Art Songs

Art Songs

1991, 60:00

Voice, 6 Electric Guitars, Bass Guitar, Drums

POST-art-songs

Programme notes

A song cycle including ‘Art-as-Art,’ Reinhardt Paints A Picture,’ ‘Sleep,’ Window Blow-Out,’ and instrumental interludes.

Lyrics

Art-as-Art (1983)

Shiny black pictures that hide out of light
Ad’s funny poems are such a delight
Green comes up green
wherever its seen
Art-as-art
Scratches in darkness in rooms painted white
Let’s read about it and call it a night
Concepts are concepts
When do we start?
Art-as-art
Get drunk, take acid and walk through a garden
Paint fences and streetlights and sign ’em when they harden
Colors aren’t colors
after they dry
Art-as-art
Sharp angles
No tangles
Triangles
A square
Lines that cross
Heavy gloss
Those drippings look like dental floss
Fore and fro
Here we go
Spread that paint
Put it where it ain’t
Water it down
Thicken it up
Mix it in your coffee cup
TV and movies, they’re messing up our heads
Sexual encounters are messing up our beds
Shave your head, paint your bed
Purify us as we’re led to
Art-as-art
© 1983 voLsap Music, Amsterdam
Reinhardt Paints a Picture (1991)
Ad Reinhardt was born on Christmas Eve
born out of daylight
on the eve of the entry of Europe into the First World War
The year the cubists peaked
the birth of abstract art
modern art moved into America like a Avro
called itself, the ‘Armory Show’
Laid down the rules at the port of New York
set up shop in Chicago
wound up in Boston, well,
lil’ Ad smelled ’em burning Matisse.

I grabbed my Sony, I showed up his loft
where Wavery Place meets Lower Broadway.
I said, “”Let me ask you a couple of questions.””
“”You were a vanguard pre-abstract expressionist in the late thirties.
You were a vanguard abstract-expressionist by forty-four.
You were a vanguard post-abstract expressionist when the fifties rolled around.””
“”Speak into the condenser mic,
you’ve been doing these things since ‘I like Ike.’?””
“”Yes,”” he said.
“”You were the first painter to kick the vanguard thing?””
‘Yes,”” he said.
‘You were the first painter to read the whole ‘I Ching’?””
‘Yes,”” he said.
I pointed to some rags full of paint on the floor.
“”Are these rags here your paint rags? Do you use them anymore?””
“”Yes,”” he said.
“”You’re using Bocour? You’re using Belgian linen?
These bottles over here, are these the ones you mix in?’
“”Yes,”” he said.
“”You went around the world once?’
“”Yes,”” he said.
“”Paris to Peking?””
“”Yes,”” he said.
Your stomach really curled once Andy make the scene.

Its a fact, Jack, that at the Factory
they got art, TV, top 40 chart
they don’t feel guilty
Its a fact, Jack, that at the Factory
they got Pop Art, they’re popping reds
cameras rolling above their beds.
Red and blue, ’52, monochrome, symmetrical.
Matte black, 5 X 5, anti-dialectical.
You’re a pioneer, you’re a prophet.
One of the few, isn’t it true
who always knew how to hawk it?
“”Are you still saying that ‘art-as-art dogma?
The new stuff looks like old stuff I’ve read.
Are you still saying that what you been saying
is the only thing an artist can say that needs to said?””
“”Yes,”” he said.
“”There’s nothing else to say?””
“”No,”” he said. “”That’s all for today.””

© 1991 voLsap Music, Amsterdam
Sleep (1984)
I was born through a circle;
circle on a blackboard.
Hands up.
Oh, bell’s ringing.
This is my room but I can’t sleep.
There’s a bracket to my right
and a bracket to my left.
Hands up.
Oh, who’s counting?
This is my room but I can’t sleep.
Can’t sleep, can’t sleep, can’t sleep. (repeat 3x)
All my lines, all my numbers.
I’m so connected but I can’t sleep.
This is a world of no change.
This is a world of ‘this-is-it.’
One swipe.
Oh, I’d be happy.
This is my vision but its never complete.
I am not some goto.
No need to be jumping lines.
Two after one.
One after nothing.
It’s not a living but its living to me.
No need to be jumping lines.
No need to be computing no sines.
Two after one.
One after nothing.
This is my vision but I can’t sleep.
Can’t sleep, can’t sleep, can’t sleep. (repeat 3x)
All my lines, all my numbers.
This is my room but I can’t – -.
I was born on a white wall;
grid in a big hall.
Laid out in a series
‘n counted out.
Counted out and counted in around SoHo.
Rather be a line among lines of lines.
Six thousand, two hundred and fifty-five lines.
Line after line after line after line after
line after line after line after line after
line after line after line after line after
line after line after line after line after line.
No reason to think to straight ahead.
No reason at all.
Jumping to conclusions that logic can’t reach.
I was born on a white wall.
Well-lit or not lit at all.
His process is mystic, mechanical.
Hard to pin him down
when a word is not a word.
x is a line, why is now out-of-mind.
I was born on a blackboard;
blackboard, it was full of sines.
A is to B,
five days a week.
This is a world of no change.
This is a world of ‘this-is-it.’
One swipe.
Oh, I’d be happy.
I am not some goto.
No need to be jumping lines.
Two after one.
One after nothing.
This is my vision.
This is my division.
All us lines-our days are numbered.
© 1984 voLsap Music, Amsterdam
Window Blow-Out (1991)
Window Blow-Out, Window Blow-Out.
Window Blow-Out, Window Blow-Out. Window Blow-Out.
Window Blow-Out, Window Blow-Out. (2X)
Window Blow-Out, Window Blow-Out. Window Blow-Out.
Window Blow-Out, Window Blow-Out. Window Blow-Out. Window Blow-Out.
Window Blow-Out, Blow-Out. Window Blow-Out.
Window Blow-Out, Window Blow-Out.
Window Blow-Out, Window Blow-Out. Window Blow-Out.
Window Blow-Out, Window Blow-Out. (2X)
Window Blow-Out, Window Blow-Out. Window Blow-Out.
Window Blow-Out, Window Blow-Out. Window Blow-Out. Window Blow-Out.
Window Blow-Out, Blow-Out. Window Blow-Out.
Window Blow-Out, Window Blow-Out.
Window Blow-Out, Window Blow-Out. Window Blow-Out.
Window Blow-Out, Window Blow-Out. (2X)
Window Blow-Out, Window Blow-Out. Window Blow-Out.
Window Blow-Out, Window Blow-Out. Window Blow-Out. Window Blow-Out.
Window Blow-Out, Blow-Out. Window Blow-Out. (6X)
Sometime, its not enough to make it.
Sometime, its better, baby, to break it.
Sometime, its better to blow it out:
mark it out, cut it up, throw it out.
Somedays, its not enough to fake it.
This world, sometime you gotta shake it.
Put the piece on release, say a little mass,
take aim on the pane and spread a little glass.
Why build up new buildings
when you got the old ones still around?
Who fucked up my skyline
with another high-rent high-rise?
Why build up new buildings
when you got the old ones still around?
What a sorry sight for my blood-shot eyes.
My blood-shot eyes (2X)
Window Blow-Out, Window Blow-Out.
Window Blow-Out, Window Blow-Out. Window Blow-Out.
Somedays, its not enough to fake it.
This world, sometime you gotta shake it.
Don’t wanna hear no lecture on modern architecture.
Urban decay, well, its okay.
All that’s new ain’t fit to blueprint. (repeat ad lib)
Window Blow-Out, Window Blow-Out. Window Blow-Out. Window Blow-Out.
Window-Blow-Out, Blow-Out. Window Blow-Out (12X)
Window Blow-Out, Window Blow-Out. Window Blow-Out. Window Blow-Out.
Window Blow-Out. Window Blow-Out. Window Blow-Out.

© 1991 voLsap Music, Amsterdam