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Friday Influences Thread 03.06.09


Stackabones

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Thanks, I'll go with Salinger.


J. D. Salinger has been an influence on me ever since I read the first sentence to Catcher in the Rye, 35 years ago.


If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.


I clearly remember the feelings I had. "You can do
this
when you write?" "Is this guy a twat or a hero?" "What is this prick's problem?" And... "Hang in there, Holden."

 

 

Was "Catcher in the Rye" a big influence on my 13 year old self? Absolutely. Is the person I was at 13 still a part of me today? Sure. Could I look at myself in the mirror today if my professional career consisted of analyzing "Catcher in the Rye"? Probably not.

 

 

e

Salinger was punk before punk. e was beat without being beat. Contradiction and lack of a clear cut hero. Love him. Franny and Zooey and Nine Stories too.

 

 

I became very fond of the Glass family stories in college. "Franny" is also strongly Christian - my wife's grandmother had a copy of "The Way of the Pilgrim" that I read in my late 20's.

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Thanks, I'll go with Salinger.


J. D. Salinger has been an influence on me ever since I read the first sentence to Catcher in the Rye, 35 years ago.


If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.


I clearly remember the feelings I had. "You can do
this
when you write?" "Is this guy a twat or a hero?" "What is this prick's problem?" And... "Hang in there, Holden."


Salinger was punk before punk. e was beat without being beat. Contradiction and lack of a clear cut hero. Love him. Franny and Zooey and Nine Stories too.

 

 

I have come to accept that my view of Salinger is in the minority.

 

EG

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This FIT thing intrigues me.

 

Interesting to read what is influencing your songwriting during the week, be it music, prose or poetry.

 

My music this past week was, as usual, greatly influenced by my daily life experiences. I spent time on Monday and Tuesday digging deeply into the streets of Old Trenton, New Jersey, where I found old wooden water lines from the 19th century...not sure where that will end up musically, but it will eventually take me somewhere.

 

Later in the week I took my crew to a local monestary to repair a septic field connection. While down inspecting a very nasty hole I looked up and snapped this shot of my crew and Sister Etta. Butchie and the Sister seemed to be groovin' to the same beat.......not so sure about ol' Todd. I think he was keeping an eye on that dangerous dirt bank behind me.

 

The monestary grounds were peaceful.......there was music there somewhere here as well.

 

Spent a lot of time listening to classical music between jobs.

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If it makes you feel any better, EG, while I value Catcher, it's not a book I take particularly personally likely because, as with The Bell Jar, I was in my late 20s when I read it. But having been going out with a woman who read The Bell Jar in high school and for whom that reading seemed to signal the onset of an emotional/psychological roller coaster ride that may well be going to this day, I understand that some people really identify with the protagonists of those novels. (Trust me, she would have been on that rollercoaster, though, even if she had read Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farms, instead. This was biogenetic destiny, far as I could tell.)

 

Me, I guess I identified with Gnossos Pappadopoulis, the main character in songwriter-novelist (and Thomas Pynchon pal) Richard Fari

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If it makes you feel any better, EG, while I value
Catcher,
it's not a book I take particularly personally likely because, as with
The Bell Jar
, I was in my late 20s when I read it. But having been going out with a woman who read
The Bell Jar
in high school and for whom that reading seemed to signal the onset of an emotional/psychological roller coaster ride that may well be going to this day, I understand that some people
really
identify with the protagonists of those novels. (Trust me, she would have been on that rollercoaster, though, even if she had read
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farms
, instead. This was biogenetic destiny, far as I could tell.)

 

Me, I guess I identified with Gnossos Pappadopoulis, the main character in songwriter-novelist (and Thomas Pynchon pal)

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This FIT thing intrigues me.


Interesting to read what is influencing your songwriting during the week, be it music, prose or poetry.


My music this past week was, as usual, greatly influenced by my daily life experiences. I spent time on Monday and Tuesday digging deeply into the streets of Old Trenton, New Jersey, where I found old wooden water lines from the 19th century...not sure where that will end up musically, but it will eventually take me somewhere.


Later in the week I took my crew to a local monestary to repair a septic field connection. While down inspecting a very nasty hole I looked up and snapped
of my crew and Sister Etta. Butchie and the Sister seemed to be groovin' to the same beat.......not so sure about ol' Todd. I think he was keeping an eye on that dangerous dirt bank behind me.


The monestary grounds were peaceful.......there was music there somewhere here as well.


Spent a lot of time listening to classical music between jobs.

 

 

What I would give to touch wooden water pipes. To me the mundane is the most fascinating connection to history of all.

 

EG

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Lyrics better than I will ever write, phrased by Bobby Darin.

It never gets better than that.

 

mQP3l-i3MPg

 

The greatest musical compliments I've ever had were when my GF

heard me playing Bobby Darin and asked, "Is that you singing?"

 

And once, when I was gigging in a bar, a patron told the bartender,

his voice sounds just like Jerry Lee Lewis.

 

Darin & the Killer taught me how to sing.

This is one of Darin's many masterpieces. And lyrics don't

get better than this.

"The streets of town were paved with stars,

It was such a romantic affair..."

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The greatest musical compliments I've ever had were when my GF

heard me playing Bobby Darin and asked,
"Is that you singing?"


And once, when I was gigging in a bar, a patron told the bartender,

his voice sounds just like Jerry Lee Lewis.


Darin & the Killer taught me how to sing.

This is one of Darin's many masterpieces. And lyrics don't

get better than this.


"The streets of town were paved with stars,

It was such a romantic affair..."

 

 

Such a great song. I loved Darin, too. One of my earliest faves, Bobby doing "Mack the Knife." My mom and all her (then twenty-something friends) had this obsession with peeling apart the lyrics (I doubt any of them were particularly familiar with Brecht and Weill at the time) and would call each other up on the phone to compare notes.

 

And I kind of came back full circle with him when he 'turned hippie' under the influence of pals like Tim Hardin (another fine singer in a far different style).

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