"Bloodbuzz Ohio"

A couple of weeks ago I did a Weekend Assignment post about poetry.  The gist of the post was that I didn't care much about poetry unless it was set to music as lyrics.  I also made the debatable point that maybe our best poets aren't really poets at all, but are songwriters.

Which brings me to the subject of my favorite new band of the moment (well, new to me anyway), The National.  I like their sound, and whoever writes their lyrics -- I suspect lead vocalist Matt Berninger -- has a poet's sensibilities.  Instead of just coming out and saying what he means, everything is symbolism and metaphor and hidden meaning -- so much so that I'm really confused about what it all means.

Case in point, "Bloodbuzz Ohio."  When he says, "I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees," he surely doesn't mean that literally. It seems like it's related to the old adage that you can't go home again -- "...but Ohio don't remember me." Is he talking about a trip back home or is he just reflecting on the idea of Ohio? And there's all that other stuff -- "stand up straight at the foot of your love," "lay my head on the hood of your car," "I still owe money to the money to the money I owe," etc. -- most of the song actually -- that doesn't seem to have much to do with anything else. It all sounds pretty good though...




LYRICS:

Stand up straight at the foot of your love
I lift my shirt up
Stand up straight at the foot of your love
I lift my shirt up

I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees
I never married, but Ohio don't remember me

Lay my head on the hood of your car
I take it too far
Lay my head on the hood of your car
I take it too far

I still owe money to the money to the money I owe
I never thought about love when I thought about home
I still owe money to the money to the money I owe
The floors are falling out from everybody I know

I'm on a blood buzz
Yes, I am
I'm on a blood...buzz
I'm on a blood buzz
God, I am
I'm on a blood...buzz

I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees
I never married, but Ohio don't remember me

I still owe money to the money to the money I owe
I never thought about love when I thought about home
I still owe money to the money to the money I owe
The floors are falling out from everybody I know

I'm on a blood buzz
Yes, I am
I'm on a blood...buzz
I'm on a blood buzz
God, I am
I'm on a blood buzz.

So what's it all about? Any ideas?

If you're stumped on that one, try your hand at figuring out "Brainy."  This is an obsessive love song -- very similar thematically to the Police's "I'll Be Watching You" or Sarah McLachlan's "Possession" -- or is it?  I'm especially intrigued by the amazingly enigmatic couplet, "Everywhere you go is swirling, everything you say has water under it."  The song is on YouTube, the lyrics are on SongMeanings.com.

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• [Download] The National - "Bloodbuzz Ohio" (stereogum.com)
• [Video] The National: "Bloodbuzz Ohio" (iguessimfloating.blogspot.com)

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Weekend Assignment: National Poetry Month

This week's Weekend Assignment is all about poetry.

Weekend Assignment #316: National Poetry Month

As April wraps up, let's not let it get away without celebrating National Poetry Month. For this assignment, please share with us something about poetry. Tell us about your favorite poet, or quote us a few lines of your favorite poem, or if poetry doesn't happen to be something you enjoy, tell us why!

April (and the weekend) wrapped up before I could get to the assignment, but I'll give it a shot anyway.

When I first saw the assignment, I was all set to start a diatribe about how much I really don't like poetry.  I studied it enough in my younger days that I understand the concept, but as Heinlein would say, I don't grok it.  I don't get it on some basic level of understanding.  If you want to tell me about something important, give me a few solidly written paragraphs of prose and I'll understand it better.

But after thinking about it some more, I realized that I do like poetry.  Just make it rhyme (even if just a little), put it to music and sing it, and I'll get it.

When I was a young tyke, my mother went back to school.  One of her textbooks treated some of the pop and rock lyrics of the day -- Simon and Garfunkel, the Byrds, Bob Dylan songs -- as poetry.  As I leafed through the book and picked out songs I knew, it gave me a deeper appreciation of them -- that they were important enough to be considered "poetry."  Even now, I sometimes have the crazy notion that some of our greatest poets are not exactly poets after all -- they're songwriters.

Continuing on that idea, I'll tell you about a favorite poem, the Baby Boomer generation's "Beowulf "(or maybe it's their "Rime of the Ancient Mariner").  In the late '70s, the rock band Jethro Tull released the album Aqualung.  Ian Anderson, the leader of the band, was dismayed that rock critics were calling it a concept album, and said, "If the critics want a concept album we'll give the mother of all concept albums and we'll make it so bombastic and so over the top."



The next album really was over the top -- a parody of the progressive rock album from groups like Yes or Emerson, Lake and Palmer, one long, continuous, seamless 44-minute song that stretched over both sides of an LP.  In addition to their standard guitar, drums, piano, Hammond organ and flute (yes, flute), they added the harpsichord, xylophone, lute, trumpet and string section.  The concept was that the lyrics were a poem written by a fictitious eight-year-old English schoolboy named Gerald Bostock.

The album cover was another parody, a spoof of an English community newspaper.  The main story was about young Gerald being disqualified from a literary competition "following the hundreds of protests and threats received after the reading of his epic poem 'Thick as a Brick' on B.B.C. Television last Monday night." 


The entire epic poem, "Thick as a Brick," actually written entirely by Ian Anderson, is after the jump if you're interested.  You can hear the song by Googling "Thick as a Brick."

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