Larry Benjamin's Blog: Larry Benjamin's blog - This Writer's Life - Posts Tagged "damaged-angels"
On Music & Words
Like many people who work, I have a commute, an unpleasant, unpredictable commute. Some days it’s 22 minutes, others it’s 90. Music gets me through. The radio, more accurately the music—I hate people talking on the radio – blasting through the 10 speakers in my car is my salvation. Let me clarify, not just music but the lyrics married to the music—I hate music without words—is my salvation. Words are my freedom and my salvation. If you’ve read my books, or follow my blog, you will know, for me, words are the thing.
If I was at all musical, I’d have been a songwriter instead of just a writer. Thus, I love songs that tell a story, that paint a picture. Painting a picture with words is what I do—try to do.
I particularly love songs that tell a story. I started out writing short stories so I understand the challenge of telling a story, creating characters and setting a tale in context economically. Neither of my books is very long, and my next release, a novella is an ambitious undertaking, telling the story of man in 12,000+ words, so I appreciate brevity, economy of words.
In this post I will look at the lyrics of some of my favorite songs—some old, some new but all telling a story, painting a picture, economically, with words.
My current favorite song is “Shut Up and Dance” by Walk the Moon.
A backless dress and some beat up sneaks,
My discothèque, Juliet teenage dream.
I felt it in my chest as she looked at me.
I knew we were bound to be together,
Bound to be together
She took my arm,
I don't know how it happened.
We took the floor and she said,
"Oh, don't you dare look back.
Just keep your eyes on me."
I said, "You're holding back,"
She said, "Shut up and dance with me!"
This woman is my destiny
I love this line: “A backless dress and some beat up sneaks” it paints a strong picture without a lot of detail but you get a feel for the sort of person she is. "Oh, don't you dare look back. Just keep your eyes on me."—another great line. It allows you to understand where they are in their lives and that she is telling him to forget everything, to stop thinking and just feel.
Watch the video.
Then there is Imagine Dragons’, “I Bet my Life On You:”
I've been around the world and never in my wildest dreams
Would I come running home to you
I've told a million lies but now I tell a single truth
There's you in everything I do
In just four lines you get a couple’s history and a hard learned truth.
Watch the video.
An old favorite is “American Pie” by Don McLean. These lyrics never fail to bring a smile to my face; they are absurd, but vivid.
When the jester sang for the king and queen
In a coat he borrowed from James Dean
And a voice that came from you and me
Oh, and while the king was looking down
The jester stole his thorny crown
The courtroom was adjourned
No verdict was returned
And while Lenin read a book on Marx
The quartet practiced in the park
And we sang dirges in the dark
The day the music died
Watch the video.
And, finally, the brilliant “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel. Every lyric clearly paints s a specific spot in time, and the sense of frustration: “I can’t take it anymore.”
Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan
Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and Roller Cola wars, I can't take it anymore
Watch the video.
As I’ve said, I try to use words economically to tell my stories. Below is a collection of some of my favorite lines. Selections cover everything from a protagonist facing impending death:
Death holds me in its thrall as once the beauty of men enthralled me
I can see death gathering like the coming darkness: a confederacy of shadows, a blackness that is legion
―from “The Cross,” Damaged Angels
To sex—both solitary and coupled:
In the shower, I wash carefully, paying special attention to my asshole. I feel it pucker against my intruding finger. Open. Sucking. Greedy. Full of need. Quicksilver seed scatters. Sown on white tile. Fruitless. Sliding down the drain.
He steps forward. Holds my head between his thighs. A pulse beats against my temple. The masculine scent of him fills my nostrils. My open mouth. Welcoming. The triumvirate of his manhood.
―from “Precious Cargo,” Damaged Angels
To a midnight description of the man who would become my husband to a Winter afternoon.
Caught in a rectangle of lilac light, Val sat in a black leather and chrome chair. Sandy hair, sable soft, crawled like moss over the white rock of his body. He sprawled in the chair, a giant like Gulliver, too large for the room.
Outside, the afternoon had failed. A keening wind mourned the retired sun and kicked at stray sheets of newspaper in its loneliness, making them swirl like angry ghosts. Sheets of silver sleet angled down from the tarnished sky, lacquering the streets with black ice that made a comedy of ambulation.
―from “Intermezzo,” Damaged Angels
Watch the trailer for “Damaged Angels.”
If I was at all musical, I’d have been a songwriter instead of just a writer. Thus, I love songs that tell a story, that paint a picture. Painting a picture with words is what I do—try to do.
I particularly love songs that tell a story. I started out writing short stories so I understand the challenge of telling a story, creating characters and setting a tale in context economically. Neither of my books is very long, and my next release, a novella is an ambitious undertaking, telling the story of man in 12,000+ words, so I appreciate brevity, economy of words.
In this post I will look at the lyrics of some of my favorite songs—some old, some new but all telling a story, painting a picture, economically, with words.
My current favorite song is “Shut Up and Dance” by Walk the Moon.
A backless dress and some beat up sneaks,
My discothèque, Juliet teenage dream.
I felt it in my chest as she looked at me.
I knew we were bound to be together,
Bound to be together
She took my arm,
I don't know how it happened.
We took the floor and she said,
"Oh, don't you dare look back.
Just keep your eyes on me."
I said, "You're holding back,"
She said, "Shut up and dance with me!"
This woman is my destiny
I love this line: “A backless dress and some beat up sneaks” it paints a strong picture without a lot of detail but you get a feel for the sort of person she is. "Oh, don't you dare look back. Just keep your eyes on me."—another great line. It allows you to understand where they are in their lives and that she is telling him to forget everything, to stop thinking and just feel.
Watch the video.
Then there is Imagine Dragons’, “I Bet my Life On You:”
I've been around the world and never in my wildest dreams
Would I come running home to you
I've told a million lies but now I tell a single truth
There's you in everything I do
In just four lines you get a couple’s history and a hard learned truth.
Watch the video.
An old favorite is “American Pie” by Don McLean. These lyrics never fail to bring a smile to my face; they are absurd, but vivid.
When the jester sang for the king and queen
In a coat he borrowed from James Dean
And a voice that came from you and me
Oh, and while the king was looking down
The jester stole his thorny crown
The courtroom was adjourned
No verdict was returned
And while Lenin read a book on Marx
The quartet practiced in the park
And we sang dirges in the dark
The day the music died
Watch the video.
And, finally, the brilliant “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel. Every lyric clearly paints s a specific spot in time, and the sense of frustration: “I can’t take it anymore.”
Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan
Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and Roller Cola wars, I can't take it anymore
Watch the video.
As I’ve said, I try to use words economically to tell my stories. Below is a collection of some of my favorite lines. Selections cover everything from a protagonist facing impending death:
Death holds me in its thrall as once the beauty of men enthralled me
I can see death gathering like the coming darkness: a confederacy of shadows, a blackness that is legion
―from “The Cross,” Damaged Angels
To sex—both solitary and coupled:
In the shower, I wash carefully, paying special attention to my asshole. I feel it pucker against my intruding finger. Open. Sucking. Greedy. Full of need. Quicksilver seed scatters. Sown on white tile. Fruitless. Sliding down the drain.
He steps forward. Holds my head between his thighs. A pulse beats against my temple. The masculine scent of him fills my nostrils. My open mouth. Welcoming. The triumvirate of his manhood.
―from “Precious Cargo,” Damaged Angels
To a midnight description of the man who would become my husband to a Winter afternoon.
Caught in a rectangle of lilac light, Val sat in a black leather and chrome chair. Sandy hair, sable soft, crawled like moss over the white rock of his body. He sprawled in the chair, a giant like Gulliver, too large for the room.
Outside, the afternoon had failed. A keening wind mourned the retired sun and kicked at stray sheets of newspaper in its loneliness, making them swirl like angry ghosts. Sheets of silver sleet angled down from the tarnished sky, lacquering the streets with black ice that made a comedy of ambulation.
―from “Intermezzo,” Damaged Angels
Watch the trailer for “Damaged Angels.”
Weighing In On…Rachel Dolezal—Why Does Race Remain Locked, Unchangeable?
I must admit that when I first read about Rachel Dolezal―who leads the Spokane chapter of the NAACP, teaches African studies to college students and sits on a police oversight commission, and who claims to be black when she may not be by birth―I was surprised and amused. You see, my short story, “Howdy Billy, Cabbage Ma’am,” from Damaged Angels deals with the same issue—a privileged white woman masquerades as black for decades and is eventually found out. But the more I read, the madder I got. It seems the entire controversy surrounds how Rachel Dolezal identifies racially. Say what?
Why are we so outraged by Rachel Dolezal’s racial identification in an age when we are told gender exists on a spectrum and can be “fluid,” in an age when it is argued that marriage is the right of any two people in love? Why are we outraged by this when we accept the fluidity of gender roles and embrace the reality of stay-at-home dads, and women on the battlefield? Just the other day I saw a trash collector who was not only female but Muslim.
Why is it, that race alone remains locked, solid, unchangeable?
Keep reading.
Spam
There’s a woman in Germany named Mel here on Goodreads who writes wonderful reviews—insightful, and entertaining without giving away too much away. She caught my attention because she has been going through my books and reviewing each one. She started reading Damaged Angels and posting reviews of each story.
Her review of my short story “Spam” caught my attention. Of it, she wrote:
Oh my... this one’s a riddle. At least to me. It’s kinda impossible to say what’s real and what not. And while I’m confused, I still appreciate this. In the end it doesn’t really matter what exactly went down here.
Her review led me to decide I would dedicate this blog post to explaining that story.
Spam,” is, in a way, a story about identity. Identity has been much talked about. First it was gay identity, then transgendered and gender non-conforming identity (though I think gender non-conforming identity has always existed and been talked about). Then, there was the recent fallout over Rachel Dolezal’s identifying as black.
I’ve always wondered: when it comes to identity—who are we?—Are we who we appear to be? Or who we believe we are?
Keep reading.
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