Christopher J. Scalia Profile picture
Jan 12, 2020 12 tweets 2 min read Read on X
All this machinery
Making modern music
Can still be open-hearted
Not so coldly charted
It's really just a question
Of your honesty, yeah your honesty
One likes to believe
In the freedom of music
But glittering prizes
And endless compromises
Shatter the illusion
Of integrity, yeah
(Did any rock band use “one” as a pronoun as often as Rush?)
If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice!
Living on a lighted stage
Approaches the unreal
For those who think and feel
In touch with some reality
Beyond the gilded cage

Cast in this unlikely role
Well equipped to act
With insufficient tact
One must put up barriers
To keep oneself intact
Subdivisions
In the high school halls
In the shopping malls
Conform or be cast out!

Subdivisions
In the basement bars
In the backs of cars
Be cool or be cast out!
And the men who hold high places
Must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality
Closer to the heart
Closer to the heart

The blacksmith and the artist
Reflect it in their art
They forge their creativity
Closer to the heart
Yes closer to the heart
Days of barefoot freedom racing with the waves
Nights of starlit secrets, crackling driftwood flames
Drinking by the lighthouse, smoking on the pier
Still we saw the magic was fading every year
So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights
'The oaks are just too greedy
We will make them give us light'

Now there's no more oak oppression
For they passed a noble law
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet,
Axe,
And saw
He's noble enough to know what's right
But weak enough not to choose it
He's wise enough to win the world
But fool enough to lose it
He's a new-world man
For the words of the profits
Were written on the studio wall
Concert hall!

And echoes with the sounds,
of salesmen,
of salesmen,
of SALESMEN!
Suddenly ahead of me
Across the mountainside
A gleaming alloy air car
Shoots towards me, two lanes wide
I spin around with shrieking tires
To run the deadly race
Go screaming through the valley
As another joins the chase
Freeze this moment
A little bit longer

Make each sensation
A little bit stronger

Experience slips away
Experience slips away
The innocence slips away

• • •

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More from @cjscalia

Sep 27, 2022
One of the coolest things about the very cool Jim Rockford is that even though his legendary Firebird was blown up by a machine gun (fired from an airplane) in episode 1, it’s good as new for episode 2.
Episode 1 guest-starred Lindsay Wagner; episode 2 had James Woods—and Abe Vigoda! (Plus a new actor playing Rocky, Jim’s dad.)


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In episode 5, a young @jamesocromwell (that guy!) appears as a tennis instructor who doesn’t much care for Jim.
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Read 14 tweets
Oct 8, 2020
I have a 1/2-baked theory about a Van Halen song.

When It’s Love opens with Eddie on synth and Alex tapping drumsticks w/ nearly every note. The combination adds a mechanical sound to the synth, like the tapping is part of the synth keys themselves. (1/)
My theory: Eddie was using Alex to mimic the key clicks that accompanied older keyboards. For ex., early Hammond organs clicked this way, and though it was a defect, some musicians liked the sound and later organs included a feature to replicate it. (/2) dairiki.org/HammondWiki/Ke…
Less likely, but more interesting: Eddie—a classically trained musician who named his son Wolfgang—was trying to create an exaggerated version of the click that harpsichords made, due to the wood jacks that moved inside of them.

If either of those theories is right,... (3/)
Read 4 tweets
Sep 13, 2020
The Maytals 'Monkey Man' (official audio) #RIPToots
The Specials, Monkey Man
Toots, Pressure Drop
Read 4 tweets
Sep 12, 2020
When people talk about SNL, they don’t talk enough about band leader GE Smith, who spent much of the 80s and early 90s playing bodacious guitar and making ridiculous faces. This performance with Eddie Van Halen is a catalogue of 80s expressive excess. 1/
nbc.com/saturday-night… ImageImageImageImage
Look at how much fun they’re having! Look at how much they’re amazing each other! 2/ ImageImageImage
The episode was hosted by Valerie Bertinelli, Eddie’s wife, so naturally Eddie put on some of his best guitar-god faces. 🎸 🎸 🎸 / ImageImageImageImage
Read 5 tweets
Sep 4, 2020
I have to disagree with @TimAlberta here. When I think critically about how Goldberg describes his sources, they smell fishy. He’s often vague about what knowledge they have, or the connection between that knowledge and what they say. For example,... Image
Sometimes Goldberg says things like his sources “have knowledge of Trump’s views.” Which could cover someone in the administration, sure; it could also mean anyone in the press pool, or anyone who watches the news. 2/ Image
Here, Goldberg does *not* say that these knowledgeable people heard Trump say these things about GWB. It could easily mean that they know his views but someone told them he said this. Such phrasing from an experienced journalist is way too imprecise for me to trust. 3/ Image
Read 5 tweets
Aug 30, 2020
You know how singers will occasionally say things like, "I think you know what I'm talkin' about" after a line? It's a simple way to both vamp b/t lines and to establish a connection between the singer and listener. In one song, Donny Hathaway does the opposite...
In "Thank You Master", he sings:

"I just gotta say much obliged to you, Master'cause the walls of my room was not the walls of my grave  *My bed was not my cooling board (y'all don't know what I'm talkin' 'bout)*."

He was right—so I looked it up.
I thought it might be a Bible verse (b/c the next line refers to winding sheets), but it's not: it's a common phrase from African-American prayers and from the blues. (A cooling board is a board is a platform on which a dead body is placed before it's buried.) ImageImage
Read 4 tweets

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