-wah (It’s clearly of the Spaced musical ideas mentioned above). Later, the saxes, bass, and drums join in. The music is in E minor.

As the drums are banging away in the background, the saxes are playing a convoluted tune that seems almost to go on forever. Next, there’s a tune in seven whose progression in the bass is E, E…F♯-F♯, G-G, F♯-F♯, and back to E to repeat the cycle. On top of this, the saxes play a shrill, grating melody. Over the grating sax, Ratledge does an organ solo.

After this, things slow down, with Ratledge playing low notes on a Hohner Pianet. Some brief sax playing segues into a slow, quieter section with Dobson doing a flute solo. Some of the notes he plays are of the breathy tone we’d expect from Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull.

As the flute solo continues, the rest of the band comes in, with sax honking and Ratledge’s Hohner Pianet. Eventually, a sax takes over the soloing, Dobson’s soprano sax. This fades a bit in volume.

Finally, there’s a return to the up-and-down chords in E, F♯, G, F♯, E riff, but on the Hohner Pianet. Then there’s a return to that convoluted sax tune, doubled on the Lowrey organ. Then, two treatments of this long riff are heard backwards simultaneously. The music fades out.

III: Slightly All the Time

Here is the first Soft Machine track that is 100% jazz. What was slightly jazzy on Soft Machine’s second album, Volume Two, is now jazzy all the time. The band has given themselves a facelift, of sorts, from psychedelic band to jazz band.

This second track, Side B of the double LP, is a medley of different instrumentals that include Ratledge’s “Backwards” and Hopper’s “Noisette.”

The music begins in D, with a bass line playing roots, fifths, and octaves, up and down: D, A, D. Next, we hear bass harmonics with roots and fifths again, as well as fourths, G. Wyatt starts playing on his hi-hat.

Then, the Hohner Pianet comes in with Dean’s alto sax and the rest of Wyatt’s drum kit. The music switches from chords grounded in D Dorian down to B♭major 7th, then back up to D Dorian. Next, a move up to the subdominant in G Dorian, then to the dominant, in A Dorian. Then, the progression goes up to C Dorian, and back up to the tonic D Dorian.

The band plays a brief passage in 11/8 time (subdivided 3+4+4), then goes back to the original progression, but with Dean soloing instead of playing the composed melody of before. With every return to the D Dorian tonic, there’s an overdubbed, harmonized, ascending sax refrain in triplets, then Dean continues soloing. This cycle goes on several times, then there’s a return to the composed sax melody.

Next is a return to the fast 11/8 passage. Then Ratledge’s Hohner Pianet takes it up to E Dorian, still in 11/8, but it’s subdivided 4+3+4 this time. We hear flute soloing by Jimmy Hastings. The 11/8 part on the Hohner Pianet is usually subdivided as just described, but sometimes it’s subdivided 3+3+3+2, at a ratio of four times to one, then two to one. The flute soloing continues (actually, it’s two overdubbed flute solos).

Next comes a passage in 9/4. We hear improvisations over a chord progression on the Hohner Pianet, going up and down, of A minor ninth and G minor ninth chords. First, Dean solos, then Ratledge does on the organ. You can hear Hastings playing a bass clarinet in the background, ascending notes of G, B♭, and C.

Next, we hear a soft rendition of Hugh Hopper’s “Noisette,” the melody heard on Dean’s sax. Then we hear Ratledge’s “Backwards” chord progression, a beautiful example of jazzy parallel harmony using mostly minor 7th or minor 9th chords. Dean solos over this progression.

After this soft passage, the progression will be done in quick, lively nine-beat cycles of 4+5 or 3+3+3, so an additive metre of 4+5/8 time, and sometimes, 9/8. Dean continues soloing, backed by Ratledge on the Hohner Pianet, then later on the Hammond organ, Hopper’s fingers wandering all over the neck of his bass, and Wyatt’s drums getting more and more aggressive, culminating in a fast roll of triplets on the snare to bring this section to a climactic end.

The track ends with a louder, more intense and powerful return to “Noisette,” and a loud honk from Dean’s sax on a high A.

IV: Moon in June

Side C of the double album, this track begins in E Mixolydian. Here is a link to the complete lyric.

The song is in three parts: Wyatt plays all the instruments for the first part (I suppose this means he even played that high-pitched bass solo early on, rather than Hopper, whose fuzz bass will be clearly demonstrated about ten minutes into the track). The second part, with Ratledge and Hopper, is an instrumental passage of the jazz-oriented style we largely hear on the rest of the album. The third part is a drone featuring Wyatt doing scat singing and violinist Rab Spall, whose playing was recorded separately, with the tape sped up and slowed down to make it fit with the rest of the music.

It’s telling that “Moon in June” is not only the last Soft Machine song with lyrics and vocals, and the last Soft Machine song written by Wyatt, but also largely a solo song of his rather than one played by the whole band from beginning to end (Dean, one of the main forces moving the band in a jazz direction, significantly doesn’t appear on this track at all). I hear in this song a kind of allegorical expression of Wyatt’s increasing alienation from Ratledge, Hopper, and Dean.

Essentially, “Moon in June” (named after a 1929 play, called June Moon, which was made into a movie in 1931, about an aspiring young lyricist who goes to New York City and falls in love with a girl there; evidently from reading Wyatt’s lyric, one can see that he identifies with the lyricist in the play/movie) is about Wyatt being in New York and in an affair with a girl there, yet he also feels homesick for England.

Wyatt’s “dilemma”–about whether to stay with this girl “in New York State” or to be “home again” back in England–I believe can be seen as allegorical of his tough decision about whether to stay in Soft Machine, with its continuing move in the direction of jazz (a music form that originated in the US), or to return to his psychedelic musical roots by leaving the band and starting a new one (i.e., Matching Mole, from England) that will play music allowing him to sing as well as play the drums. (On his debut solo album, End of an Ear (1970), Wyatt described himself as an “Out of work pop singer currently on drums with Soft Machine.”)

The “dilemma between what [he] need[s] and what [he] just want[s]” is between the need to play the kind of music he was meant to play and enjoying the pleasures of being in a band where he can play gigs, make money, party, and chase women. This last pleasure, of course, is described rather explicitly in the next part of the opening verse.

In the second verse, particularly towards the end of it, Wyatt seems confused as to which choice in his dilemma is a need and which is a want (“‘Tis all the thing I want is need”). He also seems confused about his own identity: is he himself, or is he the girl? (“‘Til all the thing I are [sic] I’m you.”) “I are,” as in you are. The girl, in this context, represents Soft Machine, for from the perspective of male lust, a woman’s body is a ‘soft machine’ of sorts. He’s in the band, just as he’s in her sexually (“Between [her] thighs”).

After this second verse, we get the bass solo, which given the skill in playing it, I still have difficulty believing Wyatt played it instead of Hopper; the drums were Wyatt’s main instrument–as a secondary instrument for him, the bass would have been something he presumably little more than dabbled at playing. In any case, this confusion between Wyatt and Hopper reinforces our sense of the former’s enmeshment in the band (“I’m you.”).

In the third verse, Wyatt discusses more of his lovemaking with the girl, and his talk of “needs” and “wanting” sounds like more of the interchangeability of the two, reinforcing the sense of his dilemma: to stay in Soft Machine, or to quit? She, Soft Machine personified, is “on the [phallic] horns of [his] dilemma.”

“Oh, wait a minute” sounds like his Hamlet-like indecisiveness and delaying of an answer to his question: to be or not to be in Soft Machine? It’s “lovely here in New York State” (i.e., touring the US with the band), but he wishes he “were home again” (i.e., with a new British band, playing the kind of music he should be playing–with vocals).

It’s fitting that this album is named Third, not just because it’s the third Soft Machine album, but also because it can be understood to represent the third element of the dialectic—sublation, or a reconciling of opposing ideas. This is not to say that the first two albums respectively must be considered the thesis and negation (i.e., a purely psychedelic album and a purely jazz album; though the first album is purely psychedelic rock, it’s Fourth that’s purely a jazz album, not Volume Two, which is still largely psychedelic with some jazz leanings). So the true psychedelic/jazz dialectic, if you will, of Soft Machine is thesis (the first album–psychedelic), negation (Fourth–jazz), and sublation (Third–jazz and psychedelic rock, as heard especially in “Moon in June”).

This sublated dialectic can also be seen in the title of Wyatt’s song here. Apart from its obvious reference to the play and film mentioned above, “Moon in June” can also represent sublated opposites: the moon during one of the sunniest months of the northern hemisphere (or at least in late June). There’s the darkness of a moonlit night as against a time when the northern hemisphere is tilted towards the sun. The moon and stars give light in the darkness of the night, at a time when the days are the longest, during the summer solstice, on June 20, 21, or 22. It’s an intensely yin and yang moment.

Wyatt sings, “The sun shines here all summer; it’s nice ’cause you can get quite brown.” Here again we have the dialectic of light and dark with “shines” and “quite brown.” Also, since the song can be seen as an allegory of Wyatt’s conflict over staying in an increasingly jazz-oriented band vs returning to a psychedelic-oriented sound, “quite brown” could be understood as an indirect reference to being more and more of a musician playing a style that is to a great extent associated with African-Americans. Now, getting “quite brown” is “nice,” so Wyatt has nothing against jazz or black people, just so we’re clear. He just doesn’t want that kind of music to be the only thing he ever gets to play.

Yet another dialectical opposition is understood in the shining fire of the sun vs the water of the rain. The “ticky-tacky-ticky” is an onomatopoeia that emphasizes the drops of the rain–rather like the ‘dropping’ of LSD that psychedelic rock tries to provide a soundtrack for…and that’s the kind of music that Wyatt misses playing back in England.

In the fifth verse, Wyatt fittingly discusses the making of music, such as its “normal functions” as “background noise” for people doing anything other than actually listening to it: “scheming, seducing, revolting, teaching.” This trivializing of music as “only leisure time” rather than as serious art is “alright by [him],” which suggests that he wanted to depreciate the serious art of jazz that Soft Machine was moving in the direction of.

His conflict, over whether to stay in the band or quit, continues when he sings in the sixth verse of how he loves the eyes of his girl (Soft Machine personified, recall); yet “she’s learning to hate,” which sounds like the beginning of tensions between him on the one side, and Ratledge, Hopper, and Dean on the other. That “it’s just too late for [Wyatt]” implies that he knew already that his days with Soft Machine were numbered, for “her love…just wasn’t enough for [him].”

In the seventh verse, he addresses her and “you,” as if he is in a love triangle with two jealous women–“she” being Soft Machine, and “you” being the kind of musical project he wants to do, a return to his psychedelic rock roots…or is it the other way around? Is “she” the psychedelic project, and are “you” Soft Machine? In such ambiguity of which woman personifies which kind of music, we can see the full extent of his conflict, his “dilemma.” Which does he prefer, really?

After the end of the seventh verse, there is an instrumental passage, and it is here, about nine and a half minutes into the track, that Ratledge and Hopper finally come in and start playing, with the latter’s distinctive fuzz bass. They play a theme in three bars of 6/8 and one of 4/8, in E: E♭, F♯, D, D♭, B, D, E, D, D♭(2x), D (2x). Then Ratledge does an organ solo in E Dorian with parallel chords above and below that tonality: first F Dorian, then E♭Dorian and C Dorian. Wyatt is vocalizing in the background.

Next, we come to the final “drone” section, also in E. We can hear Ratledge’s Hohner Pianet harmonizing in the whole tone scale, Hopper’s fuzz bass humming in the background, and of course Spall’s sped-up, slowed-down violin. Wyatt’s high-pitched voice is barely audible in the background, the words he sings being references to a pair of Kevin Ayers songs. Such references to a former member of the band, back during its purely psychedelic period, once again demonstrates Wyatt’s wish to return to that kind of music.

V: Out-Bloody-Rageous

Side D of the double album, this instrumental fades in slowly with Ratledge’s overdubbed Hohner Pianet playing repetitive lines in C Dorian. The style is inspired by the music of minimalist composer Terry Riley.

After about five minutes of this, Ratledge’s acoustic piano can be heard playing what will be the bass line of the main theme. Dean will soon come in with overdubbed sax, his lines a fifth apart from each other. The time signatures alternate between a bar in 9/8 and one in 3/4.

Between the playing of this theme in C Dorian will be two brief interruptions of irregular rhythms in A Dorian. At one point, the restatement of the main, C Dorian theme will be heard briefly on acoustic piano, but with the alternating time signatures reversed to 3/4, then 9/8, then it will return to the original sax theme with the original ordering of the time signatures. A third interruption in A Dorian will be heard, with Dean’s saxes honking in three bars of 6/8.

Then Ratledge will do an organ solo in C Dorian, which alternates in parallel harmony in C♯ Dorian. He backs the solo up with acoustic piano chords, along with Hopper and Wyatt, too, all of them playing in the alternating bars of 9/8 and 3/4. Ratledge’s solo will go on for about three and a half minutes, then Dean’s saxes will arrive in the background.

There’s a brief return to the Riley-like Hohner Pianet overdubs, then a moment of Ratledge playing a sedate, yet melancholy tune on the acoustic piano. Dean soon joins in, with Nick Evans‘s trombone, too. Next comes a passage in five, still in C Dorian. Dean solos over this, then he plays harmonized themes in intervals of fourths and fifths, with the energy picking up and reaching a climax.

Finally, before the fade-out outro, there’s a climactic riff in one bar each of 4/8, 5/8, and 6/8: D, C, E♭, D, C, E♭, D, C, B♭, and variations thereof. The Riley-like outro has Hohner Pianet patterns in 6/8, 7/8, 3/4, etc., all in C Dorian. The music slowly fades out as it faded in at the beginning of the track. All so psychedelic and trippy.

VI: Conclusion–After Third

Wyatt would leave Soft Machine soon after the release of Fourth. He was replaced by drummer Phil Howard, then John Marshall. On the album Fifth, Howard is heard on Side One, and Marshall is on Side Two.

Dean quit after that album, and Six would be the last album with Hopper. Karl Jenkins (saxes, oboe, keyboards) would replace Dean, and bassist Roy Babbington would replace Hopper on Seven. Guitarist Allan Holdsworth would join the band for Bundles, then he’d be replaced by John Etheridge for the album Softs, during the sessions of which even Ratledge quit, leaving the band with no original members! (And I thought Robert Fripp had problems with constant personnel changes in King Crimson.)

From then on, Soft Machine would release a live album in 1978, then Land of Cockayne in 1981, and there were breakups and reunions of the band in one form or another over the decades, never with any original members, all of whom (as of this article) have died, except for Wyatt.

The Tanah: Amores–Four More Love Spells

[The following is the thirty-eighth of many posts–here is the first, here is the second, here is the third, here is the fourth, here is the fifth, here is the sixth, here is the seventh, here is the eighth, here is the ninth, here is the tenth, here is the eleventh, here is the twelfth, here is the thirteenth, here is the fourteenth, here is the fifteenth, here is the sixteenth, here is the seventeenth, here is the eighteenth, here is the nineteenth, here is the twentieth, here is the twenty-first, here is the twenty-second, here is the twenty-third, here is the twenty-fourth, here is the twenty-fifth, here is the twenty-sixth, here is the twenty-seventh, here is the twenty-eighth, here is the twenty-ninth, here is the thirtieth, here is the thirty-first, here is the thirty-second, here is the thirty-third, here is the thirty-fourth, here is the thirty-fifth, here is the thirty-sixth, and here is the thirty-seventh–about a fictitious discovery of ancient manuscripts of a religious text of narratives and magic spells. Its purpose for my readers and me is to provide a cosmology and mythography on which I am basing much, if not most, of my fiction–short stories and novels. If anyone is interested in reading this fiction, he or she can use these blog posts as references to explain the nature of the magic and universe in my fiction.]

Translator’s Comment: apparently, men in the ancient world were as insecure about their size as they are today.

Phallus Enlargement Spell

[Burn a small flame on the ground outside on a windy day. Hold a long, thick rock over the flame, close enough that the flame is almost touching the rock. Recite the following line over and over.]

Drofurb, grow it!

Comment: try not to chuckle as much as we translators did.

Improve Lovemaking Skills Spell

[Put a pot filled with water over a small flame on the ground. Do this outside, on a windy day. As the water begins to boil, start dropping small, spherical rocks into it. Stir the rocks inside slowly with a wooden spoon as you repeatedly chant the following verse.]

Weleb, blow a lover’s skill into me!
Nevil, make my lover burn with desire for me!
Drofurb, ground, solidify our love!
Priff, have effortless pleasure flow through us!

Power Through Vulnerability Spell

[Take a ritual bath in water that has been heated in pots over a large fire. Have round stones placed on the bottom of the bath. Get naked, go in the water, and lie on your back after briefly soaking your head in it. Stay in the water as you chant the following verse slowly, nine times.]

Weleb, in my weakness, give me strength.
Nevil, in my coldness, give me heat.
Drofurb, in my nakedness, clothe me.
Priff, in my thirst, give me drink.

Comment: this spell is one of the most blatant to use the principle of the unity of contraries as a basis of the power of magic. In weakness and vulnerability, one finds strength and power, because these opposites are one, as are all opposites understood to be, for the one always flows toward the other, like Priff’s water.

Because of women’s lack of political power in the ancient world, it was women who usually used this spell to gain some kind of power, however indirectly. Being naked while doing the spell was thus indispensable for this purpose.

Resolving Arguments/Making-up Spell

[If the other party does not wish to take part in this spell, you must make an effigy of him or her, life-sized and as close in likeness to the other as possible, to make this an effective spell. Either you and the other party, or you and the effigy, must embrace tightly while reciting the verses over and over. Recite them twice as many times if with the effigy.]

Weleb, blow the two of us back together!
Nevil, change our fire of hate to love!
Drofurb, make our love as strong as stone!
Priff, make our love flow into each other’s!

Comment: this is one of those rare ‘Amores’ spells that the elders actually approved of.

The Tanah: Amores–Three More Love Spells

[The following is the thirty-seventh of many posts–here is the first, here is the second, here is the third, here is the fourth, here is the fifth, here is the sixth, here is the seventh, here is the eighth, here is the ninth, here is the tenth, here is the eleventh, here is the twelfth, here is the thirteenth, here is the fourteenth, here is the fifteenth, here is the sixteenth, here is the seventeenth, here is the eighteenth, here is the nineteenth, here is the twentieth, here is the twenty-first, here is the twenty-second, here is the twenty-third, here is the twenty-fourth, here is the twenty-fifth, here is the twenty-sixth, here is the twenty-seventh, here is the twenty-eighth, here is the twenty-ninth, here is the thirtieth, here is the thirty-first, here is the thirty-second, here is the thirty-third, here is the thirty-fourth, here is the thirty-fifth, and here is the thirty-sixth–about a fictitious discovery of ancient manuscripts of a religious text of narratives and magic spells. Its purpose for my readers and me is to provide a cosmology and mythography on which I am basing much, if not most, of my fiction–short stories and novels. If anyone is interested in reading this fiction, he or she can use these blog posts as references to explain the nature of the magic and universe in my fiction.]

Hypnotism Spell

[Lure your lover into a dark place lit only with a small flame on the top of a stick or candle held in your hand. Look your lover in the eyes, recite the verse, and immediately on finishing the recitation, blow the flame out in the direction of his or her face. Your lover should lose consciousness and fall to the ground if you have recited the verse with proper diction and sufficient faith in the Crims.]

[Lover’s name], sleep for me.
[Lover’s name], yield to me.
Weleb, blow Nevil’s fire.
Weleb, give me my desire.

Comment: one of the especially wicked spells that were abominated by the tribal elders, this one was believed to be most effective if particular materials were used for the stick or candlestick: a wood favourable to Drofurb, Crim of the earth, such as silver birch, or tallow whose smoky, foul smell has been somehow minimized. As with so many of these spells, details on what specific materials are to be used are scant. Perhaps a separate, as yet unfound set of writings has these recorded?

Pheromone Perfume Spell

[Mix wood and citrus scents into the soap used for the ritual bath for this spell, a bath to be prepared with the same instructions as those for the anti-aging and sexual attraction spells previously given, but with this new verse.]

Weleb, spread my allure throughout the air!
Of Nevil’s fiery scent be all aware!
May Drofurb’s herbs be all-enticing smells!
May this bath make the best of lovers’ spells!

Comment: though there was of course no such thing as a “pheromone perfume” (i.e., using synthetic chemical compounds, as used today) in the ancient world, we felt that “Pheromone Perfume Spell” was a better translation of Akhnar Wayat Bilm than “Animal Sex Smell,” which though a literal translation, sounded off-puttingly crude to us. While this spell is largely a variation on the “Sexual Attraction Spell” given previously, two differences should be noted: firstly, this one emphasizes the scent, whereas the previous one only briefly refers to fragrance; secondly, where the previous spell is meant only to attract this or that particular lover, this new one doesn’t discriminate–any and all lovers are welcome…to the point of orgies, even.

Commitment Spell

[Make two small wooden figurines as effigies of oneself and the desired lover; their closer resemblance to the actual pair of lovers in real life, the more effective the spell. Use birch bark tar to make the two adhere to each other while repeatedly chanting the following verse.]

Drofurb, make our love as solid as stone!
Nevil, make my love burn in his bones!
Weleb, never blow his love away!
Priff, always have his love flow back my way!

Comment: this spell was generally a woman’s prayer to the four Crims to make her man commit to her, hence, our translated name of it, “Commitment Spell,” as opposed to the “Stick Him to Her Spell,” which is a more literal translation of Guro Shuk Er Im Bah, but also a cruder-sounding one, in our opinion.

The Tanah: Amores–Translator’s Introduction and First Four Spells

[The following is the thirty-sixth of many posts–here is the first, here is the second, here is the third, here is the fourth, here is the fifth, here is the sixth, here is the seventh, here is the eighth, here is the ninth, here is the tenth, here is the eleventh, here is the twelfth, here is the thirteenth, here is the fourteenth, here is the fifteenth, here is the sixteenth, here is the seventeenth, here is the eighteenth, here is the nineteenth, here is the twentieth, here is the twenty-first, here is the twenty-second, here is the twenty-third, here is the twenty-fourth, here is the twenty-fifth, here is the twenty-sixth, here is the twenty-seventh, here is the twenty-eighth, here is the twenty-ninth, here is the thirtieth, here is the thirty-first, here is the thirty-second, here is the thirty-third, here is the thirty-fourth, and here is the thirty-fifth–about a fictitious discovery of ancient manuscripts of a religious text of narratives and magic spells. Its purpose for my readers and me is to provide a cosmology and mythography on which I am basing much, if not most, of my fiction–short stories and novels. If anyone is interested in reading this fiction, he or she can use these blog posts as references to explain the nature of the magic and universe in my fiction.]

Translator’s Introduction

Here we come to perhaps the most controversial of the spells, for on the one hand, the elders of the tribe abominated them for their wickedness, while others coveted them for their perceived ability to fulfill so many sexual desires. As with the Lyrics, these Amores‘ efficacy seems to depend on their users’ unshaking faith in the power of the Crims–Nevil, the Crim of fire (and therefore, of sexual passion) in particular. These spells are chanted, not sung, as are the Lyrics.

Apart from the supposed magical power of the original language–whose rhythms, alliteration, assonance, etc., cannot adequately be rendered in English–some other items are to be used to aid in the effectiveness of the spells, being either indispensable or at least helpful in achieving the best results. These include early forms of soap that combined animal fat with fire ashes; though the spells involved bathing while wiping the soap all over one’s body, the purpose wasn’t cleaning oneself–it was about spreading the benefits of the magic’s power all over oneself.

Anti-aging, youth-preserving spell

[Burn wood to ashes while invoking Nevil. Drip animal fat on the ashes, still invoking Nevil. Get naked and bathe with the soap made from the ashes and animal fat while repeatedly chanting the following lines.]

Nevil, keep all wrinkles off of me!
Nevil, keep my skin smooth as can be!
Nevil, keep me beautiful and desired!
Keep me young with your so holy fire!

Sexual attraction spell

[The following lines are to be repeatedly chanted with the same instructions as those of the anti-aging spell above. Be careful, upon completion of the ritual bath and incantation, to have present only the desired one to be attracted by the spell.]

Nevil, make him want me.
Nevil, draw him to me.
Make my fragrance pull him near.
May I have his eyes and ears.

Comment: this spell was generally used by women to attract men, hence the warning to ensure that only the desired men be at hand once the bath and spell were completed. Spells for men to attract–really, to seduce–women, were of a different sort, an example of which will be found soon below.

Potency spell

[Burn a fire surrounded in a mound of dirt. Wave a rock, ideally, one of a phallic shape, over the flame while repeatedly chanting the following lines.]

Nevil, have me ready for her.
Nevil, do sustain me for her.

Seduction spell

[Burn a small flame in a private room into which you would have the desired woman enter and meet you. Repeatedly chant the following lines while, on one side of the flame and her on the other, you keep eye contact with her.]

[Her name], receive me.
[Her name], yield to me.

Analysis of ‘Indent’

Indent is a live album by avant-garde jazz pianist Cecil Taylor, recorded in March of 1973. It was the first solo piano performance he ever released, recorded at Antioch College, in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He taught at Antioch from 1971-1973.

I’d first heard of Cecil Taylor’s music through an enigmatic quote from Frank Zappa: “If you want to learn how to play guitar, listen to Wes Montgomery. You also should go out and see if you can get a record by Cecil Taylor if you want to learn how to play the piano.” You will find this quote to be all the more enigmatic once you hear Taylor’s music, wondering how one is actually supposed to learn how to play the piano from emulating Taylor’s relentless, indefatigable virtuosity, especially as it is applied to such an unconventional musical style.

Indeed, to say that Taylor’s music is not easy listening would be the understatement of the year. It is undoubtedly an acquired taste, so be forewarned before hearing any of it. If you stick with it, though, and keep an open mind, you’ll find it rewarding.

I recommend starting with an album like Indent, or Air Above Mountains (Buildings Within) from 1976, for these are solo piano albums, and you can clearly hear what Taylor is doing without what will (at least at first ) seem like the chaos of saxophone wailing and endless drum rolls by players like Jimmy Lyons and Andrew Cyrille respectively, two regular members of Taylor’s “Unit.” This is why I’m analyzing Indent, apart from the fact that there is also poetry, on the back cover of the LP, which I wish to analyze.

Taylor’s music is characterized as being rushes of seemingly endless energy, eschewing conventional melody, harmony, tonality, rhythm, or structure. He was part of the free jazz movement that developed in the early 1960s with players like saxophonist Ornette Coleman, so the music is generally atonal and dissonant. Strongly influenced by 20th century classical composers like Igor Stravinsky and Anton Webern, Taylor started off as a classically trained pianist before going into jazz.

While many jazz musicians of the 1960s were getting inspiration from 20th century classical music, Taylor went beyond the more usual influences of these to create a musical style totally unique to him, with–for example–cascades of tone clusters as being a regular feature of his improvising. He once said that he liked to imitate the leaps of a dancer in his playing, and one can hear that in the way the tone clusters fly along the range of the piano keys.

His piano is a percussion instrument, in effect: “eighty-eight tuned drums,” as Val Wilmer once described Taylor’s playing. This music is demanding on the listener, who must give full attention to it. Lacking conventional rhythm, the music cannot be tapped to or bopped to; I once read somewhere that listeners tend to sway to the music instead, for it is constant, frenetic energy, like fast triplets going on almost forever. At the end of any performance, Taylor had to be exhausted.

Cecil Taylor wasn’t just a piano player: he was also an accomplished poet. As I mentioned above, he had some of his poetry printed on the back cover of Indent; these are called “Scroll No. 1” and “Scroll No. 2.” I will be going into an analysis of these, as well as of the album’s music, below. It will be clear upon reading them of how he was preoccupied with politics in the US.

He was black, with some Native American ancestry. He was also gay, though he didn’t want to be labelled as such, feeling there was so much more to him (of course) than his sexuality. Staying in the closet all the way to the 1980s (when he was outed by Stanley Crouch), because of the homophobia of the jazz world (as well as that of conservative blacks), was necessary for his survival.

These three aspects of his humanity–being black, aboriginal, and gay–left him on the margins of society, and they therefore surely affected his music and poetry, making both highly experimental and expressive of the alienation he must have felt. Being part Cherokee on his mother’s side, and part Kiowa on his father’s, he would have been close to nature, having been taught by his father to appreciate the trees in Manhattan; we can see some of his love of nature in “Scroll No. 1,” as we’ll take a look at soon enough.

The choice of a title for the album seems to represent an aspect of the ‘scrolls” presentation on the back cover. Apart from the left margins, each beginning with “Whistle into night” and “Nation’s lost diplomacy,” there are middle indentations, each starting with “blue’s history” and “crophandler,” then there are far-right indentations, each beginning with “White crucifix” and “asleep.” That the whole album is named Indent rather than the poems seems to indicate that the music on it is supposed to be linked with the poetry.

Certainly, Lynette Westendorf, in her analysis of Cecil Taylor: Indent–“Second Layer” (which by the way gives a much more detailed analysis of the musical structure of that part of the performance than I am capable of doing of any or all of it), sees a link between the ‘scrolls’ and the ‘three layers,’ as the album’s music is divided into. As she understands it, the left margin lines correspond to the First Layer, the middle indented lies correspond to the Second Layer, and the far-right indented lines correspond to the Third Layer (pages 314-319 of her analysis).

Now, apart from dividing both the music and the poems into threes, I can’t hear any other parallels to be made between their structures, as Taylor’s musical style remains quite consistent throughout (unless one were to do as meticulous and scholarly an analysis as Westendorf does). Indeed, with no intention of bad-mouthing Taylor, his pianistic style sounds quite the same more or less throughout his mature period, so it’s hard for me to differentiate.

So, what do the indentations represent? It’s interesting how the…far right…indentation begins with imagery associated with white supremacy: “White crucifix” and “White God” to represent the religion that the Ku Klux Klan, with their “White flame” and “White hood,” use to justify their racism. By way of analogy, could the middle indentations and left margins respectively correspond, in any way, if only ironically so, with the political centre and left in the US?

Not exactly, but I’d say the far-right indentations embody a hate hidden by polite society, the Third Layer. The left margins embody illusions of goodness and justice not so well disguised, and the middle indentations embody various desires, sexual and otherwise, and how those desires are frustrated.

Here is a link to the poetry, and here is a link to the live recording.

In the left margins, we “whistle into night,” and perhaps the tune we whistle is what’s heard on the piano at the beginning of the First Layer: octaves of B, B-flat, C, A-flat, B-flat, G-flat, A-flat, these then played an octave lower, all to a jerky rhythm. We seem to be in a good mood as we whistle this tune, but the feeling is illusory, given how later on down the left margin, “indignation laments.” The political world that Taylor grew up in, a superficially liberal one, was also one he was left out of as a black gay man.

In the America that marginalized him, “difference” was an “excuse” to mistreat him. These liberals, so superficially progressive, weren’t particularly kind to the environment, either. Their “city technique” resulted in a “tar flesh” that “trampled seeds.”

Almost as a kind of call and response, the next piano tune, again in octaves, and one that you could “whistle into night,” is G-flat, B, D-flat, G-flat, A, E, G-flat, then lower with B, D-flat, G-flat, A, E, G-flat again. Then, back to variations on the first tune, with a brief return to the second. With the jerky, irregular rhythms are also contrasts in dynamics that from time to time remind me of those in the second of Olivier Messiaen‘s Quatre études de rythme, louds and softs often divorced from conventional expressivity…that is, except for the anger of Taylor’s percussive pounding on the keys.

Just as the left margins of the poem go from illusory pleasantness to hard underlying reality, so does the music move from relatively consonant (by Taylor’s standards, at least) tunes in octaves to the more dissonant use of minor and major seconds (about a minute into the recording). And as anyone familiar with Taylor’s music knows, it will get much more dissonant very soon.

“Spring cotton answer” may seem like an answer to a problem, but the picking of cotton sounds like the opposite of an answer to black people, whose “indignation laments” their history as slaves.

A confrontation with the “duplicity” and “demagogic democracy” of Scroll No. 2 shows that matters are getting worse. One tries to be so “damned dutiful” in a country of “lost diplomacy,” with so much “white white.” A few black politicians (in recent years, think of Obama or Kamala Harris) do not do much to compensate for continued racism against blacks–hence, the sarcasm of “‘yeah bo’/I’ma Senatah!”

I can imagine the first of Taylor’s trademark cascades of tone clusters up and down the piano in this First Layer as corresponding to the line “You just sing dance unseen,” like so many invisible, marginalized American blacks and gays trying to be heard in a mainstream society that is so deaf and blind to them. Recall his words in this connection: “I try to imitate on the piano the leaps in space a dancer makes.”

Later on down the left margin of Scroll No. 2, Taylor continues his sarcastic ‘Uncle Tom’ voice by saying “‘Ah is so happy/Youse mah master” to the moderate white liberal who pretends to care about blacks, but in their…whitewashing…of people like MLK, whose socialism they conveniently gloss over, they are little better than the old white slaveowners–hence, “Youse mah master”…”Kick me agin.” These untrustworthy faux progressives have “ground life out.”

Because of the white moderate, “justice [is] invisibly/impenetrable.” Why can’t the white moderate, or any liberal in general, be trusted? Because capitalism corrupts everything, or as Taylor put it, “Dry cell of money/ has locked the minds/and cauterized hearts.” The love of money is a prison cell we’re all locked in.

Next, we come to the Second Layer, which on the LP is divided into two parts so the whole performance would fit on the record’s two sides almost equally, but which is really just one long, continuous performance, and which combined together would be of exactly equal length to the First Layer (13:40). Since, according to Westendorf’s interpretation (see link above), the Second Layer corresponds to the middle indentations of the two ‘scrolls,’ I’ll be examining these with this particular part of the music. As I said above, I find as a recurring theme in the middle indentations one of desire and the anatomical part-objects of such desire, sexual or otherwise.

As I also said above, Westendorf’s analysis (link above) of the Second Layer is far more thorough and capable than what I can give, so I recommend reading it. Still, I’ll do my best here.

The music starts with a ‘melody’ of succeeding B octaves in the bass register of the piano. Then, we have, in octaves played at the same time, B and F-sharps, Bs and Gs, Bs and Es, and Bs and F-naturals. So, as with the opening ‘whistled’ tune of the First Layer, here there’s no substantial dissonance…yet. There’s desire, but its frustration is soon to come.

As for the poem, “blue’s history” can be the sad history of African-Americans, or a history told through singing he blues. In all of this, there is a desire to rid themselves of the pain, to ‘exorcise’ it. This desire is the “awakened needs” of black people.

There is a desire for “recognition” (as Lacan also observed), to be acknowledged and desired by the object of one’s desire, including such part-objects as the “titty,” “ass’n” “prick.” The “bent whore’s” desire may also be desired, with her “recognition” of us.

The middle indentations have all the naughty words in them (including the aforementioned ones, and “shit”; “Damned,” from the left margins, is mild enough of an oath not to count–in fact, it could simply mean that corrupt politicians are “damned” in the religious sense for being “dutiful” to the ruling class). The desire to have fun saying dirty words is an example of how “puerility romps” and delights in breaking the rules.

Desire’s “tongue tastes,” and it moans “ooh ooh ooh” as the “prick” sprays its “sperm” where the “bent whore’s lost” and “puerility romps/unchided…in night cesspools” (brothels?). Desire isn’t just of a sexual sort, though. There’s also the sweetness that comes from “honeysucklevine” and “molasses” that one’s “tongue tastes.” (Or is the former quote a pun on Honeysuckle Divine, with her “dimples” and “sweat titty”?) There’s the desire of “scampering” children at play, with “pigtails stompin’.”

The point of all of this discussion of desire, centred in the middle, between the illusion of the ‘progressiveness’ of the politics of the liberal white moderate on the one side (the left margins) and the unreserved hate of the white supremacists on the other side (fittingly, the far-right indentations), is that the African-American in his “awakened needs” (a result of the raised consciousness of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s) is caught in the middle, controlled by the whites on either side of him. Thus, his desires and needs are never met in an America where he has no power.

The frustration of that desire is clearly expressed in Taylor’s piano playing, which of course gets very tense and dissonant in short order. Variations on that motif introduced with the low Bs, that chromatic ascension of E, F-natural, F-sharp, and G are heard (see Westendorf’s analysis above for details). The variations are often played in fast arpeggiated forms with added fifths. Soon, the upward arpeggios get much more dissonant.

I’d like to skip ahead to the beginning of “Second Layer, Part Two” beginning Side Two of the LP, because it stands out in my memory. This would be “Paragraph J–Section J-1” of Westendorf’s analysis (page 306, 9:53 minutes into the Second Layer part of the recording). To use her words, here we have “A light pattern of repeating grace-note clusters featuring C♯-B…in the high register”. It is subdued and reflective, to use her words again. For those finding his usual percussive, dissonant playing grating on the ears, this passage will feel refreshing in its softness.

It won’t take too long for the harshness to come back, though, and the Second Layer will end, with more cascading clusters, within less than four minutes of that soft passage I mentioned in the previous paragraph. More desire has been frustrated for the African-American.

The Third Layer, corresponding with the far-right indentations of the ‘scrolls,’ is about four minutes longer than the other two ‘layers.’ It begins in the bass, with a quick ascending line of E-flat, E-flat an octave lower, and B-flat, repeated several times, then with variations using other notes in ascending arpeggios. It’s softer than the beginnings of the other two ‘layers,’ but dissonances are added sooner.

This added tension is fitting as it corresponds with the poem, which is where the fascism resides, hidden under the liberal First Layer (left margins) and hiding under the frustrated desires of the Second Layer (middle indentations). This is made perfectly clear right from the beginning of the far-right indentations, with the opening allusion to the Ku Klux Klan: “White crucifix/White flame/White God/White hood.” The liberal mask is off (or rather, the hood is off), and we can see who is behind it.

The “White white” that follows is repeated in Scroll No. 2 with the opening left margin, though also pushed out to the right of “blue serge,” as if indented, too. Here again we can see the relationship between the white liberal moderate (as represented by the left margins) and the far right of the far-right indentations. “White white” represents not just white skin, but also the White Terror of conservative, reactionary forces against leftists. Recall, in the connection between the liberal moderate and the far-right, Stalin’s words about social democracy and fascism.

Blacks feel the “pains” and “shame” that come from the fascist repressions of types like the Ku Klux Klan. “Whitness” is a pun on “whiteness” and “witness,” from blacks being a witness to whiteness, to which they matter not a whit.

A “surreptitious/Seraph” of “sin sinning/Singing” a “song/Set 4 centuries long” is a white angel that has pretended to be holy while surreptitiously harming the black man over about four centuries of the European slave trade. The whites, in our posturing as racially superior, have pretended the whole time to be angels, while denigrating blacks as the descendants of Ham to justify enslaving them.

Continuing with the far-right indentations in Scroll No. 2, we have only the words “asleep” and “stranger.” The world has been “asleep” to the oppression of blacks only until recently, as of the publication of these “scrolls” (first in 1965, then republished as liner notes to Indent in 1973). The black man has been a “stranger” to the rest of the world because racism has estranged him from us.

As for the dissonance of the piano playing in the Third Layer, and how it can be said to represent the pain felt by blacks because of this estranging racism and how asleep the rest of the world has been to it, one noteworthy section of the music, towards the end of the performance of this layer, should be focused on. Taylor does a particularly thundering moment of tone clusters around the middle-to-lower register of the piano, at about 43:35 on the CD.

We can hear some applause from the audience immediately after that moment. It would seem that, through Taylor’s performance, the pain of the black man has finally received its deserved “Recognition” (line 8 of Scroll No. 2). His piano has sung and danced unseen (line 10 of Scroll No. 2) until only recently; indeed, it took forty years for Taylor to be recognized by the academy, him being named a Jazz Master by the NEA in 1990, and in the following year receiving a MacArthur Fellowship.

In the middle indentation, Taylor refers to giving “recognition” to George Washington “Carver‘s oil” (lines 8-9 of Scroll No. 1). Since Carver promoted alternative crops to cotton and promoted methods to prevent soil depletion, as well as promoted environmentalism, then his “oil” is an ironic metaphor Taylor is using to illustrate Carver’s valuable discoveries for the good of the earth, a major issue of Scroll No. 1.

Still, Carver’s recognition “estranged/outer earth’s garments” (i.e., the tar and concrete covering the ground), for the big money-making interests–typically white Americans–have little to no concern for environmentalism. Their “scorched exclusivity” alienates the earth as well as blacks, gays, and aboriginals. “Tar flesh trampled seeds.”

It’s good to give recognition to Taylor and Carver…but recognition isn’t enough, for the “dry cell of money/has locked the minds/and cauterized hearts.”

The Tanah: Lyrics–The Last of the Song-Spells Discovered So Far

[The following is the thirty-fifth of many posts–here is the first, here is the second, here is the third, here is the fourth, here is the fifth, here is the sixth, here is the seventh, here is the eighth, here is the ninth, here is the tenth, here is the eleventh, here is the twelfth, here is the thirteenth, here is the fourteenth, here is the fifteenth, here is the sixteenth, here is the seventeenth, here is the eighteenth, here is the nineteenth, here is the twentieth, here is the twenty-first, here is the twenty-second, here is the twenty-third, here is the twenty-fourth, here is the twenty-fifth, here is the twenty-sixth, here is the twenty-seventh, here is the twenty-eighth, here is the twenty-ninth, here is the thirtieth, here is the thirty-first, here is the thirty-second, here is the thirty-third, and here is the thirty-fourth–about a fictitious discovery of ancient manuscripts of a religious text of narratives and magic spells. Its purpose for my readers and me is to provide a cosmology and mythography on which I am basing much, if not most, of my fiction–short stories and novels. If anyone is interested in reading this fiction, he or she can use these blog posts as references to explain the nature of the magic and universe in my fiction.]

Translator’s commentary

The next of these song-spells is supposed to enable shape-shifting: how the ancients believed that the mere singing of this lyric in its original, mystical language would result in any kind of physical transformation, let alone the desired one, is a total mystery to us translators. Apparently, total faith in the aid of the four Crims–Weleb, Nevil, Drofurb, and Priff–is crucial to achieving such transformations. More fool us of little faith, it seems.

Certain words in the spell were deemed to be unutterable by the elders, as such words were also crucial to cause the transformations so abominated by the elders. Again, in English translation, the lyric sounds dull and ineffective, where the magical power is in the alliterative, assonant, and rhythmic words of the original language, all lost in translation. A firm belief in the Crims, as mentioned above, is also crucial. Here’s the song.

[To be sung repeatedly, louder and louder, inserting the words of what is wished to be changed into at the end.]

O, Four Powers, rearrange my parts! /// \\\
Change my shape, colour, and likeness \\\ \\\
into a ____________! ///

Commentary: Naturally, there’s also a verse to have one transformed back to normal. This is it.

[To be sung repeatedly, louder and louder.]

O, Four Powers, reset my parts! /// \\\
Return my shape, colour, and likeness \\\ \\\
back as I was! ////

Commentary: Next is a song-spell for capturing souls in jars, to gain greater magical power from them. The elders abominated this spell most of all.

[To be sung repeatedly, louder and louder.]

Air Lord, move this soul \\ ///
from its case to that one! /// \\\

Commentary: The “Air Lord” is Weleb, Crim of the air, and as we said above about making shape-shifting possible through the mere singing of a verse, it seems that unwavering faith in Weleb and the other three Crims was enough to make the ancient tribe believe that singing the above verse would actually transfer a human soul from its body into a jar.

As of the publication of the current edition of the Tanah, these are the only spells known as “Lyrics” that have been excavated. Apart from these are fragments too slight to be translated and published as coherent spells to be read and understood, but enough to convince us that there are many more to be found, complete copies of those fragments to make the incoherent coherent.

As we’ve promised above, once more Lyrics have been found, as well as more texts of the Beginnings, Migration, Laws, Preaching, Proverbs, and Amores (these last to be examined in the following pages), they will all be translated and published in future editions of the Tanah.