Big Chords on a Dark Guitar
This morning I woke up humming Janis Joplin. I am not sure why, I haven't thought of the dead hippie in a long time, and it is not like the radio stations in my town play her music. In fact, for the most part, you would never know there was music recorded before 1982 if you had to rely on what these dohickey radio stations play. But I was crooning away at this song, Coo Coo, anyway:
"said the cuckoo, she’s a cruel bird, and she warbles when she flies/ and every time that she passes, my true love says good-bye,/ well, says good-bye, well says good-bye,/ ooo, ooo …"
I like the ooo ooo bits. It is actually a very old folk song from the British Isle (or somewhere, I suppose) and while my parents used to sing old folk songs to me as a child (we never had a traditional hootenanny but it was always fun) I recall them never once singing this song. It's enough to make you want to sing the blues (look, I repeat myself) …
Of course Janis Joplin sang this song before I was even born, so it is not like it is brand new or anything. In fact I have no idea why I woke up warbling out any tune. Sometimes I get songs into my head and I won't even recall who sang it or why it is tormenting the way it does.
How, though, you ask, does this relate to a dak guitar and a big chord?1 Well, any nod to Saint Federico is a good nod in my book. And he has these curious guitar poems that were not part of his Romancero gitano but still captured my imagination. Here is one:
Adivinanza
de la guitarra
Federico Garcia LorcaRiddle of the Guitar
translated by ZJCEn la redonda
encrucijada,
seis doncellas
bailan.
Tres de carne
y tres de plata.
Los sueños de ayer las buscan
pero las tiene abrazadas
un Polifemo de oro.
¡La guitarra!At the round
crossroads,
6 maidens
dance.
3 of flesh,
3 of silver.
Dreams from yesterday pursue them,
but they are held fast by
a Polyphermus of gold.
Ai, the guitar!
The poem is rather clear in its mystery except for the reference of Polyphermus. Who? What? This is what lovely Olga says of Polyphermus:
Galatea [the sea nymph] had another admirer, the Cyclopus Polyphermus, who loved her without any hope for success. He played for Galatea love songs on his pipes. Once he found her lying in the arms of Acis [the son of the Italic god Faunus and the Nymph Symaethis and very full of himself]. In his intense jealousy, Polyphermus tried to crush his rival under rocks, but Acis turned himself into river and thus escaped from the giant.
That was a bit of luck (though the whole ability to turn oneself into a river doesn't play much into this poem, I think).
- Which is really just a bad pun on that one Joan Baez record you saw yesterday in the 25 cent Library Sale Shelf and still you failed to take it home. The Shame! The Shame! [back]