The Life Of The Fields

[imomus]

Here's an mp3 of my latest song, The Life Of The Fields.

Sorry, this track is no longer available. Please buy the CD when it comes out!

It's a folk-pop song heavy with shinto magic, spring and sex. It has a sort of New Order feel to it, if New Order had been a medieval folk group. There's a family tie between this song and the one I sing on the new album by Hypo, 'Random Veneziano'. They both contain the image of throwing wine 'in the face of nothing'. And, although it's much more of a traditional pop song than the material on Summerisle, my forthcoming collaboration with Anne Laplantine, this song is very much set on that same summer island, a parallel world of enchantment, animist religion and burgeoning sensuality. The lyrics are inspired by cult horror film The Wicker Man, but also by a documentary I saw on Arte about the battle of some Indian farmers to stop American companies claiming copyright on the gene structure of basmati rice. The documentary showed an Indian TV commercial for Bollgard, a gentech cotton strain which can resist insects. The imagery was of a beaming Green Giant-like nature god running through abundant fields. Its very non-Christian nature god imagery reminded me of 'The Wicker Man'.



If you like the song and keep it, I'd ask you to donate me a dollar via Paypal:

I'm time rich but money poor. A dollar makes a difference to me. If I get enough donations on this one, I'll keep posting mp3s of new material as it appears. Please don't redistribute these files via file sharing services. Send people to this page instead. The address is:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/imomus/2004/04/08/

I'm doing this for several reasons. First, I don't agree with the music industry's view that file sharing damages record sales. I don't think anyone downloading and liking this song will be prevented from buying a superior-quality hard copy of it (it may be quite a different version) when the album comes out in 2005. Secondly, the song is very much about things happening now -- spring, the return of vitality and sensuality to the world, the ceremonies of April and May, a certain shift in sensibility (mine, at least!) towards the organic. Third, the song is actually inspired by folk music (which tends to be pre-copyright) and by a documentary which showed the threat poor farmers face from private companies claiming ownership of the 'intellectual property' of rice. It seems only right that its own DNA should be made freely available. Fourth, although I've asked my labels to look into it, I don't yet have any of my songs on iTunes, so I'm doing my own iMomus version of iTunes. Fifth, I like the idea of people paying based on their ability and their sense of honour. It works for shareware, perhaps it can work for songs. Sixth, I'm just really excited about this song and simply cannot keep it under my hat for a year! I want it to fly around the world spreading its healing love and spooky country charm immediately! Here are the notes for the song:

Bollgard
The life of the fields
A smiling lord of the fields prances through green cotton leaves free of boll weevil
Man and plant in harmony
India, where many gods are already using gentech
pollen
good tree wool and not good
sperm blows in on the wind
the community seed bank
the seed of the earth
black rices and short green rices
beeja shows me a gramme
she is the guarantor of our harvest
hundreds of varieties of rice
rice as intellectual property
ricetec

And here's the finished lyric:


The Life of the Fields

Your eyes are flat, the city's hot
Night falls over the barren system
Leave the cracked city block
Come back to the old religion
Throw your seed behind the plough
Throw your wine in the face of nothing

Feel the sea anemone
Children play in the rockery garden
We're all John Barleycorn
We're all one in the old religion
Meet me by the waving rye
The question mark in the scarecrow's eye

Gaelic runes and harvest moons
Shinto dogs at the phallic symbol
Mustard seed and dandelion
A time to live, a time to die
Meet me in the waving leaves
The question mark in the scarecrow summer
Meet me out by the lemon trees
Pull me down, and pump me dry

Lie back now and think of rain
In the blossom of the willow
Mastering the morning pain
Gorgeous on your petal pillow
Mustard seed and dandelion
Treading wine for the old religion

The high priest and the artisan
Piping at the gates of knowledge
Saturnine as the hammer god
Hammering, getting it on
Meet me by the waving rye
The question mark in the scarecrow's eye

Gaelic runes and harvest moons
Shinto dogs at the phallic symbol
Mustard seed and dandelion
A time to live, a time to die
Meet me in the waving summer
The question mark in the scarecrow's eye
Making out by the rhodedendron
Pull me down, and pump me dry
Lie back now and think of sorrow
The question mark in the scarecrow's eye
Mustard seed and dandelion
A time to live, a time to die

Comments

Re: In the spirit of the season--for thee

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

BTW: Is that wonderful, jaunty hat of wicker? I certainly hope so--mine is a converted orchid pot.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Whimsy, your rococo entertainment has afforded me copious joy, calling to mind Mr Jarman's meditation on all hues of blue, from cerulean to meridien. Like you, Mr Jarman was a master of decoration, and seemed able to reach back not just to Yellow Book days, but far beyond, to ancient pagan pleasures or the Silver Age.

The nice thing about the past is that there is so much of it, don't you think? And more each day. The man of exquisite taste of our time, he fortunate enough to possess that voluptuary requisite, a well-stocked library, may pick and choose from every era in search of materials with which to build Sybaris, his city of pleasure. By the way, are you an admirer of Dame Edith Sitwell?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

(My hat, by the by, is of common straw, not wicker. It was acquired from a Chinaman in San Francisco for a mere bagatelle. Its distinction comes from a most ingenious folding design which allows it to be assembled like origami then folded quite flat. Here in Berlin, however, I have seen a most splendid pair of wicker breeches in an outfitter's in Kreuzberg. Only a fear of cheek-searing public humiliation has prevented me from purchasing and wearing them. But, as Mr Ant reminds us, 'ridicule is nothing to be scared of'. If only I could bring myself to believe it!)

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

It is the duck-like curve of the bill and it's planar ribbing that is so appealing. I am intrigued as to the manner in which it is constructed. Fascinating.

Wicker breeches? Claim the Grail, young Perceval--although I would not advise steeplechase in such a garb. Strange how shirts, jackets and hats provide more social lattitude than pantaloons or breeches. I wonder if they come in a 30-inch inseam...

Serendipity is all over this post: Mr. Ant's song has become a sort of ad hoc anthem for our Order, coincidentally named the Bagatelles. You simply must do your own rendition of this perennial--with your own witty variations, of course. Perhaps in the manner of Saki?

Vive la bagatelle,
Whimsy
(Founder, Hermetic Order of the Bagatelle, aka: "The Limp Panthers")

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

The pleasure is mine, sir. I apologize for being so presumptuous as to trespass upon your journal with such an intrusive flotilla of words.

Your observation is a perceptive one. Indeed, I would never be so bold as to claim to be a "man of letters"; I am but the merest of stylists, an avatar of Pleasure. I find your characterization of my playful trifles as being an amalgam of the neolithic and aesthetic to be a most flattering and resonant one, for both are central themes to my work and person. (What a marvelous thing it is to wear one's favorite waistcoat whilst wiggling wet toes in the sweet summer grass, or to buff one's shoes in the midst of a garter snake basking in the light of the golden star which begat you both! Such is the essence of Affected Provincialism: green men and wodehouses that wear canes and straw hats, reading Swinburne, cleaning fossils, inventing nonsensical heraldic devices and penning naughty limericks. Animistic refinement? Precambrian sybarites? Neolithic thrilletantes? Oh my, yes.)

I confess that I know only the rudiments of Mr. Jarman's oeuvre, but I shall endeavor to remedy my ignorance; he seems to have been a kindred spirit (the man was a gardener, after all).

Oh, I couldn't agree more that we should all dance jigs amongst the hard-won treasures left by our forbearers--it is our birthright, and enrichment for all lies within its glorious strata. Let us enact holidays whereby the public lovingly empty the museums, and dance down the thoroughfares of our towns with the treasures of yore upon our shoulders; a gesture of gratitude to those who came before us! Let it be written into our municipal codes that one who eats the skin of an apple but leaves the rest to rot is engaging in criminal folly!

The balance betwixt an appreciation for continuity and nostalgia is a precarious one, no? But then, what is Time, really? If we can play with Time in musical endeavors, then one cannot help but wonder if in what what other ways might Time serve us.

Yes, Dame Edith's poetic imagery is truly an inspiration, to be sure. I have not read her entire body of work, but what I have read has left me utterly charmed. I suspect she shall become indispensable to my happiness. Again, I benefit from your erudition.

--Beau Hummel

[(Anonymous)]

I merely want to second Momus's recommendation of Dame Edith, m'lord. She is my muse, my mentor, my empress. Get yourself a megaphone and try some orat-aoke: "In the early spring-time, after their tea, Through the young fields of the springing Bohea... "

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Attached is a link to a short video pastorale: http://www.lordwhimsy.com/trifles/index.html

Downloading might take a few minutes, but the patient shall see highwheels, wooded glens, sabretooth tiger skulls and a comically inaccurate approximation of absinthe.

W