Monday, October 17, 2005 ... 6:37 PM

Gillian Welch "Throw Me A Rope" lyrics, and so forth.

October 2007 update:Looking for an MP3 of this song? Write something about Gillian for the Tent Revue and I'll send it to you. Look here.

All you west coast Gillian Welch fans -- brothers, sisters -- stumbling onto this site from Seattle and San Francisco, damp and trembling still from your first Gil & Dave show one night this past week -- looking up that brilliant fucking song that sounds as though they reached down into your blue Jungian guts and pulled out the rockinest archetypes -- y'all searching Google and Yahoo for "Throw me a rope" and "without a crow flying by" and "Gillian Welch lyrics" -- hey, here you are:

The Way It Would Be (aka "Throw Me a Rope") lyrics

(Find a link to the chords here.)

I lost you a while ago.
Still I don't know why.
I can't say your name
without a crow flying by.

Gotta watch my back
now that you turned me around.
You got me walkin backwards
into my hometown.

Throw me a rope
on the rolling tide.
What did you want it to be?
You said it's him or me.
The way you made it,
that's the way it will be.

We were seven years on the Burma shore
with Gatling guns and (paint? pails? pain?),
working the lowlands door to door
like Latter Day Saints.

But then you turned me out
at the top of the stairs.
You took all the glory
that you just couldn't share.

Throw me a rope
on the rolling tide.
What did you want it to be?
You said it's him or me.
The way you made it,
that's the way it will be.

I've never been so disabused.
I've never been so mad.
I've never been served anything
that tasted so bad.

You might need a friend
any day now, any day.
O my brother be careful.
You are drifting away.

Throw me a rope
on the rolling tide.
What did you want it to be?
You said it's him or me.
The way you made it,
that's the way it will be.

The way you made it,
that's the way it will be.


While you're here, drop me a line, write a review. I'll put it up on the site. Tell us -- are they playing any new songs? Have they shaken up the setlist? Any surprise visitors?

And hey, check out some of my other Gil'n'Dave related entries. Holy shit, I never realized there are so many of them.

Who's the Revelator?
Gil & Dave Counterpoint From K.
Chance Encounter
Suburban Hilltop Tent Conversion
First Times


Brendan

4 comments | 7"




Thursday, October 13, 2005 ... 2:56 PM

Jacksonville City Limits


Ryan Adams sounds more and more to me like Bono, maybe as produced by Joe Ely. I read everywhere about how terrific is the new Jacksonville City Nights, and I keep coming back to it for another listen. Again and again I'm disappointed. Marbled though it is with sweet, brittle steel guitar, I hear more Rattle and Hum than Honky Tonk Masquerade in its cowboy play-acting and self-conscious Americana milieu, its squandered songwriting opportunities, its overextended, histrionic -- often flat embarrassing -- vocal performances.

There's this question of authenticity that always bobs up when critics hear Ryan pull out his N.C. drawl -- as though there can be anything authentic about an American artform that sees corrupted English parlor tunes played by white hicks on African and Spanish instruments. Myself, I just love it when the music twangs -- but beyond that, it don't mean a thing if it don't feel no pain, and besides an occasional cringe, when I listen to Jacksonville City Nights, I mainly feel nothing at all.

Just as all that's left of the Wilco of AM are ghosts in the new machine, the Adams of Heartbreaker is deadngone. We all agree on that now. But everyone keeps going back to that record, keeps bringing it up -- or accusing others of bringing it up, as a way to bring it up -- and holding it up to the light because, maybe subconsciously, we need to revisit that wellspring to refresh our idea of Adams as a songwriter of sustained talent and at least some honesty -- maybe to justify all the attention we keep fucking giving him. Those songs had about them a sense of craftsmanship, of care, and a feeling that something was at stake -- internally and as works of art. My hunch: it was the influence of Gillian and Dave. But even if not, those songs five years ago (God, is that all?) cared about themselves, healthily. They have aged well.

Jacksonville City Nights feels as though it worries about what you think, and resents you for it.


Brendan

0 comments | 7"




Saturday, October 01, 2005 ... 10:43 AM

The falsetto sinks the ship

Listening to Jacksonville City Nights for the second time, I'm not sure I can come to any opinion without qualifying it: If he'd lose the strangled falsetto -- just give it up altogether; it's not working -- this album might be very good.

"Peaceful Valley," alight on my speakers right now like a tenement fire, is unsalvageable. Is it meant to be ironic? Impressionistic? Confrontational? Nihilistic? It amounts to unlistenable. But one crappy song sacrificed for an unpleasant impression is OK with me; coming away from it, I only want to know that Adams knows that it sounds awful. And then explain why this toxic approach contaminates many of the not-too-bad tunes here, such as "Trains."

Between Cold Roses and Jacksonville City Nights, there is enough material for one good -- not great, but good -- long-playing alt-country record.


Brendan

1 comments | 7"










Making Notes: Music of the Carolinas
(Novello Festival Press, April 2008)
includes my essay, "Link Wray"



SITES WHICH THE TENT REVUE RECOMMENDS

MUSIC
Flop Eared Mule
The Celestial Monochord
HickoryWind.org
Dig and Be Dug in Return
Modern Acoustic Magazine / Blog
The Old, Weird America
Honey, Where You Been So Long?


LITERATURE
The Greensboro Review
Mixed Animal
Night Train
Fried Chicken and Coffee
Mungo (This was the blog of my friend, the late Cami Park. Miss you, Cami.)
Staccato Fiction
Wigleaf
PANK Magazine


OTHER
Cat and Girl
Film Freak Central