You use up everything you got trying to give everybody what they want

Never knew Nina Simone covered ‘Where Does The Time Go?’, heard this through the haunting Nils Frahm’s Late Night Tales, at last a mix that does express that 3am dark night of the soul hinted- but also love the classic preamble:

“We are recording tonight and because we are recording we are trying to do some things that actually are too tired to do. But as Faye Dunaway I think it was she she said when Bonnie and Clyde came out and hoped she tried to give people what they wanted. That’s a mistake really I know but ah you can’t do it but only have to, You use up everything you got trying to give everybody what they want. But I will learn my lesson soon. And then you will buy more records right cos you gonna see me.

Okay let’s see what we can do with this lovely lovely thing that goes past all racial conflict and all kinds of conflicts. It is a reflective tune and sometime in your life you will have occasion to say what is this thing called time. You know what is that ‘ the clock. You go to work by the clock you get your martini in the afternoon by the clock and you have your coffee by the clock and have to get on a plane at a certain time and arrive. It goes on and on and on and time is a dictator as we know it. Where does it go what does it do? Most of all is it alive, Is it a thing that we cannot touch and is it alive? And then one day you look in the mirror – how old – and you say, “Where did the time go?” We leave you with that one.”

Also Dark Night Of The Soul brought me to this 16th century poem, it’s supposed to be spiritual, from St John Of the Cross. This is where Mary Whitehouse et al trip up, because this seems pretty queer to me? The line between sexuality and spirituality used to be very blurred, from Hildegard’s ecstatic visions and brides of Christ, to eventually banned mystic sects like the Beguines who may or may not be sexual with ‘divine desire’, and were slurred with being prositutes. Also interesting that I wonder if the name for the band Spiritualised comes from the equally banned “Free Spirit’ movement? They say it’s from a Pernod bottle, but that fits the music far more than the french word for liquor!

Also didn’t know this poem was the origin of not only that Danger Mouse / Sparklehorse / David Lynch album, but also Depeche Mode’s I Feel Loved, and the F. Scott Fitgerald line.

“On a dark night,
Kindled in love with yearnings–oh, happy chance!–
I went forth without being observed,
My house being now at rest.

In darkness and secure,
By the secret ladder, disguised–oh, happy chance!–
In darkness and in concealment,
My house being now at rest.

In the happy night,
In secret, when none saw me,
Nor I beheld aught,
Without light or guide, save that which burned in my
heart.

This light guided me
More surely than the light of noonday
To the place where he (well I knew who!) was awaiting me–
A place where none appeared.

Oh, night that guided me,
Oh, night more lovely than the dawn,
Oh, night that joined Beloved with lover,
Lover transformed in the Beloved!

Upon my flowery breast,
Kept wholly for himself alone,
There he stayed sleeping, and I caressed him,
And the fanning of the cedars made a breeze.

The breeze blew from the turret
As I parted his locks;
With his gentle hand he wounded my neck
And caused all my senses to be suspended.

I remained, lost in oblivion;
My face I reclined on the Beloved.
All ceased and I abandoned myself,
Leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies.”

Hey from Nina Simone to Christian mysticism and hidden queer sexuality via Depeche Mode, Danger Mouse and Spiritualised…now that’s a post!