Tonight: Follow The Music

Tonight: Follow the music. That's how my horoscope concluded today. Well...all right. Outside of bagpipes, which I tend to go in the opposite direction of, and anyone walking out of the 1980s with a boombox and an "awesome" Dead tape he wants to play for me, I'll come following the music, any jingle jangle time of day or night (especially if you've got an "E" harmonica, Any-body).

About a year or so ago I had a great idea for a poem bringing together some of the many magical, mystical, mythical places in popular songs. Coupled with one of my favorite lines from Melville's Moby-Dick, the poem had epic written all over it. Well, this ain't no epic. I never really liked how this came out, but it's a start, maybe. If nothing more, all you musical trainspotters can tally up all the allusions and direct references; best answer/comment will receive a musical gift from yours truly. Anyway, you could do a lot worse than following the music.

How to Get to the Truest Places in Popular Song Without a Map

It’s not on any map; the truest places never are.
Herman Melville

Put your cat clothes on
And ride the summer wind west
On Thunder Road out of town
But don’t count the cars on
The New Jersey turnpike
Rather
Catch the number 12 bus
In the parking lot of the tree museum and
Fall asleep in Brooklyn
And don’t wake until you reach
The Tecumseh Valley between
The Sugar and Big Rock Candy Mountains.
Once there, wade across Cripple Creek
To the banks of the Ohio
Walk a mile in somebody else’s shoes
Then hop the Friendship Train
Riding the blinds past Folsom Prison
Parchman Farm, Maggie’s Farm, Tupelo, Ipanema
Through the eternal echoes of whippoorwills
And steel hammers
Chat with the three admirable men
Until you reach the coast
Then ride a pony onto a yacht
And Sail Away all the way to Ta hi ti
Where you’ll catch a wave to Caledonia.
Refresh yourself at the Dew Drop Inn
Before mounting a white bicycle
Acoustic variety,
And peddle your way past all
The fat-bottomed girls
Till you reach Fujiyama
(though do call ahead to tell
your Big Mama you’ll be rollin’ in).
After tossin’ and turnin’ and
Rockin’ and rollin’
On her big brass bed
Slip away at dawn
And in the early morning rain
Leave on a jet plane
Bound to some rain grey town
Where, upon disembarking,
Dis Harry in his taxi
And settle into a long black limousine and
Tell the driver the name of the place is
I Like It Like That
Adding that if he combs his hair right
And wears tighter pants, he could be a star.
Once in da club doff your hat
To the gin-soaked barroom queen
And imbibe your Coca-Cola flavored champagne
And when you eventually get bounced like a red rubber ball
Run up the nearest hill and flag a ride
On a magic carpet to the sea
Where you’ll take the plunge
Way down below the ocean
And come out the other side stomping wet in Bron-Yr-Aur.
Now you’re making progress.
Across the Village Green and just over Muswell Hill
You’ll spy a cathouse:
Put on some new blue jeans and hi-heel sneakers
And knock three times and ask for
Madam Roux.
She’ll tell you to take a hike
Down country roads to the crossroads
Just past the hedgerow with a bustle
Take a left (not a right, you don’t want to
Go to Chelsea) a left on Highway 61
And start crawling past the mansion on the hill
And the chicken shack with the pink Cadillacs out back
And the shotgun shack and the house of blue lights and
The Surf Ballroom, Belzoni’s sawmill,
The Piss Factory, Lodi, Hammersmith Palais,
The charred pyre at Joshua Tree,
Trenchtown and Rockaway Beach.
When you can finally see the Las Vegas Hilton
In the misty mountain fog,
Take the next right onto Cyprus Avenue
Where, at the dark end of the street,
`Neath the lone apple suckling tree,
You’ll find me lazing,
Waiting for you,
My I-Pod on random eternally.

Ken Boothe-Mr. Tambourine Man

Rolf Ableiter & Band-Shelter From The Storm