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