Nice takes on Pocahontas, thanks. Part of what I've always liked about it is that it's slippery. You get a sense of all these different possibilities but there's no single voice or central point as far as I can tell. I always felt like it might contain a small critique of romanticizing Native Americans in the 3rd verse, the way the guy kitty-corner from the bank has these little tokens that on the one hand might be part of a connection but only are in a very superficial way. An "Indian rug" here sounds kitsch. Very complex song with the most simple and beautiful melody.
― Mark, Tuesday, 26 January 2010 04:05 (fourteen years ago) link
I so cannot find my copy of this and its not on my laptop, dammit! But I don't think another listen would sway me from voting for "Powderfinger".
― you gone float up with it (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 26 January 2010 04:12 (fourteen years ago) link
There's lots that intrigues in "Pocahontas", but one thing is the reference to "the homeland we've never seen". It gives a sense that we're diaspora people, whoever "we" are, but we are going home again. A heaven, a gateway, a hope?
― Euler, Tuesday, 26 January 2010 09:19 (fourteen years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.
― System, Friday, 29 January 2010 00:02 (fourteen years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.
― System, Saturday, 30 January 2010 00:01 (fourteen years ago) link
i'm kinda shocked!
― i get mines the fast way, the balaclava way (M@tt He1ges0n), Saturday, 30 January 2010 00:01 (fourteen years ago) link
insanely lopsided
― The Tommy Westphall Universe Hypothesis (Shakey Mo Collier), Saturday, 30 January 2010 00:12 (fourteen years ago) link
altho Powderfinger is one of his best epics for sure
I think this is my least favorite canon ny album
― iatee, Saturday, 30 January 2010 00:13 (fourteen years ago) link
wow...yeah I voted Powderfinger, but I mean Thrasher, Pocahontas and Sedan Delivery are right up there with it...
― don't mind me: just exhuming dead horses... (Drugs A. Money), Saturday, 30 January 2010 00:14 (fourteen years ago) link
thrasher is amazing. no ride my llama votes? ;_; prefer the acoustic over the electric on this one, except "powderfinger" obv
― Don't delay, we cannot do this forever. (Matt P), Saturday, 30 January 2010 00:45 (fourteen years ago) link
My sentiments exactly. And "Powderfinger" receives an extra boost for providing my favorite musical moment of the 1990s (and maybe of all-time) in The Pooh Sticks' "The Rhythm of Love."
I can see how someone would think "Welfare Mothers" is a throwaway. But "Ride My Llama?" The melody is discursive. But it starts to settle down with "It's old but it's good" and certainly locks in by "like any other primitive would." And then there's that gorgeous plunge into the ocean where you can hear even the bubbles surrounding him (is this what people mean by acoustic shoegaze?). Definitely not throwaway material. More like stand-there-dumbfounded fare.
― Kevin John Bozelka, Saturday, 30 January 2010 01:59 (fourteen years ago) link
this is the rare poll where any order of results is fine with me...i wish there were more like this
― iago g., Saturday, 30 January 2010 03:31 (fourteen years ago) link
amazed powderfinger got the nod here. i love it. but "thrasher" is just an incredible song. i'm not a lyrics as poetry person at all but it blows me away, lyrically. glad to see others have said the same.
― Heterocyclic ring ring (LocalGarda), Thursday, 20 December 2012 00:18 (eleven years ago) link
"Where the vulture glides descending On an asphalt highway bending Thru libraries and museums, galaxies and stars Down the windy halls of friendship To the rose clipped by the bullwhip The motel of lost companions Waits with heated pool and bar."
this verse in particular just kills me
― Heterocyclic ring ring (LocalGarda), Thursday, 20 December 2012 00:22 (eleven years ago) link
powderfinger's lyrics are incredible too, tho. such a rich & involving story which nonetheless remains mysterious. and those sublime guitar sounds...
― jabba hands, Thursday, 20 December 2012 01:19 (eleven years ago) link
obv thrasher is also great, i love all these songs, incl ride my llama
― jabba hands, Thursday, 20 December 2012 01:21 (eleven years ago) link
This album is pretty close to perfect but Pocahontas over Sedan here is just 0_O
― If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Thursday, 20 December 2012 01:58 (eleven years ago) link
I don't say this often but "Thrasher" has damn good lyrics, no?
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 20 December 2012 02:08 (eleven years ago) link
Best lyrics, yes.
― If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Thursday, 20 December 2012 02:14 (eleven years ago) link
been listening to thrasher five times a day for a month or two, it is one of the best songs ever imo.
― Heterocyclic ring ring (LocalGarda), Friday, 4 January 2013 15:40 (eleven years ago) link
or at least best of the last three to four hundred years
It still makes me laugh in “Thrasher” when the melancholy of “how I lost my friends I still don’t understand” is immediately followed by the verse about how he ditched his friends because they became boring losers.
― JoeStork, Wednesday, 11 July 2018 15:59 (five years ago) link
I bought a cheap copy of Unplugged yesterday, something to play in the car once and probably shelve forever. I listened to the first half today without looking at the song listing--thought the element of surprise would help (it did)--but then looked at the listing for the rest while waiting for a stop light.
Anyway, probably the first time I've listened to "Pocahontas" in, I don't know, 30 years at least. I found myself unexpectedly moved by the perfection of that last verse:
And maybe Marlon BrandoWill be there by the fireWe'll sit and talk of HollywoodAnd the good things there for hireAnd the Astrodome, and the first tepeeMarlon Brando, Pocahontas, and meMarlon Brando, Pocahontas, and mePocahontas...
I don't think it's meant as a bitter indictment of Marlon Brando--who, in his own way, was fighting the good fight when he hired Sacheen Littlefeather in 1972 (and had a long record of activism before that)--but felt more like wide-eyed wonder at just how strange and inexplicable the world is. And bringing in the Astrodome--where did that come from? I think that verse might be Neil's "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?" moment, something that felt just as mysterious and as wise this afternoon as it did when I loved it as a teenager in 1979.
― clemenza, Sunday, 5 March 2023 04:49 (one year ago) link
it's no indictment, it's pure reverie. a retreat into neil's dreamspace, drawing upon centuries of americana.
― avatár the way of watár (voodoo chili), Sunday, 5 March 2023 17:22 (one year ago) link
the full band “pocohantas” on duma is so amazing
― not too strange just bad audio (brimstead), Sunday, 5 March 2023 17:25 (one year ago) link
tying in a giant domed futuristic sheltered stadium in Texas w/a small animal hide shelter from centuries past is prime Neil.
― omar little, Sunday, 5 March 2023 18:52 (one year ago) link
love "pocahantas" and its cosmic absurdism. i worried for years that it was rife with toxic masculinity but it feels more like a very self-aware neil letting his mind wander into a sarcastic fantasy world, then realizing what's happening and decides to simply observe with plenty of wryness. like sure: why the hell not.
wonderful post, clemenza. have probably mentioned it before but the "transformer man" on unplugged is a personal favorite. that's really the only thing i go back to from that album, even though i think of it as a very satisfying listen.
― .austinuos, plug forth. (Austin), Sunday, 5 March 2023 19:10 (one year ago) link
Appreciate that. Letting his mind wander/pure reverie/dreamscape/why-the-hell-not, agree with all of that. It's also--basically restating the same idea--the kind of art that most leaves me awestruck: juxtapositions and connections that are at such an intuitive level, I can puzzle over them forever. Another thing that links it to "Mrs. Robinson," I think, is that when those two songs come out, both Brando and DiMaggio are like ghosts of the monumental figures they once were. I guess that depends in part how you feel about Apocalypse Now, which comes out the same year as "Pocahantas"--the Sacheen Littlefeather episode was, if nothing else, widely ridiculed, and Brando was now a just name who collected a huge cheque for a week or two of work. DiMaggio was doing Mr. Coffee commercials when "Mrs. Robinson" came out. Yet Neil and Paul Simon were able to make them vivid again.
Thought some of the song choices on Unplugged were unexpected--"Look Out for My Love," "The Old Laughing Lady," "World on a String"--and all in all, it made for a good driving CD.
― clemenza, Sunday, 5 March 2023 20:27 (one year ago) link
pump organ version of "Like A Hurricane" on Unplugged is all-time-great as well
― obsidian crocogolem (sleeve), Sunday, 5 March 2023 20:35 (one year ago) link
seconding
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 5 March 2023 21:01 (one year ago) link
You can hear the audience gasp when he starts "Transformer Man."
i think the difference between “pocahontas” and “mrs. robinson” is that in the latter, joltin joe is the symbol of a certain all-American masculine archetype fading away as the hippie generation rose to prominence, while in “pocahontas,” marlon brando is just marlon brando
― avatár the way of watár (voodoo chili), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 03:03 (one year ago) link
I don't know if there's "just Marlon Brando," though: there's Vito Corleone, there's Kurtz, there's Last Tango Brando, there's Stanley Kowalski, and for me, they're all very different. That's the connection I get: "Mrs. Robinson" rescues hit-streak DiMaggio, the DiMaggio you describe, from Mr. Coffee DiMaggio, and when I listen to "Pochaontas," I'm seeing young Terry Malloy sitting by the fire, smiling like he does when he's walking in the park with Edie, and definitely not shadowy, heavy-handed Kurtz. I'm not saying everyone will hear the song the same, though.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 03:31 (one year ago) link
"Pocahontas" was written and first recorded in the mid-'70s, possibly before the public met Fat Brando in The Missouri Breaks, which came out in May '76.
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 03:38 (one year ago) link
Didn't know that--good point. I just watched The Offer, and the Brando there is pretty spacey.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 03:48 (one year ago) link
There's a similar thought-association in John Prine's "Picture Show," from 1991, with its refrain of "James Dean went out to Hollywood, put his picture in a picture show," and then the last verse:
A local man, in a wigwam, sitting on a reservationWith a big black hole in the belly of his soulWaiting on an explanationWhile the white man sits on his fat canand takes pictures of the NavajoEvery time he clicks his Kodak picsHe steals a little bit of soul
― Lily Dale, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 03:59 (one year ago) link
The funny thing too is that Fat Brando in Missouri Breaks really isn't <that> fat... certainly compared to what came next, but it apparently was shocking to see him like that three years after Last Tango.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N48pqpyyeHA
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 04:03 (one year ago) link
what i mean is that neil describes brando not as any of his famous roles, or whatever of the various roles he plays in the cultural imagination, but as marlon brando the actor and human being
― avatár the way of watár (voodoo chili), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 04:20 (one year ago) link
he’d be an interesting fireside companion
― avatár the way of watár (voodoo chili), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 04:22 (one year ago) link