SOUNDTRACK: THE FLAMING LIPS-“Dinosaurs on the Mountain” (2020).
After a series of much harsher, darker albums, The Flaming Lips’ new record, American Head (due out next month) promises a much brighter, warmer experience.
They have already released a few singles from the new album, like this one.
“Dinosaurs on the Mountain” starts with a pretty, almost childlike musical synth melody. Wayne Coyne’s (older and more raspy) falsetto voice floats above the music as he sings “I wish the dinosaurs were still here and now. It would be fun to see them playing on the mountain.”
The song builds with slow drums and acoustic guitars as the it shifts to a large bridge with appropriate soaring backing vocals. The song also has a suitably vibrato-filled guitar solo. In other words, it sounds a lot like classic Flaming Lips.
This song (and album) is meant to hearken back to The Soft Bulletin, which it does, somewhat. But the biggest difference is that the whole song feels like it’s hiding under an extra layer of distortion–like they couldn’t escape the production style of their latter albums. Bulletin was very clean, and I do rather miss that cleanness on this lovely song.
[READ: July 20, 2020] “Jack and Della”
I had read an excerpt from this series of books a couple years ago. I was really interested in that first excerpt. Although this one I found a little less interesting. Possibly because the main character of this story (who is briefly in the other excerpt) is down and out. And without having seen how he got that way (which I think the other book showed), it’s hard to get fully into this character.
But he certainly comes across as an interesting fellow and knowing his past makes him somewhat more compelling.
Jack (full name John Ames Boughton) is the son of a preacher. Most of his father’s sermons were directed at Jack, who was not always the best boy he could be.
Jack didn’t take much away from his father’s sermons, but the one about always having good manners did stick with him. So when a young black lady dropped some papers on the pavement, he crossed the street to help her gather them. Her name was Della Miles. She thanked him and called him Reverend because of the black suit he was wearing (he had bought it for his mother’s funeral and was about to return it.ed him in for tea. This was very bold of her since he was a white man–although if she thought he was a minster, it was less unseemly. She would never have guessed he had been released from prison just a few moths earlier. But Jack isn’t a bad guy, he’s just down on his luck.
They chatted about music and poetry. He had been reading (in prison) a lot of poetry. He recommended Paterson by William Carlos Williams. She recommended W.H. Auden.
After the tea he imagined how he could see her again–although he knew it would be impossible for a white man to be seen with a black woman. There was no point in pushing things, but he really liked her.
A few days later, he was sitting on a bench and Della walked by (he had mentioned the bench during their tea). They sat far apart as if they weren’t talking. But they did, briefly. And as she got up to go, she left a book on the bench. After a minute or two he reached for the book. But a small black boy saw him and yelled that he was going to steal that lady’s book. The boy grabbed the book and ran after her.
Jack was friendly with the owners of some of the local black restaurants. He was rarely sober when he went to them, but he was always okay. Few white people went to them, although some did–for the fried pork or to hear the piano player.
He went to a street near her house and loitered until he saw her. He invited her to dinner. She said she would meet him there but that he should not come back to her neighborhood again.
They had a nice meal and conversation. But then Jack heard a familiar voice–the voice of a thug who often shook him down for money. He couldn’t let her get wrapped up in his past even if he didn’t think they would have a future.
Now that I see that this series is (so far) four novels, I can see that she has constructed a huge world around these characters.
The novels are Gilead (2004); Home (2008); Lila (2014) and Jack (2020). This is an excerpt from Jack.
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