It would be nice to go back, physically and/or philosophically (let alone theologically), to The Beginning. Where did it all start? Light, I suppose, has been around for a while. In particles, in waves, it, like Love, bathes us to this day. “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.”
I had these things in mind tonight on my way to my local watering hole, Rocket to Venus. I went there for a late light supper and an altered perspective. These humid nights are like swimming through syrup, and the mind gets sticky. So my thoughts, as I walked, became much more grounded.
I had been tutoring an older lady in reading, until one day she came to me and said she was quitting. “It’s no use,” she said. There was nothing to live for and nothing to learn. Her words were actually that bleak. She could no longer hear the sound of the wind, and she swore that for her there was no Love.
Look now, look all around. Who has seen the wind? There’s no sign of life.
And then – today she came back. She has emerged from her cloud, at least for now, and is stepping out in faith. Once again I sat with her and went through the sounds of the alphabet. Once again she strained to hear the vowels and the consonants; once again she struggled to vocalize what for her is shapeless and savage. Language can be like the wind. In the beginning was the Word…
As I walked to the bar, it began to make sense to me, to start with the world of the flesh. This is Planet Earth. Start there.
What do I mean by that? I will try to explain. First of all, understand that I am a perfectionist, and I often judge myself by an impossible standard. This standard is a picture of the wind. It is unseen. It is gnostic almost, a misguided, if not heretical, veering toward spirit over flesh. I want so much that the world could all be sorted out. I want there to be order. And yes, I know, there IS order… I mean, there’s pi, there’s amino acids, there’s pattern in chaos, there’s the perfect 3-minute pop song, there’s the circle of fifths, the migratory sense of birds, the journeys of turtles, the language of whales, the language of humans, for crying out loud… Yes, there is all this. But I want MORE.
And whenever I want more, I inevitably end up right back where I started, on Planet Earth. I ended up there tonight, at the Late Bar, mulling over my next terrestrial step. My student, when in despair, turned her back on the wind. But eventually she came back, and she gave Language another chance. To do that, you have to start with the physical sounds of tongue against teeth, popping lips, vocal cords and saliva.
This blog post is my way of wrestling with all of this pedestrian stuff. I have identified it as my next (and my latest in a lifelong series of firsts) step. Accompanying this missive is Duran Duran’s first single, Planet Earth b/w Late Bar. These are my own “Catbirdman” versions. I’ve spent hours in front of my computer working on these extended, custom versions. It’s all I’ve been doing for months. I have three albums’ worth so far, plus loads of random remix compilations with custom artwork… it’s kind of scary.
It’s all because Duran Duran are my first favorite band. Way back when, during that time of life when the music lover becomes a music lover, in the Beginning, for me, there was Duran Duran. There was the strange, other-worldly music. Of course, it was sugar: the sweet sugar rush of pop. It’s everything you see on the surface: adrenalin-fuelled fashion and excess, world tours, dance floors, sailing the high seas, stalking the jungle. But it’s also mystery, and tantalizing hints of a world beyond sight, underground chambers of brooding mist, caverns of sound, an alternate planet Earth. It’s all of that, sung to a melody you can never shake off.
As a child, when I first heard it, it sounded different. New. I had no idea what it meant (still don’t, and I’ll put up twenty quid that neither does Simon Le Bon), but it dazzled me. And those first sleeves – the sandy dunes of Planet Earth, the soft glamor of the Careless Memories girl, and the motion blur on the back, and then that bullfighter… I had to HAVE those records. I had to own them, label them, categorize them, know them. Every effort to do so got me closer to that other world, long-hinted at, seldom glanced, never fully faced: the music of matter, of spirit; the newest and oldest, and truest religion.
So, there I was, a few months ago, in a very typical state for me, full of the usual ennui and a heart for God. It reminded me of looking at those sleeves as a child. I wanted to recapture that fascination; I wanted to relive the dream of being submerged in Rhodesian texture, the thrill of a scintillating, busy bass from John Taylor, the ascendant whine of Simon Le Bon. The goal was not to create super whacked-out mash-ups or anything like that, as I don’t have the DJ skills or experience to be truly original with this kind of thing. I resisted adding external, found source material, and I rarely resorted to obvious digital gimmickry or gadgetry (although I did get a little carried away here and there). I stuck with the source material, trying to hone it to its truest root. This is my attempt to answer the question: if Duran Duran existed in its perfect, Aristotelean form, what would it sound like?
Well, it would sound nothing like what I came up with. But that’s because my aspirations were, as usual, unattainable. But it’s the goal of perfection that gets you to the good. As Ian McCulloch sang, you “aim for stars and hit the sky.” Did this get me anywhere in the long run? Am I closer to wholeness? I mean, this is Duran Duran for crying out loud. It’s hardly the stuff of higher thought, at least on the surface. It’s more often called a guilty pleasure than serious fodder for the musicologist (let alone the theologian). Maybe that’s because the surface was so boldly flaunted. The lads themselves calculated it that way: they were determined to be fashionable, visual, commercial. They were mass-produced pop-art pioneers with a hint of art school tinge. They wanted it all, above AND below the surface. And by God, they got it. An extraordinary world.
Enjoy these first two Catbirdman edits, everyone, and may they inspire you to make better versions of your own lives, and to make sense of your own obsessions. Coming soon (probably next week): Careless Memories – The Second Single.
Duran Duran: Planet Earth [Catbirdman Version]
Duran Duran: Late Bar [Catbirdman Version]
On the flip side, there’s white space. “Faster Than Light” is a fitting description of the group’s rise to stardom, a blinding brightness and an unbearable lightness propelling it forward. On close inspection there’s nothing too solid to see – just a flash in the aerospace. But it feels smart and stylish and it goes whoosh.
