My New Favorite Song

[electricpaladin]

This is the Best Song Ever. It's by a guy named Dan Bern, and it's called Jerusalem. Here are the lyrics:


When I tell you that I love you
Don't test my love
Accept my love don't test my love
Cause maybe I don't love you all that much

Don't ask what kind of music I'm gonna play tonight
Just stay awhile
Hear for yourself awhile
And if you must put me in a box
Make sure it's a big box
With lots of windows
And a door to walk through
And a nice high chimney
So we can burn burn burn
Everything that we don't like
And watch the ashes
Fly up to Heaven
Maybe all the way to India
I'd like that

All the ancient kings came to my door
They said, "Do you want to be an ancient king too?"
I said, "Oh yes, very much
But I think my timing's wrong"
They said, "Time is relative
Or did you misread Einstien?"
I said, "Do you really mean it?"
They said, "What do you think we come here for
Our goddamn health or something?"

Everybody's waiting for the messiah
The Jews are waiting
The Christians are waiting
Also the Muslims
It's like everybody's waiting
They've been waiting a long time
I know how I hate to wait
Like even for a bus or something
An important phone call
So I can imagine
How darned impatient
Everybody must be getting

So I think it's time now
Time to reveal myself
I am the Messiah
I am the Messiah

Yes, I think you heard me right
I am the Messiah
I was gonna wait till next year
Build up the suspense a little
Make it a really big surprise
But I could not resist
It's like when you got a really big secret
You're just bursting to tell someone
It was kinda like that with this
And now that I've told you
I feel this great weight lifted
Dr. Nusbaum was right
He's my therapist
He said get it out in the open

I spent ten whole days in Jerusalem
Mmmm Jerusalem
Sweet Jerusalem
And all I ate was olives
Nothing but olives
Mountains of olives
It was a good ten days
I like olives
I like you too

So when I tell you that I love you
Don't test my love
Accept my love
Don't test my love
'Cause maybe I don't love you all that much

You have to understand, this guy sounds just like Bob Dylan, only with better enunciation and more Jewish. His singing isn't too great, but he puts passion into the words. He acts it as much as it sings, its almost more like a monologue to music than it is a song. The instrumental music is this rhythmic, complex (Bob-Dylanesque) guitar strumming.

And... I don't really know how to describe it. To me, this song is beautiful. It's close to the song my heart sings when I'm happy. It's outrageous and rediculous, and hopeful and unstoppable. It's like gold fire. It's like singing am yisrael chai against the setting sun, and the sky is brilliant red and orange and pink, and the day is dying but you know - you know - that you are going to live forever.

To continue musing, I decided along time ago what the end of the world sounds like. This song is the opposite of that sound. This song is like what I want my descendants to sing against the end of the world, in voices like the rising sun and the morning star. This song, and am yisrael chai, and possibly eli eli. That'll show the end of the world that you don't screw around with the descendants of Mark Simmons.

Comments

[persistent-sun.livejournal.com]

That song is written the way I think. It's like a tourettic acid trip. I approve. Except he's wrong; I'M the messiah. Just look at my icon. Can you tell who it is? I Hope You Guess My Name, because that gives you the Father, the Sun, and the Rolling Stones! Bwahahahaha!

[researcher.livejournal.com]

Mark, you are oddly eloquent. I love that idea...

"This song is like what I want my descendants to sing against the end of the world, in voices like the rising sun and the morning star."

That's powerful.

Dan Bern == Teh Man

[xoder.livejournal.com]

 

[spellbinder87.livejournal.com]

half of singing a song well is putting a song over to the audience. you get alot of people who don't have to greatest voices but still sing well cause the preformance can give you chills up you spine.

i'd want my decendants to sing Weird Al at the end of the world, if the decendants of mark simmons show bravery in the face of oblivion, then the decendants of alex simmons just give oblivion the finger and have a good time while they can.

[snowflame.livejournal.com]

To continue musing, I decided along time ago what the end of the world sounds like. This song is the opposite of that sound.

Hey. Since when does the End of the World have to be a bad thing?

But in any case, I'm curious what you decided the End of the World sounds like. I think there are several possibilities. The "World War III, humanity nukes itself" ending I imagine having some kind of Camina Buranaish evil choir going in the background, or possibly the music to the end of Dr. Strangelove if the end comes in a particularly stupid/pathetic way rather than an evil way. The happy "God closes the book on the world" ending would have some kind of ethereally beautiful strains, like how Tolkien tried to describe elves' singing in the LotR books. The chilling scientific ending, given current evidence that the universe is expanding faster and faster thanks to stupid "Dark Energy," is a hissing static that gradually grows fainter and fainter and fainter and fainter and fainter.... Now that last one would be kinda chilling, and frankly any noise at all would be heartening to strive against it with.

And oh yes. In the rampant nitpicking crowd, since when are the Muslims waiting for the Messiah? Waiting for the end of the world perhaps when everyone gets ressurected & judged, but there's not really much Messiah-ing.

[electricpaladin.livejournal.com]

I've always thought the end of the world is the sound of a train rushing past a station without stopping. A sound that rushes towards your, unbearably loud, but unstoppable, complete with a rising wind, and then it just goes on and on and on, and the wind gets higher and higher, and when it's gone, the silence and the stillness seem more powerful than the wind and the roaring ever was.

The Muslims actually are waiting for the Messiah. According to (some) Muslim theology, Jesus will return at the end othe world to do battle with the antichrist and his armies, with the righteous armies of Islam at his back. Then, after Jesus has made the world safe, Mohammad will come back, too.