About Angels: A Blues Experience
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About Angels: A Spoken Word Blues Experience
music and lyrics by The Blackbird
The Blackbird: Voice, Guitar, Keys and Atmospheres
Paul B. Keeves: Bass
Leonardo von Papp: Drums
Tom Lynn: Sound Design & Mix
recorded and mastered by Jörg Surrey at Surrealisounds @ Teldex Studios Berlin
About Angels is a Spoken Word Experimental Blues recording. I wanted to play with my deep enjoyment of mythology and the mystical poetry and my deep enjoyment of earthy music like the blues. With About Angels I was wondering if I could pull something angelic down and give it ground in with blues music. So, this is where the impulse to begin writing the song came from, and the impulse gets me moving! That said, I never fixate on matching the original impulse of a song to the final outcome because I never really know exactly what's waiting for me in the process and it's far more interesting to reserve the freedom to make choices and respond to the impulses I get on the journey itself.
With this song, I started with the opening line:
“There once was a man who went crazy
because he tried to write a blues about angels”
I found I could use this as a light-hearted mantra, or a bit of a Zen Koan, which put me in a mental “feedback loop” out of which the rest of the song came. Since the blues are most often about things going wrong and angels are most often about things being divinely perfect, I enjoyed trying to imagine my way out of the soft paradox of this line, and, like a koan might do, or a Sufi poem, this lifted me into a slightly enhanced mindspace. That's how I ended up spinning out into space and time with the lyrics and reaching towards “the border beyond which not even ideas can travel”.
I also enjoy the unsung psychedelic aspects of everyday nature and the everyday world. On a lakeside walk with my lovely wife recently, I found a spot where the light dancing on the water of lake shore had a similar effect on me as the mantra did, it also lifted me into an heightened present-moment space, so I took the video of that spot and that ended up forming the body of the song's video. It's not really a “music video”, more of a visual supplement to the song. You may find that the visuals somehow help you to absorb the language and help give you a deep listening experience. You may also find yourself going crazy trying to watch it. When I put the video together with the song, I really liked the effect it had on me.
I'm not the kind of an artist who tries to create something everyone will like, which would involve me guessing what you like and basing everything on the library of existing tried and truisms, I rather try to create something which I like myself, in the hope that others will enjoy it too. This is for me the better path to pursue. There is less guessing about you, and less use of the common denominators of songwriting. I have a more solid space to start from and much more freedom. So this is another work for you to consider and to decide for yourself.
I look forward to anything you are inspired to share with me publicly or privately about it all. Be safe and take care of each other in this crazy time.
About Angels
from the CD: The Blackbird: Vol 2: Retro (2017)
there once was a man who went crazy
because he tried to write a blues about angels
there once was a man who went crazy
because he tried to write a blues about angels
there once was a man, among many
on a speck of dust near a minor star
in this outer arm of the milky way
floating in something we do not at all understand
which may or may not have a border
an edge beyond which not even ideas can travel
and within all that, there are chains upon chains upon chains upon chains of life
living near and far outside the spectrum of what we can imagine and what we can perceive
with two eyes and two ears and a tongue and a mouth and our fingers
they surround the spectrum, they saturate the spectrum
they are aware they are alive and aware and have a message for us
they are aware they are alive and aware and have a message for us
they are aware they are alive and aware and have a message for us
they say "Hey, whassup, yo?"
they say "Hey, whassup, yo? Whassup?"
they are happy to meet us
if we approach with respect and honor
and a deep and calm sense of self
wrapped in pregnant silence
or in nature's embrace
well, I'm not an angel
but you can call me Blackbird
if you need to call me something
on the seventh hour
of the seventh day
on the seventh planet
the seventh angel say
there once was a man who went crazy
because he tried to write a blues about angels
there once was a man who went crazy
because he tried to write a blues about angels
and he saw it was good
