I remember / je me souviens

I remember / je me souviens

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For those limbic bursts of nostalgia, invented by Proust, miniaturized by Nicholson Baker, and freeze-dried by Joe Brainard in his I remember and by Georges Perec in his Je me souviens.

But there are no fractions, the world is an integer
Like us, and like us it can neither stand wholly apart nor disappear.
When one is young it seems like a very strange and safe place,
But now that I have changed it feels merely odd, cold
And full of interest.
--John Ashbery, "A Wave"

Sometimes I sense that to put real confidence in my memory I have to get to the end of all rememberings. That seems to say that I forego remembering. And now that strikes me as an accurate description of what it is to have confidence in one's memory.
--Stanley Cavell, The Claim of Reason

Sunday, July 27, 2003

I remember that the song lyrics that came with albums were never accurate. I recall this especially from the Crosby Stills Nash and Young album, where "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" didn't have (I think) the last part. And the same was true for the fade out to James Taylor's "Fire and Rain." And countless others. And it was always these improvised lyrics that were hardest to hear or make sense of. I was thinking of this today, noticing how accurate the lyrics are to Steely Dan's "The things I miss the most," on their new album Everything must go. I suppose that one response to internet piracy might be to make the ancillary material that comes with a cd more valuable and useful, and accurate lyrics do that. I never felt, what I would feel later, studying literature, that the fact that there were variations was interesting, and that the comparison of variations yielded insight. I just wanted good lyrics. Other albums I remember with inaccurate lyrics: Tommy, Elton John.

In this connection I remember going with David Heilbronner and I think Doug Breitbart, and maybe Linda, to see Steely Dan at the (then) Philharmonic Hall. They were opening up for the Electric Light Orchestra. They were great, but we were the only people there for them. Everyone else wanted ELO, and tried to boo them off the stage. One of them -- actually I think one of their section people, not Donald Fagin or Walter Becker -- gave the finger to a section of the audienec booing them. When ELO came on, they did a good show, much better than Steely Dan's. But Steely Dan's music was so much better. I think in those days, though, they never printed lyrics. So I think that "The Things I Miss the Most" is a little like their version of I remember: they miss those days, and the talk, the sex, the girl stand for those days.

posted by william 10:17 PM
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