All text copyright Stephen Coates 2006 - 2015

MAD MAN MOON

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I found myself strangely affected by the death of Neil Armstrong.

Obviously with all this Werewolf stuff going on recently, I've been feeing kind of caught up with the moon.  Perhaps it's that. But also it's because I see the Thames everyday and the river's radical tidal shifts up and down in level bring the lunar influence into London right here and right now.

The first moon landing was such a wonderful and terrible thing wasn't it? Wonderful because it still seems such a technically crazy and dangerous thing to do and terrible because it definitively proved that the moon was not made of cheese.

In our steady march down the information superhighway, the old myths are being overtaken one by one - indeed I assume that there will be nothing mysterious at all left one day - just plain FACTS as  Dickens's Mr Gradgrind would have been pleased to note:

"What I want is: Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts"

But of course you can't really get rid of myths entirely and when Neil Armstrong made his one small step / one great leap, he actually became a myth himself.  True, he lived on quietly in relative obscurity in the American mid-West  but that didn't really matter. The old gods were gone, the new ones were here and they were made of The Right Stuff. They were lantern-jawed, techno-heros.  They were the new Olympians.
Well, for a while at any rate. 

And now Neil has made another final small step / giant leap. And he has beaten his deputy Buzz Aldrin to it - again. Whist I've not been particularly interested in reading about Armstrong's post-lunar life, that of Buzz Aldrin is fascinating, punctuated as it has been by mental illness, family trouble, depression and eccentricity.

Was it being second in line for such a world changing event that has grated for all these years and has slightly unhinged Buzz?  (I can completely understand and sympathise if this is so).  Or is it the moon's revenge - a kind of karmic lunacy, an inability to make sense of earthbound things after the greatest adventure it's possible to have was followed by the biggest come-down it's possible to have?

I wrote a song about him a few years back.  I always meant to finish it but I don't suppose I ever shall now. So here it is, rough and ready, cratered and crumbly.

There is something so dreamlike about the footage of them on the moon surface, looking back on the earth's blue beauty hanging there in space.  How would you ever get over such a vision?  It would shake you and take you right back to your deepest prehistoric root.

RIP Neil  - and Buzz too  - when it's time.


Video: Clive Painter

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Firstly, S, your link and video are coming up as "private."

I don't know if our deepest, darkest hindbrain even has the capacity to understand the sight of the Earth from another world - how could it? It's not like we were naturally destined to leave this place!

As for all of our facts and the vehement pursuit thereof - well, I hope that we never figure them all out. Answers have a nasty habit of raising more questions.

clerkenwell kid said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
clerkenwell kid said...

Ok
I think I fixed it. Lunarcy set in

Slumberland said...

Poor Nemo also didn't get his facts right:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Little_Nemo_moon.jpg

Empress Cixi said...

I love that dreamy track !

May I ask... Post the other rough, cratered and crumbly tracks that are sleeping somewhere in the private garden !

Very nice video from Clive.

This Neil song reminds me the Night Theme from The Stooges, here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2ufzwiXIb4

And a song from an underground band from Seattle that i love : Hypatia Lake, "Farmers can be Jedi"
Check it
www.myspace.com/hypatialake

Do you dig shoegaze & psychedelic ?


clerkenwell kid said...

Sorry it took a while to make that generally available - good old google - and thanks to whoever posted that Nemo image - wonderful!

Hats off to Clive Painter for the film by the way - he has down a lot of stuff and this is one of my favourites.

Yes, there is a an old trunk here full of lots of bits and pieces of songs and music that never got used or were meant to be finished but the mood had changed too much.

I have found that some songs takes an age to complete. I think the lyric to "Daisies" evolved over four years or something. But some will never be finished - you can't recapture the feeling that started them or you are now too different perhaps.

It is much easier when songs are written for others or for a particular project.

And I am with Jane on not figuring it all out.
Psychedelic? Yes

"Antique Beat" is psychedelic thirties music.

Here's to the tooth fairy..


Empress Cixi said...

This piece is great.
It brings you to meditate, you daydream by taking the subway then walking in the street, and if you listen to this track several times before going to bed, you get nice dreams.
Better than "Heaven can't wait" that i love too.

I love that feeling Stephen.
Show me the way to the next... old trunk !

Whenever it was created...
Daisies, i've always liked daisies.

clerkenwell kid said...

Thankyou - I will have a root around and see what else is in there. I think there may be a couple of French things

Empress Cixi said...

WHEW - you are a very cool Clerkenwell Kid.
Thank you !
It sounds very exciting. And...french things?
That is great, i love that.

By the way, you have a very good french accent on "La Belle et la Bête" - I, Lucifer.

Merci Pussy Riot de Londres ;)