Onkel John er tilbage

Ny, fænomenal John Grant-plade! Grey tickles, black pressure. Prægtigt bleak! Titelnummeret:

I did not think I was
The one being addressed
In hemorrhoid commercials

On the TV set
I often stand and stare
at nothing in the grocery store
Because I do not know
What to buy to eat any more

And parapraxis
The order of the day
I never heard that word
Until tonight I have to say
And I'm suppose to believe that there's some guy
Who will take the pain away

And there are children who have cancer
And so all bets are off
Cause I can't compete with that
So all bets are off
Cause I can't compete with that

I've got grey tickles and black pressure
And I'd rather lose my arm inside of a corn thresher
Just like Uncle Paul
Just like Uncle Paul
I, I, I

They wont be happy til
They tear down everything
Which looks remotely cool
Or is older than two weeks
You must be kidding me
Except I do know better than to ask

I can't believe I missed
New York during the 70's
I could have gotten a head start
In the world of disease
I'm sure I would have contracted
Every single solitary thing

And there are children who have cancer
And so all bets are off
Cause I can't compete with that
So all bets are off
Cause I can't compete with that

They say let go let go let go
You must learn to let go
If I hear that fucking phrase again
This baby is gonna blow

Into a million bit of bits
Of tiny pieces don't you know
Just like my favorite scene in Scanners
Apparently there was an outcry of some sort today
Which no-one heard incidentally and by the way

I have not had the strength
To leave my place in days or weeks
And I'll never understand
Whats happening in the Middle East

And there are children who have cancer
And so all bets are off
Cause I can't compete with that
So all bets are off
Cause I can't compete with that

I've got grey tickles and black pressure
And I'd rather lose my arm inside of a corn thresher
Just like Uncle Paul
Just like Uncle Paul
I, I, I
I've got grey tickles and black pressure
And I'd rather lose my arm inside of a corn thresher
Just like Uncle Paul
Just like Uncle Paul
I, I, I

En sang kan ikke være en HIV-positiv bøsse

Vi er på vej ind til Koncerthuset for at høre John Grant,

og jeg net-læser Politikens sædvanligvis cool lyttende redaktør Simon Lunds anmeldelse af den bedre og bedre, magtfuldt hjertesyge plade Pale Green Ghosts og i lang tid handleranmeldelsen udelukkende om sangerens miserable privatliv, og hvor ville jeg gerne have været fri for den information: jeg har ikke brug for at føle privat sympati for manden, når han nu kunstnerisk ikke er at ynke, men bare til at blive skaprt røt over, jeg citere klamamsen her, bare for at kunne strege den over:
 
Nogle siger, at livets udsving er ligeligt fordelt, at der er lige meget smerte og sorg til hver af os, at det går lige op i den sidste ende. Det er en livsløgn. Nogle mennesker får flere tørre tæsk af skæbnen end andre. Nogle mennesker som John Grant. For tre år siden udgav den amerikanske sangersangskriver sit første soloalbum, ’Queen of Denmark’. En voldsom bekendelse om en fortid med afhængighed, død og udstødelse, der har bandet Midlakes pastorale folkrock (valiumberoligende!) i ryggen. Debuten var råt for usødet en opsummering af et bulet og bøjet liv, der for Grant begyndte i et strengt kristen-metodistisk hjem i Colorado. Her lærte Grant at gemme sin homoseksualitet godt og grundigt væk, før han søgte til Europa, hvor han studerede tysk i Heidelberg.
Han udviklede desværre så kraftig panikangst, at han i dag stadig er medicineret, men i første omgang medicinerede han sig selv med alkohol og kokain. Han vendte hjem til USA i 1990’erne, da hans cancersyge mor lå for døden, og formede bandet The Czars. Kritikerne roste deres drømmepop, der støjsvævede rundt om Grants urokkelige baryton, men publikum nåede aldrig at opdage dem, før den nu stærkt afhængige Grant blev smidt ud af bandet. Gennem AA fik han gjort sig fri af rusmidlerne og flyttede til New York, hvor musikken blev lagt væk i nogle år, mens han levede som hospitalstolk. Indtil Midlake trak ham tilbage i den musikbranche, han som 44-årig i dag føler sig som gæst i. I så fald en meget velkommen gæst. Han ramte solar plexus på publikum, og ’Queen of Denmark’ blev kåret til et af de bedste album i 2010. Et musikmagasin konstaterede, at Grant altid bar solbriller, fordi hans fremtid var så lys, og nogle ville måske mene, at nu var der ved at blive rettet op på lykkebalancen i det store regnskab. Men John Grant lever under Murphys lov, der siger: Alt, hvad der kan gå galt, vil gå galt. På vej til Sverige for at indspille et nyt album med den svenske popproducer Kleerup fik John Grant en sms, der torpederede hans liv fra siden. En elsker havde fået konstateret hiv, og samme diagnose fik Grant stillet, da svaret på hans test kom. Så lå han ned igen, på tilværelsens stengulv. Hvor han har ligget mere end de fleste. 

Om sangen "Glacier" skriver Lund:

Men klimaks er alligevel fuldt af omsorg for alle andre, der er skubbet udenfor. ’Glacier’ er en storladen synth-ballade om at være isoleret med sin seksualitet og stemplet som hiv-syg. Sangen svæver væk med næsten ubærlig skønhed og opløser lidt af den ondskab, verden ellers er fuld af. 

Men det er da ikke en sang om at være isoleret med sin seksualitet og stemplet som hiv-syg, det er en sang om at være isoleret punktum og fortolke smerten og raseriet positivt via poesi: gletsjerbilledet.

You just want to live your life
The best way you know how
But they keep on telling you
That you are not allowed

They say that you are sick
That you should hang your head in shame
They are pointing fingers
And want you to take the blame

There are days when people are
So nasty and convincing
They say things beyond belief
That sting and leave you wincing
And to boot they say their words
Come straight down from above
And they really seem to think
That what they're doing counts as love

This pain –
It is a glacier moving through you
And carving out deep valleys
And creating spectacular landscapes
And nourishing the ground
With precious minerals and other stuff
So don't you become paralyzed with fear
When things seem particularly rough

Don't you pay them fuckers as they say no never mind
They don't give 2 shits about you it's the blind leading the blind
What they want is commonly referred to as theocracy
And what that boils down to is referred as hypocrisy

Don't listen to anyone, get answers on your own
Even if it means that sometimes you feel quite alone
No one on this planet can tell you what to believe
People like to talk a lot and they like to deceive

(og vitalt god koncert sgudafandeme -

før han koncentreret hoftevugger sig ind i sine nyklassiske sange, konverserer Grant vittigt og venligt om dette og hint og også om baggrunden for sine sange, og også den biografiske baggrund, og også hans homoseksualitet og hans HIV-diagnose, og om akkurat "Glacier" fortalte han, at den i høj grad var skrevet som en coming out-sang, der skal give bøsser og lesbiske mod til at komme ud af skabet på trods af og i trods mod fordomme - men jeg oplevede ikke at disse indramninger lukkede mig inde (biografisk) eller ude (pr. sexuel orientering), de var blot konversation og information som egenhændige museumsplancher, der jo ikke mindsker effekten af hverken Mona Lisa eller L.H.O.O.Q. (Grants sange er Leonardoske og Duchampske, smukke og vrængende, på samme tid -

det er en helt anden ting med Politiken-anmeldelsen, der gør ét mudder af biografi og vurderingen og beskrivelsen af en plade, der nok er "confessional", men altid på kunstneriske/kunstfærdige betingelser, altid med det formål at gøre sangen til den stærkeste og fineste sang, den kan blive)

Richard Burton er dagens største motherfucker

Bloggen skal også bare registrere de mystiske-magiske sammentræf af lykketræf, som hele tiden indtræffer, og som jeg tror mere på end alle mulige andre (tematiske ...) sammenhænge, som nu det herlige hit på John Grants nye plade Pale Green Ghosts, jeg ret monomant hører for tiden (selvom du lige nu forsøger at overdøve med nogen, der hedder Wans, som "like to party"), "GMF":

Half of the time I think I'm in some movie.
I play the underdog of course.
I wonder who they'll get to play me.
Maybe they could dig up Richard Burton's corpse.

I am not who you think I am.
I am quite angry--which I barely can conceal.
You think I hate myself, but it's you I hate
Because you have the nerve to make me feel.

But I am the greatest motherfucker
That you're ever gonna meet
From the top of my head
Down to the tips of the toes on my feet.

Der træffer en artikel af John le Carré i det nye nummer af New Yorker om dengang Richard Burton spillede hovederollen som Alec Leamas i filmatiseringen af The Spy Who Came in for the Cold, og hvornår har jeg sidst tænkt på Richard Burton? Carré bliver fløjet ind til filmsettet for at holde Burton med selskab:

Somebody has to look after Richard, David. Richard's drinking too much. Richard needs a friend.
  Richard needs a friend? Hadn't he just married Elizabeth Taylor? Wasn't she a friend? Wasn't she there with him, holding up the shoot every time she arrived  on the set in a white Rolls -Royce, surrounded by other friends, such as Yul Brynner and Franco Zeffirelli; such as visiting agents and lawyers; such as the reputedly sventeen-strong Burton-Taylor household, which occupied the whole of one floor of Dublin's grandest hotel, and included, as I understood it, their various children by different marriages, tutors for said children, hairdresses , secretaries, and, in the words of one disrespectful member of the unit, the fellow who clipped thier parrot's claws? All these, and Richard still needed me?
  Of course, he did. He was being Alec Leamas.
  And as Alec Leamas he was being prowling solitary going to seed, his career had hit the buffers, and the only people he could talk to were strangers like me. . Though I scarcely realized it at the time, I was being initiated into the proces of an actor pludering the darker regions of his life for the elements of the part he is about to play. And the first element you must plunder, if you are Alec Leamas going to seed, is solitude. Which, in a word, meant that, for as long as Burton was being Leamas, the entire Burton court was his avowed enemy. If Leamas walked alone, so must Burton. If Leamas kept a halft bottle of Haig whisky in his raincoat pocket, so did Burton - and took healthy swigs of it whenever the solitude became too much for him, even, as quickly became apparent, the one thing that Burton absolutely hadtn't was a head for booze.