Monday is for Music (2nd edition)

You know when you suddenly remember a band you used to listen to a decade ago and you go and find their music again and wow, it takes you right back to that time in your life - and surprisingly you still really like it?

This last week I was thinking of this group I used to listen to called Digable Planets. I first heard them in 1993, when I was introduced to them by my secret boyfriend and fellow theater major in college. He was a secret because I also had a boyfriend back in the town where I went to high school who I was trying to figure out how to break up with. (I was 18, my skills were lacking) So college boyfriend and I had these crazy adventures all over town made even more adventurous by our "secret status" and he was always introducing me to music I had never heard of as we would jam out and dance our butts off in my dorm room.

Then I ran off, after one year at college and moved to Denver, where my father was living. I had broken it off with high school boyfriend and college boyfriend and I were on the way out as well. I fell in with this group of hipster hippy funky friends who also listened to the Digable Planets and formed all new memories of dancing and laughing with this new group and of course, getting high. I felt so cool and free and the music seemed to match this new season of my life.

But after a year in Denver I took off yet again and drove across the country to move to Chicago. I had never been there, never met anyone there, and had only a few hundred bucks to my name. But within a very short time I was settled in and again had fallen in with an eclectic and diverse bunch of friends who embodied the full energy and creativity of the city. Some of these friends were poets, as was I. And we would ride the train up and down through the city and sit in dark smoky coffeehouses, coming up with new works for our spoken word performances and slam poetry competitions. Some wrote rap-inspired rhymes, others wrote free flowing verses, but no matter what, when you took to the stage you had to have rhythm. There too, I heard the sounds of Digable Planets and other rap/jazz/funk/ hip hop infused music. I heard it in my friends' apartments, I heard it wafting up from basement dance clubs along the street, heard it in dusty coffee houses, heard it spilling out of car windows as I walked past.

So, this week I pulled up some DPs on Pandora Radio and on You Tube and I was simultaneously taken through all three seasons in my life where they played a part in the soundtrack. I remembered dancing awkwardly in a dorm room in Albuquerque, sitting around at a house party in Denver, swaying to the beat, and walking into dark underground jazz clubs in Chicago to dance the night away and afterward run home and transform it all into something I would read later that week on stage, borrowing from the rhythms of the music I was enveloped in nights before.

There is a certain energy in their music, in their rhymes, that is indescribable. They are poetry, they are hip hop, they are life being lived, they are cool, smooth, and hip. They are real.

I am including a You Tube video here for one of their most popular songs - so you have likely heard this before. The setting of the video itself reminds me a lot of being at the famous Greenmill in Chicago every Sunday to perform spoken word and compete in slam poetry, it reminds me of the women's spoken word group I helped form and performed in at coffeehouses and bars throughout the city, and it also reminds me of the funk band I was briefly a part of in Chicago and the small stages and clubs we would perform at - the band's funky bass-laden rhythms laying down under my voice as I sang or spoke my words at the mic. But I could never really hope to be as cool as these three - even now, more than a decade later I watch this video in awe ...... check it out:

( and also? Poblano seems to LOVE this music!)



Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)

(Butterfly)
we like the breeze floats straight out of our lids
them they got moved by these hard rock brooklyn kids
us floor rush when the dj’s boomin classics
you dig the crew on the fattest hip hop record
he touch the kinks and sinks into the sounds
she frequents the fatter joints called undergrounds
our funk zooms like you hit the mary jane
they flock to booms man boogie had to change
who freaks the clips with mad amount percussion
where kinky hair goes to unthought of dimensions
why’s it so fly cause hip hop kept some drama
when butterfly rock the light blue suede pumas
what by the cut we push it off the corner
how was the buzz entire hip hop era
was fresh and fat since they started sayin outtie
cause funks made fat from right beneath my hoodie
the puba of the styles like miles and shit
like sixties funky worms wit waves and perms
just sendin chunky rhythms right down your block
we be to rap what key be to lock

but i’m cool like dat
i’m cool like dat
i’m cool like dat
i’m cool like dat
i’m cool like dat
i’m cool like dat
i’m cool like dat
i’m cool

(Ladybug)
we be the chocolates taps on my raps
she innovates at the sweeter cat naps
he at the funk club with the vibrate
them they be crazy down with the five nate
it can kick a plan then a crowst burst
me i be diggin it with the bug verse
us we be freakin till dawn beats and i
he yes a stranger smile so i say hi (wassup)
who understood, yeah, understood the plans?
him heard a beat and put it to his hands
what i just flip let borders get loose
how to consume all the beats just like juice
if its the shit we’ll lift it off the plastic
the babe’ll go spastic
hip hop gains a classic
pimp player shark it don’t matter i’m fatter
ask butter how i zone

(Butterfly)
man, cleopatra jones

(Ladybug)
and i’m chill like dat
i’m chill like dat
i’m chill like dat
i’m chill like dat
i’m chill like dat
i’m chill like dat
i’m chill like dat
i’m chill (chill)

(All)
blink, blink, blink, blink, blink
think, think, think, think, think

(Doodlebug)
we get you free cause the clips be fat boss
them dug the jams that commence to goin off
she sweats the beats and ask me could she puff it
me i got crew kid, seven and a crescent
us cause a buzz when the nickel bags a dealt
him that’s my man with the asteroid belt
they catch a fizz from the mr. doodlebig
he rocks a tee from the crooklyn nine pigs
rebirth of slick like my gangster stroll
the lyrics just like loot come in stacks and rolls
you used to find the bug in a box with fade
now he boogies up your stage plaits twist the braids

and i’m peace like that
i’m peace like that
i’m peace like that
i’m peace like that
i’m peace like that
i’m peace like that
i’m peace like that
i’m pace

(Butterfly)
check it out, man i groove like that
i’m smooth like that
i jive like that
i roll like that

(Ladybug)
yeah, i’m thick like that
i stack like that
i’m down like that
i’m black like that

(Doodlebug)
well yo, i funk like that
i’m fat like that
i’m in like that
cause i swing like that

(Butterfly)
we jazz like that
we freak like that
we zoom like that
we out (we out)

Monday is for Music

I am not really musically talented in any way. I took violin lessons in elementary school for a year (I think) and really liked it. (Although, I was really into country music at that time and tried to play it with furious speed like a fiddle, in my closet) But that was really my only "formal" music education.

I did land a spot as lead singer in a funky band in Chicago when I was 20 and it was totally a dream come true. But, honestly? I am not a particularly gifted singer either.

But I love music. I loooooovvvvvveeee it. Not necessarily in the same way a musically educated person would appreciate it. No, I think it's the poet in me - but I love music that reaches something deep inside of me and either gives it a voice or speaks to it. I love when a song can catch my breath and cause tears to well up in my eyes. Or, when music makes my whole body want to move and dance. There is a soul language in music that I am drawn to.

Because of this, there are certain artists or groups that I become very devoted to. They become like close friends, confessors, prophets, teachers.....and I go back to them again and again.

Last night, as Mr. Spicy and I sat in our car outside of our birthing class, one of these groups - a group that we have both been devoted to for years, a group that has for us separately and together, acted as a soundtrack through many many important seasons in our lives - U2, came on the radio. Without even speaking, Mr. Spicy reached over and turned up the radio. We sat in silence and as the song began, first I began singing, then he began singing, until we were both singing at the top of our lungs and tears were being wiped from our eyes as we sang along, "I'm wide awake....." - offering these words up to something bigger, as a prayer, as a gratitude, as a realization that we are here in this moment, this is our lives, this is our world, this is really happening - the good, the bad, all of it. We are not sleeping.

And that, for me, was like attending a church - inhabiting a sacred space, praying, crying out, and being ministered to all at once.

I have experiences like this fairly often and thought maybe I would start sharing what song has moved me that week, right here. I am not promising to do it weekly, as consistency isn't always my strong suit. But - eh, here's the first installment. And hey, if you want to - why don't you join in and post an important song for you on your blog and put the link in my comments? Then I will add you to a list on my blog and we can have our own little Monday music party. Even if you don't blog about it, I would love to hear what music is moving you right now, and why?

This week's song was "Bad" by U2. I am embedding the video for it and the lyrics will follow.

I am madly, insanely, without remorse, in love with Bono. I know he is a flawed human being like the rest of us. I know his wife probably rolls her eyes at him from time to time, just like I do to Mr. Spicy. But wow. When he sings? I honestly feel he is channeling the divine. I am completely certain he is a prophet, speaking to the hearts, the minds, the suffering, and the glory of our time.

So many of U2's songs hold immense meaning and power. They feel like prayers, like challenges, like places of comfort and hope and lament. And depending what is happening with me at any given time, what speaks to me in any particular song of theirs can dramatically shift. It is like reading a sacred text. It feels alive and able to bring different meanings depending on when and by whom it is heard. Their understanding of the human condition, of suffering, of the heart, their passion for social justice and change - and their ability to communicate that...wow.

So, without further ado.....here it is:



Bad - U2
If you twist and turn away
If you tear yourself in two again
If I could, yes I would
If I could, I would
Let it go
Surrender
Dislocate

If I could throw this
Lifeless lifeline to the wind
Leave this heart of clay
See you walk, walk away
Into the night
And through the rain
Into the half-light
And through the flame

If I could through myself
Set your spirit free
I'd lead your heart away
See you break, break away
Into the light
And to the day

To let it go
And so to fade away
To let it go
And so fade away

I'm wide awake
I'm wide awake
Wide awake
I'm not sleeping
Oh, no, no, no

If you should ask then maybe they'd
Tell you what I would say
True colors fly in blue and black
Blue silken sky and burning flag
Colors crash, collide in blood shot eyes

If I could, you know I would
If I could, I would
Let it go...

This desperation
Dislocation
Separation
Condemnation
Revelation
In temptation
Isolation
Desolation
Let it go

And so fade away
To let it go
And so fade away
To let it go
And so to fade away

I'm wide awake
I'm wide awake
Wide awake
I'm not sleeping
Oh, no, no, no