Li: Double Nickels on the Dime

Track Listing: 1. D.’S Car Jam / Anxious Mo-Fo, 2. Theatre is the life of you, 3. Viet Nam, 4. Cohesion, 5. It’s Expected I’m Gone, 6. #1 Hit, 7. Two Beads at the End, 8. Do You Want New Wave Or Do You Want the Truth? 9. Don’t Look Now, 10. Shit from an Old Notebook, 11. Nature Without Man, 12. One Reporter’s Opinion, 13. Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing, 14. Maybe Partying Will Help, 15. Toadies, 16. Retreat, 17. The Big Foist, 18. God Bows to Math, 19. Corona, 20. The Glory of Man, 21 Take 5. D., 22. My Heart and the Real World, 23. History Lesson - Part II, 24. You Need the Glory, 25. The Roar of the Masses Could Be Farts, 26. West Germany, 27. The Politics of Time, 28. Themselves, 29. Please Don’t Be Gentle with Me, 30. Nothing Indeed, 31. No Exchange, 32. There Ain’t Shit on T.V. Tonight, 33. This Ain’t No Picnic, 34. Spillage, 35. Untitled Song for Latin America, 36. Jesus and Tequila, 37. June 16th, 38. Storm in My House, 39. Martin’s Story, 40. Dr. Wu, 41. The World According to Nouns, 42. Love Dance, 43. Three Car Jam

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Sometimes you remember what it was like. Back then. Just how you felt. Sometimes it all comes back again. Like the tired flap of windshield-wipers. Like sharp shooting suns. Dripping tears. Or something or someone you loved very, very much. But lost long ago. You remember what it was like to find the secret. Hold it fast in your hand. To feel it burn and tear your insides. Roar like atomic flame, red and glorious like hot swollen starlight.

“As I look over this beautiful land,
I can’t help but realize that I am alone
Why am I able to waste my energy?
To notice life being so beautiful?
What of the people who don’t have what I ain’t got?
Are they victims of my leisure?
To fail is to be a victim, to be a victim of my choice”

-from “Maybe Partying Will Help”

You were alone walking home at dusk. Wandering after riding the El, roaming past buildings black and green. Past flat steel, past glass slabs that pressed silent like coffin-gods against the sky. The night was cold. The leaves dead and rattling, scurrying like brittle crab shells across the ground. You had your notepad. Your paperback. An autumn sweater. You were young and invincible and some wild prophet (the wild prophet) was shouting in your ear through your headphones. He was angry. He was on fire. He was pleading and inconsolable. What you heard was a cry. A protest. A plea. The most real thing you had ever heard in your life, and it clutched your soul like nothing ever before; it terrified you; it clawed your being like some feral beast from a hollow outer world. Nothing would ever match it again. Ever! Nothing was ever more real. Nothing more important. The sun had disintegrated. Disbanded. Disjoined (swallowed whole by the night). The porch steps were cracked and broken. Shattered dog-houses. Shackled fire-hydrants. Fractured door-fronts. The brick facades pocketed and worn like fingered bone-holes clawing at the edge of darkness. Pit walls. Smeared windows. Smoked. Smudged. Black and rusted. The roar of wind blowing cruel from the lake. Your body was empty. Your heart, your head—empty. The earth was dead. Dead and empty. But your soul scorched from the words in your ear. The voice. Your being was on fire. Your body exploded like star-sheets in the night.

“Starting with the affirmation of man I work my way backwards
Using cynicism the time monitor
The space measurer, I live sweat but I dream light years
I am the tide - the rise and the fall
The reality soldier, the laugh child
The one of the many, the flame child
The time monitor, the space measurer”

-from “The Glory of Man”

Sometimes you get hit by a truck. Sometimes you keep living. Sometimes you just don’t know why. Sometimes you come across something powerful and pressing. Beautiful. Sometimes you love. Something changes your life. You find meaning. You look to be inspired. You want, you need, to be inspired (Inspire me, please). The world is dull. Flat. Flatulent and dead. There is no inspiration. So you make it yourself. This is what this album did to me. What it taught me. And no one should ever be taught anything. The only thing one can do is love. Move. Inspire.

“The people will survive
In their environment
The dirt, scarcity, and emptiness
Of our South
The injustices of our greed
The practices we merit
The dirt, scarcity and emptiness
Of our South”

-from “Corona”

My life was changed by a fat man. A prophet and chubby priest. D. Boon and a guitar. Mike Watt and a bass. George Hurley. Tighter than a drum stick. Brighter than a bitch-blazing sun. They taught me to be inspired. To be moved. To be myself. Love and be loved. Love the one you’re with. The people will survive! You could be whatever you wanted to be but you could never be yourself. So don’t pretend. Do what you want to do. Go where you want to go. But do it now. And don’t be afraid to shout. To moan and roar. Cry for the little ones. The damaged. The depraved. The fucked up brothers lying dead in the basement. Dads who never come back. Moms who never go away. Lonely little girls and all the wacked-out kids in the world no one ever wanted to play with. Turn off the radio and pick up a guitar. Do it yourself. Do it dirty. Do it now. Turn it up. Make them feel (if they still know how). Sometimes you have to cut the skin to find the vein.

“List monitors arrive with petition iron-fisted philosophy
Is your life worth a painting?
Is this girl vs. boy with different symbols?
Being born is power scout leader nazi tagged as big sin
Your risk chains me hostage
Me, I’m fighting with my head, am not ambiguous
I must look like a dork”

-from “Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing”

There are billions of people in this world but only one who will ever move you. Grab hold and never let go. Feel. Hold tight. Look up and you will see (if you are one of the lucky ones). It’s shiny and golden, blazing like a fiery crown. Like a calling. A quick and keeling spirit flickering beautiful from above. Let it come down. Let it touch you. This one could change you. This one could be your life.

“Mr. narrator! This is Bob Dylan to me
My story could be his songs
I’m his soldier child”

-from “History Lesson – Part II”

-TD

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