Just one today (and a half) . But it's a doozy.

***

The comments on Friday's post, as I'm sure many of you have noticed, are not working. Here is a summary of what was written:

1. Everybody loves Wolf Parade.
2. Some people love The Decemberists.
3. Some people just are not sure about the Decemberists.
4. Some people who have seen me in person mentioned my nearly super-human agility and good-looks.
5. Some people pointed out that the comments are not working.

***

Blind Willie Johnson - "John The Revelator"

From deep down in the centre of something, from inside a desert on fire, comes this sweaty brooding dirge.

"Who's that a-writing?"
"It's John the Revelator."

Is "John the Revelator" Saint John the Baptist emerging out of the desert with clothes "of camel's hair, and a leather girdle about his loins?" That would be fitting.

"What's John a-writing?"
"Ask the Revelator."

Johnson's voice is a thing of the earth, busting out of the ground like thick crude. The back-up singer stays with him, is not afraid.

Blind Willie Johnson died destitute, sleeping on wet newspaper in the place where his house had been before it burnt down. He sings as if aware of that biographical fact, which of course, he could not have been.

Is he a man? An alligator? A time past?

***

Richard Buckner - "Lovin Her Was Easier"

I compulsively buy Kris Kristofferson albums at garage sales, and yet have never enjoyed one of his songs.

Then Buckner tries his hand at one and gets it exactly right. It seems unjust.

As Dan points out, his voice flutters between notes entirely without effort.

"I have seen the morning burning golden on the mountains in the skies."

This song is drenched in an entirely different kind of sunlight than drenches the songs of The Beach Boys and Love.