i’m still here
A second instance of “I heard it on the radio”:
I had to break away from the God I was supposed to believe in to find the God I could believe in.
This time, a flip to NPR hit me with this. The lyric begins “I know a woman” but does not go at all where I expected:
What Have You Done to Lift Somebody Up?
That, and the name of his record label, “Perpetual Obscurity”, were enough to hook me in. Paul Thorn’s music is drenched in such a swampy mix of spirituality and sensuality that his life story almost sounds cliched or redundant: ex-communicated son of a Pentacostal preacher, boxer, skydiver, bluesman.
There’s no shortage of people whose early exposure to gospel influences their very secular later music. And there’s also plenty who sooner or later re-visit a relatively conventional spirituality in their music. But in Thorn, there’s no separation. It’s all there together, body and soul, and no easy convention:
Starvin’ for your Kisses
Crutches
A Long Way from Tupelo
There’s a lot of wit in his music (as in his website, with the “stimulous” and “response” tabs). Thorn’s music sounds very immediate and from the gut to me, but his is not an unexamined life. He lays it out in his “This I Believe” essay, “Walking in the Light“.
Thorn shows that music can feed body, soul and mind without artificially parsing them apart. This album, A Long Way from Tupelo, is Thorn’s first to crack the Billboard Top 200. It’s worth grabbing at iTunes for all the extra tracks you get, including the sublimely ridiculous “It’s a Great Day to Whup Somebody’s Ass”, which is neither sensual nor spiritual. Best part: Thorn laughing at himself as he sings it.
categories: music
tags: blues, NPR, Paul Thorn, swamp, This I Believe, Tupelo
posted by boolz at 09:42 pm
Hey did you know he used to be a a professional boxer?
So, it’s not totally ridiculous that he might whup someone’s ass.
His lyrics are great. He’s real. He’s bad. But he’s good. He pokes fun at religion, but he’s close with God. I’m a fan.
This is why I love this site so much - how do you find these gems??? Actually, you mentioned how you found it - thanks for sharing.
I really like this guy, the simplicity yet richness of his voice - perfect! Just the music I need for a sultry weekend!
I found a song I’d like to share here, if someone could tell me how to do it. I think there is a way to put an MP3 song somewhere and then give out a link to it. Barring that, here is a link to the lyrics (they fit this post).
Lonely Security Guard – Hayden
http://www.lyricscafe.com/songs/h/lyrics_19055/song_lyrics_2138176.html
Karen, where is the song now? If it’s on the net somewhere, you can just share the link.
If it’s on your home computer, you can upload it a couple of different ways:
- You can upload it to a place like sendspace.com or yousendit.com and then give people the link here to download. This is free to you and to the people downloading.
- If you want to encourage people to just play it, you can get a free account at a place like fileden.com, upload it to there, and post the link here. People can then either click to play it or download it.
- If those things don’t work well for you, you can email the .mp3 to me and I can put it in a player in a post.
There’s also things like box.net that let’s you make little jukeboxes, but I think you have to play for accounts there.
love this guy!! I was turned on to him during all the music discussion we had on GC. I doubt that I would have found him on my own…don’t have time to doing alot of searching for new music.
Thanks, Boolz. I actually put this in the wrong post — it goes with “none of the above” — has an origami connection that I found absolutely delightful. I’m going to try to email it to you.
Getting a Keb Mo vibe (God tryin’ to get your attention).