We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

D: Let My People Go

from The Meaning of Feeling Good by C Alexander

/

about

TRILOGY
Trad. w Lyrics by Diamanda Galas
(Galas made very powerful music inspired by the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, and her version of the gospel song "Let My People Go" is among the best of her work. She released two excellent albums in 2017, and the likely suburban audience for this album is HIGHLY encouraged to search her out.
The trilogy is a kind of attempt to capture the freewheeling jam-on-nothing spirit that our high school band would do each show, where after our song ended we would vamp on E major, and I would throw in some new poetry/lyrics and then usually end something with a snatch of someone else's song before crashing into the chorus. It's a big reason I invited my longtime collaborator Jim Chorman to play on this track.

As for why I chose this particular snatch of lyric, besides the obvious strength of the line, this record is sort of a sentimental valentine to all things nineties, particularly the music of Sonic Youth [their Z was for ZZ Top; my D is for Diamanda Galas], but while there's a lot of loveliness and sillyness in the album it was nonetheless conceived and conceived with the background of a jingoist backlash against an African-American president which culminated in the election of an insane bigot, all the while the planet is warming catastrophically [a topic which was not once mentioned in the presidential debates of 2016]. I'm not really kidding when I say these are love songs in the time of the apocalypse; things really feel like they're falling apart, that the eight legs of the devil are crawling on earth, his fangs insatiable. That is as prevalent a feeling of the last three years of my life as discovering this beautiful city, nightmares about wetting the bed again, and goofy in-jokes with my domestic partner. It doesn't really "fit" the song, I agree. But the concept of this album [besides "write songs I can play live"] is as much about digging in the soil and seeing what comes up, and it would be unreasonable to expect, at this or any other national moment, that the national mood wouldn't be addressed.

It is my hope that you've enjoyed this record. A splendid time was had by me.

lyrics

Oh Lord Jesus, do you think I've done my time
The eight legs of the devil now are crawling up and down my spine

credits

from The Meaning of Feeling Good, released November 15, 2017
Bass: Jim Chorman

license

all rights reserved

tags

If you like C Alexander, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Featuring Riley Pinkerton (aka The Rat Queen) from the theatrical NYC rockers, Castle Rat.
listen now