MUSIC: The best records of the 1970s

Neil Young
After the Gold Rush
[Reprise; 1970]

After the gold rush of 1960s California rock, most of its main players spent the 70s slowly hippie-twirling towards irrelevance and rehab resorts. Not so for Mr. Young, who was just hitting his stride as the decade turned over, kicking off a run of 11 great albums in 10 years with After the Gold Rush. One of his few efforts that can't be considered either the product of Crazy Horse feedback Neil or sensitive-hayseed Neil, Gold Rush is also one of Young's most consistent records. Holed up in his Topanga Canyon home writing a soundtrack for a never-made Dean Stockwell-scripted film, Young invited his friends to join him on alien-abduction ballads, preachy Skynyrd-provoking jams and lovesick nocturnal country-blues. Unlike so many of his sun-dazed contemporaries, Young had the right kind of eyes to see the high-water mark, and After the Gold Rush is the departure point on his essential decade-long journey away from the fallout of the 1960s.

Joni Mitchell
Blue
[Reprise; 1971]

There are two ways to hear Blue. The first is as a historical document. If you are white, middle-class and liberal-- and, especially, if the spirit of the feminist movement had touched someone in your family-- then Blue encapsulates your mindset in the 70s. Kids who grew up on Sesame Street with Free to Be You and Me on the hi-fi heard Blue wafting upstairs when Mom and Dad had friends over and the living room started to reek of that funny smoke. This was the perfect hippie comedown record for those young adults with families who wanted to move on to more serene and comfortable bohemianism. But aside from its historical markers, Blue is a fine stripped-down record with extremely solid songwriting-- despite the occasionally cringe-worthy lyric. In this way, Blue is like a companion to Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks-- a confessional album very much of its time that endures on the strength of fantastic melodies and musical simplicity.

Neil Young
On the Beach
[Warner Bros; 1974]

For decades, Neil Young refused to release On the Beach (along with a handful of other, equally noteworthy 1970s albums) in digital format, citing what he considered to be the questionable integrity of 1s and 0s. Warner Brothers finally "convinced" Young to drop his objection, and On the Beach's first compact disc plopped onto a conveyor belt just last year, forever rescuing it from the distracting buzz of (what had long been considered mandatory!) crackles and spits. Ragged, contradictory and oddly poignant, On the Beach is a hazy swirl of steel guitar, dobro, Wurlitzer, slide and Young's high, lonesome whine. All of Young's trademark ugly solos, self-implicating lyrics and cantankerous charm remain intact, but the songwriting here is vaguely softer, an almost apologetic (and certainly dissatisfied) homage to nasty, mid-70s America.

Songlist: Songs for the Beginning of Summer

Mushaboom - Feist
One Evening - Feist
Antonelli - Tahiti80
Triple Trouble - Beastie Boys
I'm her Daddy - Bill Withers
For the Driver - Ron Sexsmith

MUSIC: Short Essays on Favourite Songs
[from mcsweeneys internet tendency]

A Song Familiar Like a Look: Ron Sexsmith's Lebanon, Tennessee

You know the way a person's face looks, when they talk about a place they plan to move to. You can see them seeing their whole new perfect life in that place. It's practically playing behind their eyes like a movie, like a Frank Capra movie. I've seen a lot of those looks - I grew up in a pretty poor place, a place that many people end up having to leave in order to find work. I've seen that look on the faces of my friends, I've seen it on the faces of my parents, and on my brother's face, I've seen it on my husband's face, and I know that they've all seen it on mine. Ron Sexsmith's wistful, beautiful, hopeful, hopeless song "Lebanon, Tennessee" sounds just like that look:

I'm going down to Lebanon, Tennessee
From where I stand, it's as good a place as any
I don't know anybody there and
Nobody knows me
There'll be a job in Lebanon, Tennessee
I'll work on a farm, I'll work in some factory
And I'll buy myself a home down there
You can get one pretty cheap

Get off the bus on the border of town
Head in from the East
Walk into a bar, take a seat in the corner
Be a man of mystery.

So far, so good. It seems possible. You want it to happen for this guy, you believe that it can and that it will, even if it hasn't really happened the way everyone expected it to for your friends, or for your family, or for you. But this guy, this guy sounds like he's got a chance. And then, of course, comes the catch. Because there's always a catch and it's always the same one. The place this guy plans to move to isn't just a different place; it's a whole different world:

Folks don't treat you mean in Lebanon, Tennessee
But like a human being, they'll take you in off the street
They'll bring you in their home down there
And give you something to eat
I'm going down to Lebanon, Tennessee.

And now you know why this guy sounds so sad. He's going, though. He's really going. And you want him to. And if you were from where I'm from, and if he were sitting across the kitchen table talking to you about this place with that look on his face - a look like a familiar song - you'd reach out and put your hands over his folded ones, like the two of you were keeping something safe inside there. And you'd smile and you'd nod and you'd tell him that it sure sounds good.



How to disappear completely: Radiohead

The good thing was, Kid A arrived just in time for my twenty-fifth birthday, as though my brother had known precisely how many days it would take a package to get from Los Angeles to the kingdom of Tonga. It meant more that this occurred in Tonga, as virtually nothing there happens on time and even less happens soon enough. More fortuitous: I’d missed the package at the Peace Corps office when I’d stopped in, but a friend of mine had seen it and grabbed it for me before we met at Fua’amotu Airport. We, along with our Tongan counterparts, were flying to Samoa for a one-week workshop on “Capacity Building for Environmental Management in the Pacific.” The workshop itself would be meaningless, but it would get us all out of Tonga and fill our pockets with enough per diem to buy black pearls and war clubs for our parents back home and enough beer to maintain a buzz through the humid evenings in Apia. I was glad to have a new CD to serve as a soundtrack for my first escape from Tonga in more than a year, and gladder that it was Radiohead.

The bad thing was, I’d gotten dumped the day before: my intra-Peace Corps affair had been abruptly euthanized after a soaring beginning. Distance was a problem (sixty miles between our islands), but the deal breaker was her being a rookie who was still loyal to the idea of Peace Corps, whereas I was halfway through and increasingly disillusioned. I wanted to run off with her to anywhere and be in love, which we were. She had the same easy urges at first but had lately come to equate me with something that stood in the way of her self-actualization, or something.

Anyhow, she’d dumped me rather clumsily the previous night and had spent the day dutifully writing a grant proposal to get lawn mowers for her village’s youth group while we jaded Capacity Builders flew to Samoa. I remember nothing about the flight other than getting half drunk on a sugary Irish liquor that Ed from Connecticut had bought from the duty-free shop. We got to the hotel in Apia around midnight. I had a few more drinks with Will from St. Louis, a sympathetic friend from my island whose own psyche was tangled up in a complicated courtship with a Tongan girl, before I retired to my private air-conditioned room to give Kid A a listen.

Within the first couple bars of “How to Disappear Completely,” I knew I was in deep shit. The strumming of the D and F-sharp-minor chords was gentle and distant and sad. The bass line was brooding and stubborn, complementing the denial in Thom Yorke’s refrain: “I’m not here. This isn’t happening.” There was also a mournful effect that sounded like the grieving of a lone humpback whale-an obvious simile at the time because a few weeks before, my girl and I had camped on the deserted southern tip of her island and watched a humpback surface just off the edge of the reef. Ugh.

There’s a specific satisfaction when a sad song comes on amid your own heartbreak. It’s as though the random forces in your corner of the universe were conspiring to take your misery to a cathartic crescendo, having noted that, while your Keatsian heart still likes to handle these things this way, you’ve outgrown the phase wherein you were deliberate about it. In college, my roommate and I would turn off all the lights and listen to Peter Gabriel’s “Mercy Street” in order to milk our suffering for all its worth. I would also walk across the soccer fields at night in order to brood, as there were neither misty moors nor rugged seaside cliffs on campus. At the time, that kind of deliberate orchestration of all things morose seemed like a good idea, but it feels dopey now. Sad songs work best when you don’t select them from a CD, jukebox, or iTunes playlist. (It won’t be long now before we have celebrity-breakup playlists.) And when the song is brand new the effect is amplified. If the first time you hear it coincides with the climax of a personal catastrophe, and your wounds are still damp, there is the added recognition that, from now on, that song will remind you of her, the loss, the rejection, or whatever it was that removed your viscera and pitched them into a gray, gritty snowbank. In time, you manage to gather up your vital organs, shore up your anima, and do it all over again. But that sad song and that catastrophe will remind you of each other for a long, long time. Three years removed from my South Pacific love burn, “How to Disappear Completely” no longer sends me into a self-pitying nosedive, but it does take me back to the hotel room in Samoa: cool linoleum under my feet, a glass of sickly-sweet liquor on the nightstand, and the inescapable awareness that I had lost something huge.



Don't Give Up: Peter Gabriel

Back in the '70s, when Pampers was a revolutionary new product, they used Annette Fitzgerald's baby picture on the box. Annette was a very cute baby. Later, she was the most stunningly beautiful woman I ever held in my unworthy arms. I crushed on her all through school. I gagged every time she walked into a room. It made learning anything difficult.

Then, in 1987, in the face of stiff competition from cheap imports and generics, the people at Pampers decided on a makeover. This amounted to changing the baby on the box. The results were catastrophic. Sales plummeted. Mothers quite simply preferred Annette's picture. For me, the change was symptomatic of a very strange year, a year whose backing music was "Don't Give Up" by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush....

Cher won an Oscar. So did Sean Connery. Don Johnson was bigger than Bruce Willis, was married to Melanie Griffith, and had a recording contract! Someone paid $40 million for Sunflowers. It felt like silly season in Absurdistan.

It's so strange the way things go. Don't give up....

Liberace died.

Annette asked if I wouldn't so terribly much mind if she sat next to me in geography class. Her girls were distracting her, and her grades were going south. I couldn't unravel my tongue long enough to attempt to discuss her reasoning. Instead, I just nodded my assent.

Ronald Reagan, meanwhile, the then CEO of the Free World, was having a touch of prostate trouble; his sidekick, Mrs. Thatcher, was reelected to a historic third term. In France, the "Butcher of Lyon," Klaus Barbie, went on trial for crimes against humanity, forty years after the event. Berlin was still a divided city. Some people still used semi-colons; correctly. The first intifada began. What a year.

The whole sad shebang.

Don't give up, I know you can make it good.

Shortly after I failed my third consecutive geography test, Annette told me the acne on my forehead resembled the Great Bear constellation in the northern sky. Recognition. I wasn't just the geek that sat beside her. No, I was the geek with The Great Bear Acne Constellation. A couple of days later, I spoke my first full sentence to her: "The capital of Brazil is Brasília." It took a lot out of me. Soon after, Sugar Ray Leonard outboxed Marvelous Marvin Hagler. Hill Street Blues departed. The Simpsons arrived. The stock exchange crashed. And Al Gore still hadn't invented the Internet, yet. 1987. Fusion was all about atoms, and had zip to do with food. Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" was everywhere. And Pampers was rumoured to be the target of a takeover bid from a Korean producer of sanitary towels. Only Christmas could save us now.

Whatever may come, and whatever may go, ... Don't give up.

But no, it wasn't over yet. The year was looking like a complete washout. Joseph Campbell, master comparative mythologist, passed on/changed address. Peter Tosh was murdered. On death row, Earl Edward Johnson's last words were "Please let's get it over with."

When things get rough, you can fall back on us. Please, don't give up.

And then, Annette Fitzgerald put her tongue in my mouth.

I readily acquiesced, didn't so much as offer the semblance of resistance. The end of a long crush? Would I, after all, spend my life pampering her? It was New Year's Eve, and we were slow dancing at Karin Daly's seventeenth-birthday party. Two days previously, the FDA had given its stamp of approval to a drug named Prozac. Annette and I were the last two wallflowers, and only danced at Karin's insistence. Nobody was sitting this one out. That song. We began by holding each other at the elbows, then biceps, triceps, and shoulders, until finally we became interlocked about the neck. Someone later commented that we resembled a reverse full nelson.

There's a place where we belong, it's gonna be all right.

For one fragile, fleeting moment, I actually believed it would be.

As we danced, Annette whispered to me that she was a direct descendant of the earl of Fitzgerald, the once (but probably not future) king of Ireland. As she nuzzled my ear, I let slip that I was the only surviving heir of that great warrior, Conn of the One Hundred Battles. It seemed a heavenly, if somewhat tribal, match. Seemed. No such luck. About two minutes after the kiss, her father arrived to take her home, and on January 2, the bastard emigrated the whole family to Van Diemen's Land.... Grinch. Nineteen eighty-eight was not getting off to a good start. I was never again to witness Annette at such close proximity. With a continent and two oceans separating us, it was unlikely that we would ever be an item. Damn you, road to Oz.

I just never managed to give up.

Spring came, and with it much change. Annette came back! At least, that is, to the shelves. Pampers had a new head of marketing whose first random act of kindness was to revert to the packaging of old.

And there she is to this day, a classic on the bottom shelf, beside the Johnson & Johnson shampoo, below an array of new Italian-pasta baby food.... Sometimes I have to stop and smile. Last week a staff member asked me if I needed assistance. Mostly I just hurry by.

Muzzle: Smashing Pumpkins

For most of the decade that was my twenties, my life consisted of enduring ennui-inducing deprivation. No TV or popular music. No alcohol or animal flesh. Two hours of swimming every morning to stay fit. I didn't socialize much with my peers, choosing instead to spend time with Wittgenstein, Frege, and my older Dutch professor. My life had become tidy and elegant, just like the linear proofs full of lambdas and deltas I wrote. I was going through this charade under the belief that if I proved myself enough as an adult, my wayward adolescence would magically disappear.

It didn't work. I awoke in the summer of 1998 to find myself living with my mother in Las Vegas, Nevada, after hastily dropping out of a Ph.D. program in linguistics and breaking off my engagement to the professor. When I left the East Coast, I had a vague feeling I was doing the right thing, but I didn't know why or what to do next. Consequently, I filled my days by working for the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository Project in a secure position I was morally opposed to on many levels. But what else could I do? Nothing, I believed. And so I dutifully showed up every day in my ironed dresses to help seal Nevada's fate as the keeper of the nation's hot shit.

Even worse, I was hurtling toward my thirtieth birthday in an old Ford Taurus I had bought from my Aunt Maisie because of its high safety rating. I passed the commute time by systematically working through the great rock bands of the '90s. I had missed grunge completely. I put in Stone Temple Pilots, Nine Inch Nails, and Nirvana, and let 'em rip. I'd rock out to songs about alienation and love gone wrong. Yeah! I got it. Or so I thought.

Then I put in the Smashing Pumpkins. I listened to the first half of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness as I drove to work and was stunned by my reaction.

I fear that I'm ordinary, just like everyone

I was ... jealous. I sat in a DOE parking lot and listened to "Muzzle" over and over again.

my life has been extraordinary
blessed and cursed and won
time heals but I'm forever broken
by and by the way ...
have you ever heard the words
I'm singing in these songs?

I became acutely aware of my staid existence. To me, the song depicts a moment similar to the one that is said to happen right before death, where a person sees their whole life flash before them.

and in my mind as I was floating
far above the clouds
some children laughed I'd fall for certain
for thinking that I'd last forever
but I knew exactly where I was
and I knew the meaning of it all
and I knew the distance to the sun
and I knew the echo that is love

As I listened, I knew that if my death were imminent, I would not see such a landscape. It'd be dark, and small. A parade of dreams unfulfilled, loves kept at a distance, and choices borne from fear. A "safe" life.

At age six, I taught myself how to play piano using the Liberace Big Note Songbook that I had begged my mother to buy after seeing it advertised on TV. (Don't laugh-it worked.) Clarinet lessons followed. I joined sixth-grade band and learned flute, saxophone, and oboe. In seventh grade, violin and cello. I could play any instrument I picked up within weeks, exciting even the most jaded band teacher.

It was the same with writing. I completed my first screenplay at age thirteen and sent it in to a production company. I received a rejection back from a kind producer who told me to keep writing, that I was off to a good start. (Don't laugh-he wrote back.) My first print publication came at age fourteen in a national magazine with a glossy cover. I never cashed the check.

From a young age, I knew exactly what I wanted to do: I wanted to play music and make movies. So how did I end up working at a nuclear-waste dump? I asked myself that many times as I listened to "Muzzle."

I had been an angry teenager. I was mad at my parents for giving away my dog, mad that they sent me to live with their friends in Los Angeles when they divorced. I quit band in high school. I started doing drugs and sank into despair, finding solace only when I'd lose myself in the writhing crowds of Grateful Dead shows or the occasional slam pit.

Contrite, I sobered up and entered college a few years late. It's no accident that I studied linguistics. For most, it's a beloved pursuit. But for me, it was an exercise of the old joke that linguists are people who never got over the fact they could talk. I was muzzled, afraid of what might come out if I stopped talking about talking and started talking. Afraid of myself.

Ultimately, I decided: so what? I couldn't kick myself for giving up. Otherwise, what had I learned? There was only one purposeful way forward-I had to pick up where I left off. I resigned from the DOE, replaced the Ford with a high-maintenance, unsafe-but-fun-to-drive Volkswagen, picked up a guitar, and got to work. My mother labeled it an early midlife crisis.

I finished my first (adult) screenplay before I turned thirty and sent it straight into a drawer. I wrote a second one while taking a screenwriting course at a local university. It was a farce about a late-twenty-something girl going through a life change, aptly titled She's Got Issues. When I first heard my words read aloud by the class, a chill went down my spine. My fellow students were laughing so hard they were crying. Who knew nuclear waste could be funny? I've been hooked ever since, turning all of my dumb choices into comedy.

Almost six years later, I'm no longer jealous when I hear "Muzzle." I can play guitar and sing along with it. None of my screenplays have been produced yet, but I've come close enough to know it's only a matter of time if I stay focused. Now the only moment I feel fear is when I think of how close I came to never finding this place.

It was the plaintive voice of Billy Corgan that inspired my own. He's my muse. He's my favorite rock star!



Don't Worry, Baby: The Beach Boys

Little Ed is now eighteen months old and I have embarked on a program of musical education to broaden his horizons beyond the Top 40 radio and Wiggles CDs he subsists on.

While I am now a respectable, upstanding member of the community, much of my early twenties were spent working in a dingy secondhand record store, where I was paid each week with a crumpled handful of small bills and an armful of vinyl. The legacy of those years is thousands of albums cluttering up our apartment, arcanely filed and catalogued. Sounding familiar? High Fidelity stands as a cautionary tale of where, but for the grace of God, went I. To my small credit and the great relief of my wife, I have now reverted to amateur-status-collector scum, instead of professional know-it-all record-store clerk. You can take the boy out of the record store, but...

I'm standing staring at the shelves of vinyl lining the hallway thinking "Where to start?" Little Ed is a pretty happy kind of kid with a short attention span, so we won't be spinning any of the angst-ridden miserablism or difficult-listening records that make up much of the collection. Or prog rock (hock, spit). What I'm after is pop, bright shiny pop music.

I don't think it is too controversial to state that the greatest letter in the pop alphabet is "B"; the Beatles, Blondie, the Byrds, the B-52's, not to mention Bowie, Beck, Beastie Boys, James Brown, etc., etc. And, of course, the Beach Boys. I select a compilation of their earlier singles ("20 Golden Greats", a midseventies budget release on the Capitol label for those of you playing at home) for an overview of their greatest pop moments.

So we're halfway through side one when a song started that I had never really noticed before? "Don't Worry Baby." It originally appeared as the flipside to the "I Get Around" single in 1964 and is a lesser song from Brian Wilson's best pop year, which makes it twenty times better than most songs you'll ever hear. It has a great falsetto verse, where the singer complains that he's been bragging about his car and now he has to race some local hoodlums to prove he's not a complete pussy. Real adolescent whining, tone perfect. But then there's the chorus: he recounts how his girlfriend tells him "don't worry baby, everything will turn out all right." The phrasing is beautiful, flowing freely over the lush backing harmonies, which are mixed almost criminally low. The contrast between the pettiness of the verses and the calm reassurance of the chorus is staggering.

I'm lying on the floor playing with Little Ed, listening to this track, and tears come to my eyes. I can't believe it. It has been years since a song has moved me to tears by its sheer beauty. I am whisked back to a conversation that I had with a friend during those angst-ridden early twenties. It was about 2:30 a.m., and we were drinking whiskey, playing Tom Waits records, and bemoaning the pitiful state of our respective love lives. She described her ideal vision of love. "I want to fall asleep each night with someone stroking my hair and whispering, 'Don't worry, everything will be alright,' and to really believe it." I understood that longing, just as Brian Wilson obviously understood it.

It is a relief to realize that I have (mostly) outgrown being that whiny adolescent needing constant handholding. But even more, I realized that when Ed trips and bumps his head on the coffee table, as he inevitably will, I can hold him, whisper "Don't worry baby," and stroke his hair, and everything will indeed be all right.




Dark December: "Hello it's me" by T. Rundgren

I'm ten years old, nestled in a striped seat on the Greyhound with my mom and older brother, heading north to the safety of Maine, Christmas, and Nana and Grampy. Tucked under my leg are Mad magazine, Archie comics, and 16-reading material I cajoled out of Mom in a cramped drugstore at the Port Authority. (We ate at the lunch counter there, too, even though it was 8 o'clock at night... some kind of grilled sandwich cut in sharp triangles, and shakes from the gleaming silver vessel of the mixing machine, taupe foam hissing as the counterman streamed it into my glass. Blowing bubbles through the straw, until Mom told us to cut that out. Nervous giggles of a trip about to begin.)

I've taken in all I can about Betty's eternal struggle to snag Archie away from that snot Veronica. (She's blond, for crying out loud! What, is Archie blind? This confuses my brown-haired self.) Wondered how anyone could ever stand Reggie with that black helmet of a head and snide demeanor. Already folded Al Jaffee's two-way trick picture on the last page of Mad, having read a satire of The Sting that was way over my head. And I now know all about the Hudson Brothers and their tragic childhoods, as well as Donny's valiant search for the right girl despite the pressures of touring. (She must like the color purple and consider becoming a Mormon, if she's not one already. Oh well, I do love purple.)

I switch off the little circle of light above me and stare out at nighttime New England: big-windowed store façades, factories, neon neon neon, scatterings of houses, deep blackness. My mother's head nods against my arm as the bus bumps and sways, and across the way my brother is occupying two seats, lying curled up under his coat. Me, I'm a laser of wakefulness. We're three rows away from the restroom-always in the back so Mom can smoke.

Behind us is a group of young people, also interested in smoking. Their legs are bent toward one another in jeans and they're sharing a transistor radio, bathed in the smoke-diffused glow of the reading lights. They are teenagers, I think. Not quite hippies; I'm scared of hippies, for some reason. Maybe these are college students. I can't tell, but I envy their camaraderie in the middle of the night, when both of my companions have long since deserted me.

And then: a song comes on their radio, floats down the aisle, inescapable, as if I am hearing it before anybody else-churchy piano, minor chords piled one on the other, regretful lyrics, plaintive yet assertive, hope against hope when love is lost. Entirely mine, this song. Not even my brother, my authority on which songs are cool, is hearing this. I'm burning to know what song this is, who's singing it, but I set that aside to bask in the final chorus with its near-falsetto, shimmering chords: "... 'cause I'd never want to make you change for me-e-e-e-e..." and then the gospel modulation: "Think of me, you-oooh-oooooh, you know that I'd be with you if I could...."

Todd Rundgren sings of the newfound distance between lovers, the end of something and the beginning of something else. He is a man who thought enough of his ex-girlfriend to let her know how important her freedom was to him, and who crafted a masterful pop song to disperse those sentiments. A song about separation, reason, and acceptance, glistening with tantalizing hooks. I'm still playing with Barbies. What do I know about these things?

It's not just what I knew then, but what I would know; I was transported to the future place where such yearning emotions would dwell in me. A touchstone from a tinny radio in dark December on a Greyhound bus. Every time love-lost feelings arise, I press that stone into my palm, its cool, smooth assurance getting me through, and its pain-shifting chords saying everything better than words.



Alison: Elvis Costello

I once expressed to a friend my desire to be able to erase from my memory all of my favorite songs so that I might have the experience of hearing them again for the first time. It seemed to me that if I listened to a song I loved too often, I ran the risk of wearing it out. I was afraid that eventually it wouldn't move me in quite the same way. I would still want, maybe even need, to hear it, but the level of emotional intensity simply wouldn't be as high. With every listen, I would be looking for the magic and it would be gone. The passion would be traded for a friendly laugh, some small talk, and a pleasant goodbye until I felt like meeting up again. I have come to realize this is not so with the really great songs, the ones that are new every time, the true loves. It is certainly not so with "Alison."

Every time is the first time with "Alison." Always tender, always awkward, always violent. It is impossible not to be lured in by the opening bars. She's swaying in the corner, looking unimpressed, wondering if he's going to come over and ask her how she's been. I try to walk away, change the station, press stop on the player. I can't ever resist her, even though I know it would be easier that way. The drumbeat is quiet and steady, the guitar riffs small, beautiful embellishments. Elvis Costello's voice is the perfect blend of compassion and haughtiness. At first glance, she's all sexy slow dances, dresses removed by other men, a string of imagined lovers accepted and rejected while he stood apart. Costello and his backing band get fired up. Cymbals crash, another voice joins in.

A lifetime flashes by while he's speaking to her. Years pass in moments between the chorus and the second verse. Memories are relived, anger and jealousy and the saddest kind of love dredged up. No matter how many times I sing along, I always think I've missed some lines. Youth and sexiness have been traded for anguished reflection. It doesn't get much more haunting than the image of "pretty fingers lying in the wedding cake." And now maybe she's going on about whatever, in that way the most intimate strangers sometimes do, and he just wants her to shut the hell up. When Costello sings, "Sometimes I wish that I could STOP you from talking when I hear the silly things that you say," all the background sound drops away, and that "STOP" slaps me in the face. Without fail, I flinch, stung but also grateful. I couldn't take anymore either.

As Costello murmurs "my aim is true" repeatedly over the guitar fade, I have envisioned a number of things happening-a man reaching out to touch her face, throwing his head back and crying her name, getting down on his knees and begging, or pulling a gun from his jacket. At the song's close, I am left torn up, disappointed that it's over, and longing to know what comes next. I've fallen for "Alison," too, and I hate her for leaving us this way.


Get me away from here, I'm dying: Bell & Sebastian

During a period of some despair, involving a girlfriend with a drug habit, Midwestern winters and the realization that I didn't really want to write a PhD dissertation, this wee slip of a song came flitting through my radio. Waking up late on cold mornings with condensation from the radiators on the window, I'd listen to the song in bed, unable to figure out who performed it because the radio station, WHPK, a local college station, had a tendency to play fifteen or more songs in a row. At the conclusion of these sets, an undergraduate DJ with a low voice would mumble his way through the playlist for five minutes in no easily discernable pattern.

Many of the DJs clearly felt as I did because the song was in heavy rotation. Determined to find out who sang it, I would count off the songs in one of these long sets and then count the playlist as the DJ went through it. Through trial and error, I discovered that Belle & Sebastian were the artists responsible for "Get Me Away from Here, I'm Dying." I later learned that the station also kept reasonably accurate playlists online, but for some reason, I'm glad to have found out who the band through obsessive behavior.

Chicago, where I resided, is blessed with only two seasons, summer and winter, neither of them pleasant. Every day as I walked to the library to spend hours reading academic theory that bore little resemblance to the world around me, something felt oppressive, whether it be the humidity, the cold, the grey skies or the bare trees. The library, a Brutalist concrete and glass affair, appeared designed by the East German civil defense authority, and I sat in the basement every day for at least eight hours at a stretch trying to imagine my life as an academic, mostly to no avail. It made me feel like Stuart Murdoch when he sings, "From where I'm sitting, rain washing against the lonely tenement has set my mind to wander."

At night, I would walk home to my girlfriend, a lovely woman with many, many problems, not the least of which was her reliance on weed for simple activities such as sleep and eating. At night, she would hold me tightly, like children might a toy, and I felt that if I left her, she might do something rash. Even though I realized after a long time of pretending otherwise that I didn't love her, I stayed out of fear of provoking something, something I preferred not to think about.

And then I heard Belle & Sebastian sing, "Get me away from here, I'm dying, sing me a song to set me free," and it gave a voice to my feelings of dread and unease. Not to stretch an analogy but I think that slave-owners frequently tried to prevent slaves from learning to read and write because they were afraid that once their chattel was able to articulate their oppression, they would revolt. Upon hearing the line, "Get me away from here, I'm, dying," I realized I felt that way too, and that the only solution was to flee.

Leaving Chicago, graduate school, and my girlfriend with the drug habit, I listened to this song. I crossed the state line into Indiana going east on I-80. Amidst the urban decay, fireworks warehouses and miles of mobile home dealers that define Gary, Indiana, I heard them sing, "At the final moment, I cried, I always cry at endings."

"Ooh! get me away from here I’m dying
Play me a song to set me free
Nobody writes them like they used to
So it may as well be me
Here on my own now after hours
Here on my own now on a bus
Think of it this way
You could either be successful or be us
With our winning smiles, and us
With our catchy tunes and words
Now we’re photogenic
You know, we don’t stand a chance

Oh, I’ll settle down with some old story
About a boy who’s just like me
Thought there was love in everything and everyone
You’re so naive!
They always reach a sorry ending
They always get it in the end
Still it was worth it as I turned the pages solemnly, and then
With a winning smile, the poor boy
With naivety succeeds
At the final moment, I cried
I always cry at endings

Oh, that wasn’t what I meant to say at all
From where I’m sitting, rain
Falling against the lonely tenement
Has set my mind to wander
Into the windows of my lovers
They never know unless I write
This is no declaration, I just thought I’d let you know goodbye
Said the hero in the story
It is mightier than swords
I could kill you sure
But I could only make you cry with these words"


Oh my Sweet Carolina: Ryan Adams and Emmylou Harris

A long time ago, when I was still teaching English to foreign students in a London language school, I gave private conversation lessons to an unhappy man who called himself Edward, even though that wasn't his name. Edward was an African living in Rome, where he was a foreign correspondent for his home-town newspaper, and he was unhappy because he was going through a divorce. But he was lucid in his unhappiness: he talked with regret, of course, but also with insight, and enormous intelligence, and his melancholy took him off to all sorts of interesting conversational places - places I never normally got to visit in the normal run of things. I remember the concentration our talks required, and the stillness and intensity they engendered; I knew that he was in pain, but when our fifty minutes were over I felt invigorated and inspired. When it was time for him to return to Rome, he asked me to go and stay with him, and I accepted the invitation.

But when I got there, a few weeks later, he wasn't unhappy any more. He was revelling in his status as a single man, a status that, apparently, required very little self-reflection or intelligence: on the night I arrived, I found that he'd fixed us up with a couple of call-girls. I copped out, in my prissy English way, but he disappeared for forty-eight hours (leaving me with sole use of a beautiful apartment in the centre of Rome); when he came back, he told me he was engaged.

Some people are at their best when they're miserable. Ryan Adams's beautiful Heartbreaker album is, I suspect, the product of a great deal of pain, and "Oh My Sweet Carolina" is its perfect, still centre, its faint heartbeat, a song so quiet that you don't want to breathe throughout its duration. (It helps that Adams got Emmylou Harris, the best harmony vocalist in the history of pop music, to sing with him on it.) On Adams's next album, Gold, he seems to have cheered up, and though that's good news for him, it's bad news for me, just as it was when Edward stopped being miserable. His upbeat songs are fine, but they sound a lot like other people's upbeat songs (you can hear the cheeriest incarnations of the Stones, Dylan and Van Morrison all over Gold); his blues gave him distinction.

What rights do we have here? Are we entitled to ask other people to be unhappy for our benefit? After all, there are loads of us, and only one of them. And how can you be happy, really, if you are only ordinary in your happiness, but extraordinary in your grief? Is it really worth it? It sounds harsh, I know, but if you are currently romantically involved with someone with a real talent - especially a talent for songwriting - then do us all a favour and dump them. There might be a Heartbreaker - or a Blood On The Tracks or a Layla - in it for all of us. Thanks.

Politics

Meet The Press, February 7, 2004:

TIM RUSSERT: If the Iraqis choose, however, an Islamic extremist regime, would you accept that, and would that be better for the United States than Saddam Hussein?

PRESIDENT BUSH: They're not going to develop that. And the reason I can say that is because I'm very aware of this basic law they're writing. They're not going to develop that because right here in the Oval Office I sat down with Mr. Pachachi and Chalabi and al-Hakim, people from different parts of the country that have made the firm commitment, that they want a constitution eventually written that recognizes minority rights and freedom of religion.

Rose Garden press conference, June 1, 2004:

Q: Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. Chalabi is an Iraqi leader that's fallen out of favor within your administration. I'm wondering if you feel that he provided any false information, or are you particularly —

BUSH: Chalabi?

Q: Yes, with Chalabi.

BUSH: My meetings with him were very brief. I mean, I think I met with him at the State of the Union and just kind of working through the rope line, and he might have come with a group of leaders. But I haven't had any extensive conversations with him.

Q: I guess I'm asking, do you feel like he misled your administration, in terms of what the expectations were going to be going into Iraq?

BUSH: I don't remember anybody walking into my office saying, Chalabi says this is the way it's going to be in Iraq.



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LYRICS

GOD ONLY KNOWS
- Brian Wilson

I may not always love you
But long as there are stars above you
You never need to doubt it
I'll make you so sure about it

God only knows what I'd be without you

If you should ever leave me
Though life would still go on believe me
The world could show nothing to me
So what good would living do me?

God only knows what I'd be without you

If you should ever leave me
Well life would still go on believe me
The world could show nothing to me
So what good would living do me?

God only knows what I'd be without you

INTERNET

Fahrenheit 9/11

Anchorman

POLITICS

Remarks by Al Gore
May 26, 2004
As Prepared

George W. Bush promised us a foreign policy with humility. Instead, he has brought us humiliation in the eyes of the world.

He promised to "restore honor and integrity to the White House." Instead, he has brought deep dishonor to our country and built a durable reputation as the most dishonest President since Richard Nixon.

Honor? He decided not to honor the Geneva Convention. Just as he would not honor the United Nations, international treaties, the opinions of our allies, the role of Congress and the courts, or what Jefferson described as "a decent respect for the opinion of mankind." He did not honor the advice, experience and judgment of our military leaders in designing his invasion of Iraq. And now he will not honor our fallen dead by attending any funerals or even by permitting photos of their flag-draped coffins.

How did we get from September 12th , 2001, when a leading French newspaper ran a giant headline with the words "We Are All Americans Now" and when we had the good will and empathy of all the world -- to the horror that we all felt in witnessing the pictures of torture in Abu Ghraib.

To begin with, from its earliest days in power, this administration sought to radically destroy the foreign policy consensus that had guided America since the end of World War II. The long successful strategy of containment was abandoned in favor of the new strategy of "preemption." And what they meant by preemption was not the inherent right of any nation to act preemptively against an imminent threat to its national security, but rather an exotic new approach that asserted a unique and unilateral U.S. right to ignore international law wherever it wished to do so and take military action against any nation, even in circumstances where there was no imminent threat. All that is required, in the view of Bush's team is the mere assertion of a possible, future threat - and the assertion need be made by only one person, the President.

More disturbing still was their frequent use of the word "dominance" to describe their strategic goal, because an American policy of dominance is as repugnant to the rest of the world as the ugly dominance of the helpless, naked Iraqi prisoners has been to the American people. Dominance is as dominance does.

Dominance is not really a strategic policy or political philosophy at all. It is a seductive illusion that tempts the powerful to satiate their hunger for more power still by striking a Faustian bargain. And as always happens - sooner or later - to those who shake hands with the devil, they find out too late that what they have given up in the bargain is their soul.

One of the clearest indications of the impending loss of intimacy with one's soul is the failure to recognize the existence of a soul in those over whom power is exercised, especially if the helpless come to be treated as animals, and degraded. We also know - and not just from De Sade and Freud - the psychological proximity between sexual depravity and other people's pain. It has been especially shocking and awful to see these paired evils perpetrated so crudely and cruelly in the name of America.

Those pictures of torture and sexual abuse came to us embedded in a wave of news about escalating casualties and growing chaos enveloping our entire policy in Iraq. But in order understand the failure of our overall policy, it is important to focus specifically on what happened in the Abu Ghraib prison, and ask whether or not those actions were representative of who we are as Americans? Obviously the quick answer is no, but unfortunately it's more complicated than that.

There is good and evil in every person. And what makes the United States special in the history of nations is our commitment to the rule of law and our carefully constructed system of checks and balances. Our natural distrust of concentrated power and our devotion to openness and democracy are what have lead us as a people to consistently choose good over evil in our collective aspirations more than the people any other nation.

Our founders were insightful students of human nature. They feared the abuse of power because they understood that every human being has not only "better angels" in his nature, but also an innate vulnerability to temptation - especially the temptation to abuse power over others.

Our founders understood full well that a system of checks and balances is needed in our constitution because every human being lives with an internal system of checks and balances that cannot be relied upon to produce virtue if they are allowed to attain an unhealthy degree of power over their fellow citizens.

Listen then to the balance of internal impulses described by specialist Charles Graner when confronted by one of his colleagues, Specialist Joseph M. Darby, who later became a courageous whistleblower. When Darby asked him to explain his actions documented in the photos, Graner replied: "The Christian in me says it's wrong, but the Corrections Officer says, 'I love to make a groan man piss on himself."

What happened at the prison, it is now clear, was not the result of random acts by "a few bad apples," it was the natural consequence of the Bush Administration policy that has dismantled those wise constraints and has made war on America's checks and balances.

The abuse of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib flowed directly from the abuse of the truth that characterized the Administration's march to war and the abuse of the trust that had been placed in President Bush by the American people in the aftermath of September 11th.

There was then, there is now and there would have been regardless of what Bush did, a threat of terrorism that we would have to deal with. But instead of making it better, he has made it infinitely worse. We are less safe because of his policies. He has created more anger and righteous indignation against us as Americans than any leader of our country in the 228 years of our existence as a nation -- because of his attitude of contempt for any person, institution or nation who disagrees with him.

He has exposed Americans abroad and Americans in every U.S. town and city to a greater danger of attack by terrorists because of his arrogance, willfulness, and bungling at stirring up hornet's nests that pose no threat whatsoever to us. And by then insulting the religion and culture and tradition of people in other countries. And by pursuing policies that have resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent men, women and children, all of it done in our name.

President Bush said in his speech Monday night that the war in Iraq is "the central front in the war on terror." It's not the central front in the war on terror, but it has unfortunately become the central recruiting office for terrorists. [Dick Cheney said, "This war may last the rest of our lives.] The unpleasant truth is that President Bush's utter incompetence has made the world a far more dangerous place and dramatically increased the threat of terrorism against the United States. Just yesterday, the International Institute of Strategic Studies reported that the Iraq conflict " has arguable focused the energies and resources of Al Qaeda and its followers while diluting those of the global counterterrorism coalition." The ISS said that in the wake of the war in Iraq Al Qaeda now has more than 18,000 potential terrorists scattered around the world and the war in Iraq is swelling its ranks.

The war plan was incompetent in its rejection of the advice from military professionals and the analysis of the intelligence was incompetent in its conclusion that our soldiers would be welcomed with garlands of flowers and cheering crowds. Thus we would not need to respect the so-called Powell doctrine of overwhelming force.

There was also in Rumsfeld's planning a failure to provide security for nuclear materials, and to prevent widespread lawlessness and looting.

Luckily, there was a high level of competence on the part of our soldiers even though they were denied the tools and the numbers they needed for their mission. What a disgrace that their families have to hold bake sales to buy discarded Kevlar vests to stuff into the floorboards of the Humvees! Bake sales for body armor.

And the worst still lies ahead. General Joseph Hoar, the former head of the Marine Corps, said "I believe we are absolutely on the brink of failure. We are looking into the abyss."

When a senior, respected military leader like Joe Hoar uses the word "abyss", then the rest of us damn well better listen. Here is what he means: more American soldiers dying, Iraq slipping into worse chaos and violence, no end in sight, with our influence and moral authority seriously damaged.

Retired Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni, who headed Central Command before becoming President Bush's personal emissary to the Middle East, said recently that our nation's current course is "headed over Niagara Falls."

The Commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, Army Major General Charles H. Swannack, Jr., asked by the Washington Post whether he believes the United States is losing the war in Iraq, replied, "I think strategically, we are." Army Colonel Paul Hughes, who directed strategic planning for the US occupation authority in Baghdad, compared what he sees in Iraq to the Vietnam War, in which he lost his brother: "I promised myself when I came on active duty that I would do everything in my power to prevent that ... from happening again. " Noting that Vietnam featured a pattern of winning battles while losing the war, Hughes added "unless we ensure that we have coherence in our policy, we will lose strategically."

The White House spokesman, Dan Bartlett was asked on live television about these scathing condemnations by Generals involved in the highest levels of Pentagon planning and he replied, "Well they're retired, and we take our advice from active duty officers."

But amazingly, even active duty military officers are speaking out against President Bush. For example, the Washington Post quoted an unnamed senior General at the Pentagon as saying, " the current OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense) refused to listen or adhere to military advice." Rarely if ever in American history have uniformed commanders felt compelled to challenge their commander in chief in public.

The Post also quoted an unnamed general as saying, "Like a lot of senior Army guys I'm quite angry" with Rumsfeld and the rest of the Bush Administration. He listed two reasons. "I think they are going to break the Army," he said, adding that what really incites him is "I don't think they care."

In his upcoming book, Zinni blames the current catastrophe on the Bush team's incompetence early on. "In the lead-up to the Iraq war, and its later conduct," he writes, "I saw at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility, at worst, lying, incompetence and corruption."

Zinni's book will join a growing library of volumes by former advisors to Bush -- including his principal advisor on terrorism, Richard Clarke; his principal economic policy advisor, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, who was honored by Bush's father for his service in Iraq, and his former Domestic Adviser on faith-based organizations, John Dilulio, who said, "There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus. What you've got is everything, and I mean everything, run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."

Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki told Congress in February that the occupation could require "several hundred thousand troops." But because Rumsfeld and Bush did not want to hear disagreement with their view that Iraq could be invaded at a much lower cost, Shinseki was hushed and then forced out.

And as a direct result of this incompetent plan and inadequate troop strength, young soldiers were put in an untenable position. For example, young reservists assigned to the Iraqi prisons were called up without training or adequate supervision, and were instructed by their superiors to "break down" prisoners in order to prepare them for interrogation.

To make matters worse, they were placed in a confusing situation where the chain of command was criss-crossed between intelligence gathering and prison administration, and further confused by an unprecedented mixing of military and civilian contractor authority.

The soldiers who are accused of committing these atrocities are, of course, responsible for their own actions and if found guilty, must be severely and appropriately punished. But they are not the ones primarily responsible for the disgrace that has been brought upon the United States of America.

Private Lynndie England did not make the decision that the United States would not observe the Geneva Convention. Specialist Charles Graner was not the one who approved a policy of establishing an American Gulag of dark rooms with naked prisoners to be "stressed" and even - we must use the word - tortured - to force them to say things that legal procedures might not induce them to say.

These policies were designed and insisted upon by the Bush White House. Indeed, the President's own legal counsel advised him specifically on the subject. His secretary of defense and his assistants pushed these cruel departures from historic American standards over the objections of the uniformed military, just as the Judge Advocates General within the Defense Department were so upset and opposed that they took the unprecedented step of seeking help from a private lawyer in this city who specializes in human rights and said to him, "There is a calculated effort to create an atmosphere of legal ambiguity" where the mistreatment of prisoners is concerned."

Indeed, the secrecy of the program indicates an understanding that the regular military culture and mores would not support these activities and neither would the American public or the world community. Another implicit acknowledgement of violations of accepted standards of behavior is the process of farming out prisoners to countries less averse to torture and giving assignments to private contractors

President Bush set the tone for our attitude for suspects in his State of the Union address. He noted that more than 3,000 "suspected terrorists" had been arrested in many countries and then he added, "and many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way: they are no longer a problem to the United States and our allies."

George Bush promised to change the tone in Washington. And indeed he did. As many as 37 prisoners may have been murdered while in captivity, though the numbers are difficult to rely upon because in many cases involving violent death, there were no autopsies.

How dare they blame their misdeeds on enlisted personnel from a Reserve unit in upstate New York. President Bush owes more than one apology. On the list of those he let down are the young soldiers who are themselves apparently culpable, but who were clearly put into a moral cesspool. The perpetrators as well as the victims were both placed in their relationship to one another by the policies of George W. Bush.

How dare the incompetent and willful members of this Bush/Cheney Administration humiliate our nation and our people in the eyes of the world and in the conscience of our own people. How dare they subject us to such dishonor and disgrace. How dare they drag the good name of the United States of America through the mud of Saddam Hussein's torture prison.

David Kay concluded his search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq with the famous verdict: "we were all wrong." And for many Americans, Kay's statement seemed to symbolize the awful collision between Reality and all of the false and fading impressions President Bush had fostered in building support for his policy of going to war.

Now the White House has informed the American people that they were also "all wrong" about their decision to place their faith in Ahmed Chalabi, even though they have paid him 340,000 dollars per month. 33 million dollars (CHECK) and placed him adjacent to Laura Bush at the State of the Union address. Chalabi had been convicted of fraud and embezzling 70 million dollars in public funds from a Jordanian bank, and escaped prison by fleeing the country. But in spite of that record, he had become one of key advisors to the Bush Administration on planning and promoting the War against Iraq.

And they repeatedly cited him as an authority, perhaps even a future president of Iraq. Incredibly, they even ferried him and his private army into Baghdad in advance of anyone else, and allowed him to seize control over Saddam's secret papers.

Now they are telling the American people that he is a spy for Iran who has been duping the President of the United States for all these years.

One of the Generals in charge of this war policy went on a speaking tour in his spare time to declare before evangelical groups that the US is in a holy war as "Christian Nation battling Satan." This same General Boykin was the person who ordered the officer who was in charge of the detainees in Guantanamo Bay to extend his methods to Iraq detainees, prisoners. ... The testimony from the prisoners is that they were forced to curse their religion Bush used the word "crusade" early on in the war against Iraq, and then commentators pointed out that it was singularly inappropriate because of the history and sensitivity of the Muslim world and then a few weeks later he used it again.

"We are now being viewed as the modern Crusaders, as the modern colonial power in this part of the world," Zinni said.

What a terrible irony that our country, which was founded by refugees seeking religious freedom - coming to America to escape domineering leaders who tried to get them to renounce their religion - would now be responsible for this kind of abuse..

Ameen Saeed al-Sheikh told the Washington Post that he was tortured and ordered to denounce Islam and after his leg was broken one of his torturers started hitting it while ordering him to curse Islam and then, " they ordered me to thank Jesus that I'm alive." Others reported that they were forced to eat pork and drink alcohol.

In my religious tradition, I have been taught that "ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit... Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them."

The President convinced a majority of the country that Saddam Hussein was responsible for attacking us on September 11th. But in truth he had nothing whatsoever to do with it. The President convinced the country with a mixture of forged documents and blatantly false assertions that Saddam was in league with Al Qaeda, and that he was "indistinguishable" from Osama bin Laden.

He asked the nation , in his State of the Union address, to "imagine" how terrified we should be that Saddam was about to give nuclear weapons to terrorists and stated repeatedly that Iraq posed a grave and gathering threat to our nation. He planted the seeds of war, and harvested a whirlwind. And now, the "corrupt tree" of a war waged on false premises has brought us the "evil fruit" of Americans torturing and humiliating prisoners.

In my opinion, John Kerry is dealing with this unfolding tragedy in an impressive and extremely responsible way. Our nation's best interest lies in having a new president who can turn a new page, sweep clean with a new broom, and take office on January 20th of next year with the ability to make a fresh assessment of exactly what our nation's strategic position is as of the time the reigns of power are finally wrested from the group of incompetents that created this catastrophe.

Kerry should not tie his own hands by offering overly specific, detailed proposals concerning a situation that is rapidly changing and unfortunately, rapidly deteriorating, but should rather preserve his, and our country's, options, to retrieve our national honor as soon as this long national nightmare is over.

Eisenhower did not propose a five-point plan for changing America's approach to the Korean War when he was running for president in 1952.

When a business enterprise finds itself in deep trouble that is linked to the failed policies of the current CEO the board of directors and stockholders usually say to the failed CEO, "Thank you very much, but we're going to replace you now with a new CEO -- one less vested in a stubborn insistence on staying the course, even if that course is, in the words of General Zinni, "Headed over Niagara Falls."

One of the strengths of democracy is the ability of the people to regularly demand changes in leadership and to fire a failing leader and hire a new one with the promise of hopeful change. That is the real solution to America's quagmire in Iraq. But, I am keenly aware that we have seven months and twenty five days remaining in this president's current term of office and that represents a time of dangerous vulnerability for our country because of the demonstrated incompetence and recklessness of the current administration.

It is therefore essential that even as we focus on the fateful choice, the voters must make this November that we simultaneously search for ways to sharply reduce the extraordinary danger that we face with the current leadership team in place. It is for that reason that I am calling today for Republicans as well as Democrats to join me in asking for the immediate resignations of those immediately below George Bush and Dick Cheney who are most responsible for creating the catastrophe that we are facing in Iraq.

We desperately need a national security team with at least minimal competence because the current team is making things worse with each passing day. They are endangering the lives of our soldiers, and sharply increasing the danger faced by American citizens everywhere in the world, including here at home. They are enraging hundreds of millions of people and embittering an entire generation of anti-Americans whose rage is already near the boiling point.

We simply cannot afford to further increase the risk to our country with more blunders by this team. Donald Rumsfeld, as the chief architect of the war plan, should resign today. His deputies Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and his intelligence chief Stephen Cambone should also resign. The nation is especially at risk every single day that Rumsfeld remains as Secretary of Defense.

Condoleeza Rice, who has badly mishandled the coordination of national security policy, should also resign immediately.

George Tenet should also resign. I want to offer a special word about George Tenet, because he is a personal friend and I know him to be a good and decent man. It is especially painful to call for his resignation, but I have regretfully concluded that it is extremely important that our country have new leadership at the CIA immediately.

As a nation, our greatest export has always been hope: hope that through the rule of law people can be free to pursue their dreams, that democracy can supplant repression and that justice, not power, will be the guiding force in society. Our moral authority in the world derived from the hope anchored in the rule of law. With this blatant failure of the rule of law from the very agents of our government, we face a great challenge in restoring our moral authority in the world and demonstrating our commitment to bringing a better life to our global neighbors.

During Ronald Reagan's Presidency, Secretary of Labor Ray Donovan was accused of corruption, but eventually, after a lot of publicity, the indictment was thrown out by the Judge. Donovan asked the question, "Where do I go to get my reputation back?" President Bush has now placed the United States of America in the same situation. Where do we go to get our good name back?

The answer is, we go where we always go when a dramatic change is needed. We go to the ballot box, and we make it clear to the rest of the world that what's been happening in America for the last four years, and what America has been doing in Iraq for the last two years, really is not who we are. We, as a people, at least the overwhelming majority of us, do not endorse the decision to dishonor the Geneva Convention and the Bill of Rights....

Make no mistake, the damage done at Abu Ghraib is not only to America's reputation and America's strategic interests, but also to America's spirit. It is also crucial for our nation to recognize - and to recognize quickly - that the damage our nation has suffered in the world is far, far more serious than President Bush's belated and tepid response would lead people to believe. Remember how shocked each of us, individually, was when we first saw those hideous images. The natural tendency was to first recoil from the images, and then to assume that they represented a strange and rare aberration that resulted from a few twisted minds or, as the Pentagon assured us, "a few bad apples."

But as today's shocking news reaffirms yet again, this was not rare. It was not an aberration. Today's New York Times reports that an Army survey of prisoner deaths and mistreatment in Iraq and Afghanisatan "show a widespread pattern of abuse involving more military units than previously known.'

Nor did these abuses spring from a few twisted minds at the lowest ranks of our military enlisted personnel. No, it came from twisted values and atrocious policies at the highest levels of our government. This was done in our name, by our leaders.

These horrors were the predictable consequence of policy choices that flowed directly from this administration's contempt for the rule of law. And the dominance they have been seeking is truly not simply unworthy of America - it is also an illusory goal in its own right.

Our world is unconquerable because the human spirit is unconquerable, and any national strategy based on pursuing the goal of domination is doomed to fail because it generates its own opposition, and in the process, creates enemies for the would-be dominator.

A policy based on domination of the rest of the world not only creates enemies for the United States and creates recruits for Al Qaeda, it also undermines the international cooperation that is essential to defeating the efforts of terrorists who wish harm and intimidate Americans.

Unilateralism, as we have painfully seen in Iraq, is its own reward. Going it alone may satisfy a political instinct but it is dangerous to our military, even without their Commander in Chief taunting terrorists to "bring it on."

Our troops are stretched thin and exhausted not only because Secretary Rumsfeld contemptuously dismissed the advice of military leaders on the size of the needed force - but also because President Bush's contempt for traditional allies and international opinion left us without a real coalition to share the military and financial burden of the war and the occupation. Our future is dependent upon increasing cooperation and interdependence in a world tied ever more closely together by technologies of communications and travel. The emergence of a truly global civilization has been accompanied by the recognition of truly global challenges that require global responses that, as often as not, can only be led by the United States - and only if the United States restores and maintains its moral authority to lead.

Make no mistake, it is precisely our moral authority that is our greatest source of strength, and it is precisely our moral authority that has been recklessly put at risk by the cheap calculations and mean compromises of conscience wagered with history by this willful president.

Listen to the way Israel's highest court dealt with a similar question when, in 1999, it was asked to balance due process rights against dire threats to the security of its people:

"This is the destiny of democracy, as not all means are acceptable to it, and not all practices employed by its enemies are open before it. Although a democracy must often fight with one hand tied behind its back, it nonetheless has the upper hand. Preserving the Rule of Law and recognition of an individual's liberty constitutes an important component in its understanding of security. At the end of the day they (add to) its strength."

The last and best description of America's meaning in the world is still the definitive formulation of Lincoln's annual message to Congress on December 1, 1862:

"The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise - with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country. Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history...the fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation...We shall nobly save, or meanly lose the last best hope of earth...The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just - a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless."

It is now clear that their obscene abuses of the truth and their unforgivable abuse of the trust placed in them after 9/11 by the American people led directly to the abuses of the prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison and, we are now learning, in many other similar facilities constructed as part of Bush's Gulag, in which, according to the Red Cross, 70 to 90 percent of the victims are totally innocent of any wrongdoing.

The same dark spirit of domination has led them to - for the first time in American history - imprison American citizens with no charges, no right to see a lawyer, no right to notify their family, no right to know of what they are accused, and no right to gain access to any court to present an appeal of any sort. The Bush Admistration has even acquired the power to compel librarians to tell them what any American is reading, and to compel them to keep silent about the request - or else the librarians themselves can also be imprisoned.

They have launched an unprecedented assault on civil liberties, on the right of the courts to review their actions, on the right of the Congress to have information to how they are spending the public's money and the right of the news media to have information about the policies they are pursuing.

The same pattern characterizes virtually all of their policies. They resent any constraint as an insult to their will to dominate and exercise power. Their appetite for power is astonishing. It has led them to introduce a new level of viciousness in partisan politics. It is that viciousness that led them to attack as unpatriotic, Senator Max Cleland, who lost three limbs in combat during the Vietnam War.

The president episodically poses as a healer and "uniter". If he president really has any desire to play that role, then I call upon him to condemn Rush Limbaugh - perhaps his strongest political supporter - who said that the torture in Abu Ghraib was a "brilliant maneuver" and that the photos were "good old American pornography," and that the actions portrayed were simply those of "people having a good time and needing to blow off steam."

This new political viciousness by the President and his supporters is found not only on the campaign trail, but in the daily operations of our democracy. They have insisted that the leaders of their party in the Congress deny Democrats any meaningful role whatsoever in shaping legislation, debating the choices before us as a people, or even to attend the all-important conference committees that reconcile the differences between actions by the Senate and House of Representatives.

The same meanness of spirit shows up in domestic policies as well. Under the Patriot Act, Muslims, innocent of any crime, were picked up, often physically abused, and held incommunicado indefinitely. What happened in Abu Ghraib was difference not of kind, but of degree.

Differences of degree are important when the subject is torture. The apologists for what has happened do have points that should be heard and clearly understood. It is a fact that every culture and every politics sometimes expresses itself in cruelty. It is also undeniably true that other countries have and do torture more routinely, and far more brutally, than ours has. George Orwell once characterized life in Stalin's Russia as "a boot stamping on a human face forever." That was the ultimate culture of cruelty, so ingrained, so organic, so systematic that everyone in it lived in terror, even the terrorizers. And that was the nature and degree of state cruelty in Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

We all know these things, and we need not reassure ourselves and should not congratulate ourselves that our society is less cruel than some others, although it is worth noting that there are many that are less cruel than ours. And this searing revelation at Abu Ghraib should lead us to examine more thoroughly the routine horrors in our domestic prison system.

But what we do now, in reaction to Abu Ghraib will determine a great deal about who we are at the beginning of the 21st century. It is important to note that just as the abuses of the prisoners flowed directly from the policies of the Bush White House, those policies flowed not only from the instincts of the president and his advisors, but found support in shifting attitudes on the part of some in our country in response to the outrage and fear generated by the attack of September 11th.

The president exploited and fanned those fears, but some otherwise sensible and levelheaded Americans fed them as well. I remember reading genteel-sounding essays asking publicly whether or not the prohibitions against torture were any longer relevant or desirable. The same grotesque misunderstanding of what is really involved was responsible for the tone in the memo from the president's legal advisor, Alberto Gonzalez, who wrote on January 25, 2002, that 9/11 "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."

We have seen the pictures. We have learned the news. We cannot unlearn it; it is part of us. The important question now is, what will we do now about torture. Stop it? Yes, of course. But that means demanding all of the facts, not covering them up, as some now charge the administration is now doing. One of the whistleblowers at Abu Ghraib, Sergeant Samuel Provance, told ABC News a few days ago that he was being intimidated and punished for telling the truth. "There is definitely a coverup," Provance said. "I feel like I am being punished for being honest."

The abhorrent acts in the prison were a direct consequence of the culture of impunity encouraged, authorized and instituted by Bush and Rumsfeld in their statements that the Geneva Conventions did not apply. The apparent war crimes that took place were the logical, inevitable outcome of policies and statements from the administration.

To me, as glaring as the evidence of this in the pictures themselves was the revelation that it was established practice for prisoners to be moved around during ICRC visits so that they would not be available for visits. That, no one can claim, was the act of individuals. That was policy set from above with the direct intention to violate US values it was to be upholding. It was the kind of policy we see - and criticize in places like China and Cuba.

Moreover, the administration has also set up the men and women of our own armed forces for payback the next time they are held as prisoners. And for that, this administration should pay a very high price. One of the most tragic consequences of these official crimes is that it will be very hard for any of us as Americans - at least for a very long time - to effectively stand up for human rights elsewhere and criticize other governments, when our policies have resulted in our soldiers behaving so monstrously. This administration has shamed America and deeply damaged the cause of freedom and human rights everywhere, thus undermining the core message of America to the world.

President Bush offered a brief and half-hearted apology to the Arab world - but he should apologize to the American people for abandoning the Geneva Conventions. He also owes an apology to the U.S. Army for cavalierly sending them into harm's way while ignoring the best advice of their commanders. Perhaps most importantly of all, he should apologize to all those men and women throughout our world who have held the ideal of the United States of America as a shining goal, to inspire their hopeful efforts to bring about justice under a rule of law in their own lands. Of course, the problem with all these legitimate requests is that a sincere apology requires an admission of error, a willingness to accept responsibility and to hold people accountable. And President Bush is not only unwilling to acknowledge error. He has thus far been unwilling to hold anyone in his administration accountable for the worst strategic and military miscalculations and mistakes in the history of the United States of America.

He is willing only to apologize for the alleged erratic behavior of a few low-ranking enlisted people, who he is scapegoating for his policy fiasco.

In December of 2000, even though I strongly disagreed with the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to order a halt to the counting of legally cast ballots, I saw it as my duty to reaffirm my own strong belief that we are a nation of laws and not only accept the decision, but do what I could to prevent efforts to delegitimize George Bush as he took the oath of office as president.

I did not at that moment imagine that Bush would, in the presidency that ensued, demonstrate utter contempt for the rule of law and work at every turn to frustrate accountability...

So today, I want to speak on behalf of those Americans who feel that President Bush has betrayed our nation's trust, those who are horrified at what has been done in our name, and all those who want the rest of the world to know that we Americans see the abuses that occurred in the prisons of Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and secret locations as yet undisclosed as completely out of keeping with the character and basic nature of the American people and at odds with the principles on which America stands.

I believe we have a duty to hold President Bush accountable - and I believe we will. As Lincoln said at our time of greatest trial, "We - even we here - hold the power, and bear the responsibility."

PENS

This has been my favourite pen since 1990:

R.E.M.

R.E.M.

New Adventures in Hi-Fi

What on Earth happened to R.E.M? If you’ve ever had more than a passing interest in Georgia’s golden boys, you’ve probably found yourself asking this question at some point in the band’s 21-year recording history.

Some fans (the ones who take any opportunity to remind you that they were there before you) will curtail the question with one or more of the following: “…they’re so commercial now… …the R.E.M. I listened to would never have bothered with world tours… …yeah, man I preferred them when you couldn’t hear what he was singing…”. Those of us more interested in music than petty snobbery and one-upmanship will have long tired of such talk, but that doesn’t mean we found an easy answer to the question.

So what did happen to R.E.M.? Well, by 1987’s Document, the lyrics were all audible. Chances are this was largely owing to the high-quality production equipment available to artists with a few successful albums behind them, as well as development in the quality of Stipe’s words. 1988 saw the band release Green, their first record under a new deal with major-player Warner Bros., and yes—R.E.M. headed on a more commercial route. It’s sometimes difficult to decipher what the Philistine contingent of their fanbase disliked about this era. Did the tunes deteriorate? Did the lyrics become trite, unlistenable? Did they become—I don’t know—the equivalent of someone babbling something about “conversation fear” amidst a sea of pretension and incoherence?

The real problem, I suspect, was that R.E.M. weren’t a band owned by a small but dedicated following anymore. Over the following two albums (1991’s Out Of Time and 1992’s Automatic For The People), the entire world became R.E.M.’s biggest fans. It seems ridiculous to begrudge your favourite band the success they obviously deserve out of pure elitist selfishness, doesn’t it? Drummer Bill Berry seemed to think the “original” fans had a point though, and partway through the recording of Automatic…, issued his bandmates an ultimatum: “Look, guys, if the next record doesn’t rock, I’m just quitting the band.”

And so Monster, R.E.M.’s “public mistake”, was born. While the old-school fans probably whinged about faking their way back into rock, and the newer fans were dismayed by the hard-edge form the album took, the band were undeterred. And here the trail goes cold: many abandoned any hope of R.E.M. returning to their former glories (whenever they took place), and tragically, these folks lost out.

R.E.M. toured Monster, and during soundchecks, rehearsals and even onstage, perfected the raw feel they’d first attempted in a set of new songs, which were to become 1996’s New Adventures In Hi-Fi. The sound of a band no longer making music their fans urged them to make, the record more than lives up to its title. One way of approaching the album, mentioned in passing in another review, was to divide the record up into four “sides”, each named after the side’s opening song. It was argued each “side” would reflect a different mood, and at 65 and a half minutes (extremely long by R.E.M.’s standards), the approach seems to make a degree of sense. And a lengthy album requires lengthy analysis…

Side One: How The West Was Won And Where It Got Us

Or How Michael Stipe Has A Tendancy To Whinge About His Fame, His Career and His Country. And Where It Got Him. Spinning out disjointed half-anecdotes (I didn’t wear glasses ‘cos I thought it might rain/Now I can’t see anything”) on the title track, R.E.M. open slow and steady—but their sound is distinctly determined.

As if attempting to confirm the suspicions—that R.E.M. are back and in control, this time knowing all that they wish to achieve and the methods by which they should accomplish them—the band barely takes breath to launch into “The Wake Up Bomb”. Pouting, and doing that delightfully flamboyant dance he’s been doing since he saw Morrissey perform with The Smiths in London, Stipe is back on form. A palpable ecstasy is reached—Buck’s fuzzed up guitar, Mills’ high-pitched harmonies, Stipe exchanging indie-pop for glam-rock and practising his T. Rex moves accordingly.

This side’s closer changes tack once more, but delivers one of the undoubted highlights of the set. “New Test Leper” is the tale of a guest on an American chat show, attempting to cite Jesus as a great teacher rather than a religious leader, amidst disinterest from a seemingly secular audience. I don’t know where the idea for this came from (although I’m fairly confident this didn’t happen to R.E.M.’s main man), but it’s beautiful. Somehow, “New Test Leper” manages to evoke all of the band’s celebrated sounds—the mumbled madness, the Byrdsian guitars, the solemn honesty—it’s all in there. Daring his audience to “call him a leper”, the protagonist learns the limits of his power to influence the beliefs of others, as the band crash into an E minor and assume the position for Side Two.

Side Two: Undertow

The position, incidentally, is at ease, relaxed—fluid—unless your only equipment is the microphone. In this case, you are at one moment rigid, formal and the next clinging to anything, a whirlwind pushing you back the harder you sing, never shrinking from the challenge presented in all of “Undertow”’s choruses.

At some point or another, Michael Stipe composed a letter to an undisclosed friend, pondering a relationship of some kind and, once again, “the star thing”. Purposely enigmatic, that letter was a stream of consciousness that made it to record unchanged, save for the lines “Aluminium, it tastes like fear/Adrenalin, it pulls us near”, highlighted in order to provide something resembling a chorus. Peter Buck exchanged a pick for a bow; Patti Smith contributed a haunting vocal crescendo, and “E-Bow The Letter”—a classic, despairing update on Out Of Time’s “Country Feedback” was born.

Closing Side Two is “Leave”, led for six of its seven minutes by a constant two-note alarm sound that dares the listener to stick with it, further introspection and by far the record’s best arranging and production, all gathered up and willing the listener to leave everything behind.

Side Three: Departure

And quite a departure it is, too:

Just arrived Singapore, San Sebastian, Spain, 26-hour trip.
Salt Lake City, come in spring.
Over the salt flats a hailstorm brought you back to me.
Salt Lake City, come in spring.
Over the salt flats a hailstorm brought you back to me.

The nature of New Adventures In Hi-Fi being recorded almost entirely on tour is the simplest explanation for the travel theme that runs so extensively through it. But the pace, here in Side Three’s opening song, is breathtaking. Perhaps the fact that New Adventures… refuses to maintain pace (as depicted in the transition to emotion-laden “Bittersweet Me” and “Be Mine”), constantly fluctuating between hyper-speed to darkened to dirge, touching all increments along the way, is the album’s most exhilarating aspect.

There’s something peculiarly accusatory about the Departure side. All four members of the band are on the attack, just as they had been on Green’s “Orange Crush”, only with renewed vigour. “Binky The Doormat” encapsulates this, taunting the target to “Fuck with me and traumatise”, all the time with Stipe pulling his “doormat face”.

Side Four: Zither

The opener uses the fretless German instrument to refresh the palette before launching into “So Fast, So Numb”. Apparently not a drug song (despite the references), the rhythm section works at its best here, as well as the keyboards. One more road song “Low Desert”, precedes the album’s finale, “Electrolite”. It’s telling that the band still play this song regularly in concert, and that it featured on their recent Best Of compilation. Building on the keys in “So Fast So Numb”, “Electrolite” is largely piano-led. The song wraps the album up neater than it first appears, and I think the following lyrics demonstrate why:


20th century, go to sleep
You're Pleistocene. That is obscene,
Hollywood is under me
I'm Martin Sheen
I'm Steve McQueen
I'm Jimmy Dean

and perhaps most importantly:

Stand on a cliff and look down there
Don't be scared
You are alive

That last one—that desire to live, be free, take risks—is the key message of the entire album. R.E.M. first had to reassure themselves, and with New Adventures In Hi-Fi”, at least attempt to reassure the fans. Almost as if knowing that things wouldn’t be that easy, but that turning in their best effort (which New Adventures… surely is), Stipe sighs, shrugs and mutters: “I’m not scared/I’m out of here”, and departs in the same minimalist fashion he arrived.

According to Peter Buck, when Warner Bros. heard the album that was to take them to the top—Out Of Time—they were dumbfounded: “You think the one with the lead mandolin should be the first single?!”. On hearing New Adventures…, he says, the same people proclaimed, “Hey, there’s three Top 10 records on here!”. In the real world, one that was seeing the demise of Britpop and the rise of the Spice Girls, R.E.M.’s efforts went largely and criminally unnoticed.

So I guess there’s no accounting for taste.

MUSIC

Songlist for June 1, 2004:

California Love - Tupac
You shook me all night long - Arab Strap
Waiting for a Superman - Iron & Wine
Kokomo - Adam Green & Ben Kweller
Hard Bargain - Ron Sexsmith
Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll - Bob Dylan
Nothing Adventurous Please - Lambchop
The Vagabond - Air
You are all I have - Hayden

MUSIC

PJ Harvey
Uh Huh Her
Rating: 7.6
from www.pitchforkmedia.com

Even though Buffy the Vampire Slayer had worn itself out by the time it ended, only a year later, it's startling how quickly the premise-- that a young girl can fight and defend herself just as well as a man-- has vanished from the airwaves. Just the next year, two of the biggest television events were the biopics of Elizabeth Smart and Jessica Lynch, two young, helpless girls who exist only to be rescued. We got a flashback to what we were missing when the Buffy spin-off Angel ended its own run. In one scene, a red-faced demon stalks up to a skinny, defenseless-looking brunette and taunts, "Take your best shot, little girl"; the brunette, unimpressed, reels around and throws a fist right through the chauvinist demon's face, killing him instantly.

PJ Harvey's fans are waiting for her to do much the same thing. Every time a new album's announced, part of her audience hopes she'll step up again as the loudest, boldest female guitar hero. It's not that Harvey sounds tame these days: Her confidence on stage and her edgy glamour have kept pace with her voice, which she has developed into one of the most powerful and seductive in rock. But the blaring guitars of Dry and unusual meter of Rid of Me were a quicker fix, and without them, Harvey's studio work grew cloistered and difficult.

Since 1995's To Bring You My Love, each of her albums has turned off some chunk of her fanbase. The subtle character studies and trip-hop backdrops of Is This Desire? struck some as cold or dissonant, and her John Parish collaboration, Dance Hall at Louse Point, is (wrongly) dismissed as erratic and avant-weak, even as it showcases her most striking vocals-- at turns chilled and self-absorbed, shriekingly gruesome, or tortured by rapture. And Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea won Britain's Mercury Music Prize, but even some diehards called it slick and easy; and post 9/11, Stories actually sounds creepy, whether for the references to helicopters over New York, the song "Kamikaze", or that duet with Thom Yorke, which is hairlessly erotic like newts 69'ing.

Now, four years later, Uh Huh Her-- with its guttural title, punk-ugly cover and its advertised guitar-focus-- is billed as a "return to form." But even if guitars dominate Uh Huh Her, the album ignores all expectations. Harvey plays everything but drums, and you can recognize her rough and earthy tone on the electric, played like she's molding clay. But even the buzzing distortion is focused and spare, mounted the way a collector hangs a precious Japanese sword. It actually resembles Radiohead's Hail to the Thief, a guitar album that also succeeded because of its mood-- not because the mood saves the songs, but because the terse, simple writing makes the album so intimate.

The scenes of sexual tension and crisis here resemble those of Is This Desire?, but this time they don't require names or places. "The Pocket Knife" resembles a folk murder ballad, with a simple, perfect guitar part and lyrics like, "Please don't make my wedding dress/ I'm too young to marry yet/ Can you see my pocket knife?/ You can't make me be a wife." Harvey murmurs "The Desperate Kingdom of Love" over a gentle acoustic, and the delicate imagery enhances a straight-up love ballad; and if the final song, "The Darker Days of Me and Him", promises recovery after a bad break-up ("I'll pick up the pieces/ I'll carry on somehow") the tone stays grim, and Harvey's not patting herself on the back for knowing better.

Yet as careful as the atmosphere sounds, Harvey's ready to tear it apart at any time. "Cat on a Wall" actually sounds murky and misplaced, but "The Letter", the album's first single, builds in sharp bursts and terse riffs under the shrewd sexual imagery: "Take the cap/ Off your pen/ Wet the envelope/ Lick and lick it." And the two-minute tantrum of "Who the Fuck?" devolves into the caveman-talk promised by the album title-- for example, the bridge: "Who/ Who/ Who/ Who/ Fuck/ Fuck/ Fuck/ You." Britain's Guardian newspaper cites this as proof that Harvey's a "certified lunatic," probably because they don't get the concept of "catharsis."

By the time you hear the accordion-and-guitar interlude, or the full minute of seagull calls, it's clear that Harvey isn't making a "rock" record per se. And maybe to preserve the mood, Harvey doesn't give us her most striking material. Outside of a few tracks like "The Letter", "Pocket Knife" or "The Desperate Kingdom of Love", the album is stronger than the sum of its interludes. But if you take it as a whole, Uh Huh Her is deeply engrossing: Harvey has never explored the minimal-verging-on-primitive side of her music so thoroughly, or captured so exactly the sound of a mood swing.

And once again, unlike many of her peers and fellow 90s veterans, she refuses to categorize herself. Her recorded work shows her not as a diva singer, or a rock goddess-- no matter how much her fans, or the world, want that-- but as an artist, who will seize the world or retreat from it completely if it serves her ends. Harvey has never recorded a weak record, or even a transitional album; nothing set the audience up for this disc, and we may wait another four years until she's satisfied with the next one. And that one probably won't sound like Dry, either.