This is a "poem" that I wrote during a group, in ten minutes. We had to grab an object out of a bag and write about it in relation to ourselves. And I grabbed a white harmonica.
Oh I was born a ramblin' man.
Dylan as Rimbaud, Lennon as Lewis Carrol.
It may be hollow but it's full of noise. It may be white but it's got soul, brother.
Music coming from the empty. Music as sound and noise, a caucophony until the word "music" has lost all it's meaning.
A hobo, that king of hobos, getting off his boxcar in Ames, Iowa and carving a picture of a cat or my grandfather's fence. A song for a nickle.
A penny for your thoughts?
Just a little handfull of old cliches, sung with a twang.
What was once the Jew's harp becomes the mouth organ. What was once a hole in your face, finally filled by what you always dreaded: Clumsy sounds and the taste of metal.
Stuff it in and blow it out, baby,
Because you've got a harmony in your head.
this month's wire magazine has a captain beefheart tribute section. the first page noted that beefheart was often likened to harry partch... but that the former said of the latter's music that, while it's okay, it's not half as great as the sound a harmonica makes when held out of the window of a speeding buick.
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