Uncomfort Music

The sky was Bible black in Lyon
When I met the Magdalene
She was paralysed in a streetlight
She refused to give her name

I just love Misplaced Childhood. The lyrics are packed with rich imagery and the music is fantastic. The moody opening followed by 2 love songs. And I love how the aching guitar melody from "Lavender" comes back during "Blue Angel".

And a ring of violet bruises
They were pinned upon her arm.
Two hundred francs for sanctuary and she led me by the hand
To a room of dancing shadows where all the heartache disappears
And from glowing tongues of candles I heard her whisper in my ear
"'J'entend ton coeur"
I can hear your heart

This album is like comfort food, but, as John Madden might say, different. Comfort music. It brings back memories of my teenage years. Of having moved from Chicago to the backwaters of Wisconsin. All the loneliness and pain of dislocation piled on top of the normal trials and tribulations of just being a teen.

I see convoys curbcrawling West German Autobahns
Trying to pick up a war
They're going to even the score
Oh...I can't take any more

Onkel Fish gets political too. It's sadly ironic how loudly his words resonate 18 years later. The names may have changed, but that's about all.

I saw political intrigue, political lies
Gonna wipe those smiles of self-satisfaction from their eyes

Listening to Clarke's book earlier made me worry. His words really drove home the immense amount of hatred for America fomenting out in the world. While we Americans remember 9/11 all too well, we have forgotten all that led up to it: the bombings of the USS Cole, the Marine barracks in Beirut, the World Trade Center in 1993, assassination attempts on Bush, Sr. and Clinton...there have been people in the Middle East fighting against us for a while now. 9/11 was a climax. Al-Queda is a minority faction, to be sure, but Dubya is only driving away the rest of the Middle East, excepting Israel, of course. And he's not exactly doing well in most of Europe either. What the hell are Dubya, Rummy, and Wolfowitz thinking? It seems like they have the same attitude as the European explorers of centuries ago. Back then, white men came, took your stuff, and shoved Christianity down your throat. Today, America is out to shove our form of government and our way of life down the throats of those in the Middle East. I can imagine that some people feel like it's The Crusades all over again. Even if I were to wake up tomorrow morning to hear that Usama bin Laden has been captured and harmony reigns in Iraq, they'd be sending troops somewhere else. We'd be. My country. The millions of people who voted for Dubya. Who's next? How can we expect to win a war on terrorism if we alienate mainstream Muslims and our allies in Europe (and elsewhere)?