timeless
Blind Willie Johnson (1897-1945), “God Don’t Never Change,” recorded 12/10/1929 (New Orleans)
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lagniappe
reading table
Within this temporal body composed of a hundred bones and nine holes there resides a spirit which, for lack of an adequate name, I think of as windblown.
—Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), The Knapsack Notebook (translated from Japanese by Sam Hamill)
six takes
“Nobody’s Fault but Mine” (aka “It’s Nobody’s Fault but Mine”)
Ry Cooder, 2018
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Pops Staples, 2015 (recorded 1998)
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Willie Nelson, 2010
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Nina Simone, 1969
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Sister Rosetta Tharpe, 1949
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Blind Willie Johnson, 1927
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lagniappe
random sights
last night, Oak Park, Ill.
His music, which I’ve been listening to for over forty years, never grows old. If anything, the opposite is true. Year after year, it gets stronger, deeper, fresher.
Blind Willie Johnson, “Trouble Will Soon Be Over” (with Willie B. Harris), 1929
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lagniappe
reading table
I love the past tense, but you can’t live there.
—John Koethe, “Stele” (fragment; ROTC Kills, 2012)
five takes
“If I Had My Way I’d Tear The Building Down,” AKA “If I Had My Way,” “Samson and Delilah”
Blind Willie Johnson, recording, 1927
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Reverend Gary Davis, live (TV show)
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Peter Paul & Mary, live (TV show)
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Grateful Dead, live, New York (Radio City Music Hall), 1980
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Bruce Springsteen, live, Italy (Verona), 2006