Jon Bywater-Later That Same Year (Younger Than Yesterday-Kunsthalle Vienna, November 2007)
Later That Same
Year
Walking down by the mangroves, the air is cold and muddy. At the bend in the creek I first notice the salty smell, the first hint of the harbour. Trodden into this route for me is the expectation of seeing a heron, a reassuring persistence of the still, indigenous bird here on the edge of the city; but this grey spring afternoon the movement, a darting, that tugs the idea into mind, is just a rat on the far bank, and then the white flutter, moving gently in the distance, comes into view as a supermarket bag snagged. I stop to crouch and look, down amongst the upright shoots. The dried mud is cracked and lifting like peeling paint. Against the wire mesh of the boundary fence small, hard dead leaves are caked into a thick, dry drift. A curl of orange rind and silver sliver of sweet wrapper loom brightly in the shade. A sipper bottle is caught in the crook of a branch, silted, grainy, faded, stuck.
Of all the things people people could say from the outside, platitudes about the healing power of time finally seemed the wisest. What can seem confounding is that once someone has construed something a certain way, settled on their version of the story, a dimming through forgetting is the only way that the hurt and regret it entails will dissipate. Having it out, getting things clear, becomes a useless fantasy, the dynamic that spoiled things too easily replayed.
Beginning about seven years ago, I started to buy solo albums from the early 1970s on Elektra. Next to their commercial successes with Bread, the Doors and Carly Simon, things like the Dennis Coulson LP (eponymous) must have barely sold. He was the singer from the dull English "super group" McGuinness Flint. Courtland Pickett (Fancy Dancer) was in American "one-hit wonders" Sailcat, who had been Elektra artists. Dylan-esque folk singer and "musician's musician" Paul Siebel made two records with them (Woodsmoke and Oranges, jack-knife gypsy). Also in this company - like Terry Melcher (eponymous), who worked with the Beach Boys and the Byrds, and hit rockabilly songwriter Jack Clement (All I Want To Do In Life) - Marlin Greene was an industry guy. He had worked with Dan Penn, and co-written "When A Man Loves A Woman" with Eddie Hinton. His lone LP, Tiptoe Past The Dragon, is not much recognised by fans or collectors, but its lost and forgotten quality adds to the appeal now for me of its wistful, gently psychedelic country rock. It comes from what seems like a turning point in the music industry, where the lesson was learned that looking after its own, and hanging onto people primarily for their musical skills was not a profitable option.
By the time he got down the coast to his friend's place the mixtape had played through several times. The anticipation of certain transitions from song to song almost made him want to keep driving to hear them through again to the end of the side. Leaving, he'd put the tape on and had to eject it straight away. A sense of significance was already too vivid, his chest splashed with adrenaline, the stories and refrains that might narrate things too cluttering. He sat with the sound of the road for a while, before pushing it back into the player. The second side had a greater ease about it, he decided that morning, as though the decisions about what to record had achieved a better flow by that point in the tape making, at least two years ago now.
Walking down by the mangroves, the air is cold and muddy. At the bend in the creek I first notice the salty smell, the first hint of the harbour. Trodden into this route for me is the expectation of seeing a heron, a reassuring persistence of the still, indigenous bird here on the edge of the city; but this grey spring afternoon the movement, a darting, that tugs the idea into mind, is just a rat on the far bank, and then the white flutter, moving gently in the distance, comes into view as a supermarket bag snagged. I stop to crouch and look, down amongst the upright shoots. The dried mud is cracked and lifting like peeling paint. Against the wire mesh of the boundary fence small, hard dead leaves are caked into a thick, dry drift. A curl of orange rind and silver sliver of sweet wrapper loom brightly in the shade. A sipper bottle is caught in the crook of a branch, silted, grainy, faded, stuck.
Of all the things people people could say from the outside, platitudes about the healing power of time finally seemed the wisest. What can seem confounding is that once someone has construed something a certain way, settled on their version of the story, a dimming through forgetting is the only way that the hurt and regret it entails will dissipate. Having it out, getting things clear, becomes a useless fantasy, the dynamic that spoiled things too easily replayed.
Beginning about seven years ago, I started to buy solo albums from the early 1970s on Elektra. Next to their commercial successes with Bread, the Doors and Carly Simon, things like the Dennis Coulson LP (eponymous) must have barely sold. He was the singer from the dull English "super group" McGuinness Flint. Courtland Pickett (Fancy Dancer) was in American "one-hit wonders" Sailcat, who had been Elektra artists. Dylan-esque folk singer and "musician's musician" Paul Siebel made two records with them (Woodsmoke and Oranges, jack-knife gypsy). Also in this company - like Terry Melcher (eponymous), who worked with the Beach Boys and the Byrds, and hit rockabilly songwriter Jack Clement (All I Want To Do In Life) - Marlin Greene was an industry guy. He had worked with Dan Penn, and co-written "When A Man Loves A Woman" with Eddie Hinton. His lone LP, Tiptoe Past The Dragon, is not much recognised by fans or collectors, but its lost and forgotten quality adds to the appeal now for me of its wistful, gently psychedelic country rock. It comes from what seems like a turning point in the music industry, where the lesson was learned that looking after its own, and hanging onto people primarily for their musical skills was not a profitable option.
By the time he got down the coast to his friend's place the mixtape had played through several times. The anticipation of certain transitions from song to song almost made him want to keep driving to hear them through again to the end of the side. Leaving, he'd put the tape on and had to eject it straight away. A sense of significance was already too vivid, his chest splashed with adrenaline, the stories and refrains that might narrate things too cluttering. He sat with the sound of the road for a while, before pushing it back into the player. The second side had a greater ease about it, he decided that morning, as though the decisions about what to record had achieved a better flow by that point in the tape making, at least two years ago now.
Goodbyes can begin
before you're aware of it. As we shared lunch, a determined
enjoyment, that came from the sense of borrowed time, was like a
protection to wear against the parting. Our gaiety was resolute, in an attempt to
put aside the knowledge of the never again, of the no going back, of
the leaving due to take place. Peeling fruit, sipping coffee, we are
trying to make it OK for one another, not to dwell on things, moving
in this removed but sincere way through the sequence that will end
with the exchange of looks, the embraces, and then the turning away
and walking out of sight. In the same way that it creeps up on
us beforehand, the goodbye will also outlast that clearly identifiable
moment out in the street by the car, a hand raised to the window, as
later each of us will find ourselves gone or on our own, and notice
where we are, a little of us left behind, a little of us taken
away.