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alloy-digest Friday, May 12 2000 Volume 05 : Number 116
Today's Subjects:
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Alloy: SOTW - guidelines, suggestions, and intent ["Stephen M. Tilson" <S]
Re: Alloy: SOTW - Airwaves [Keys35@aol.com]
RE: Alloy: SOTW - Airwaves [tim dunn <timd@gmn.com>]
Re: Alloy: Hey all.. [lulfstedt@amadeus.net]
Re: Alloy: SOTW - Airwaves [Chris Cracknell <crackers@hwcn.org>]
Alloy: Song of the Week (SOTW) - suggestions ["Stephen M. Tilson" <Stephe]
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Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 04:11:37 -0400
From: "Stephen M. Tilson" <Stephen_Tilson@compuserve.com>
Subject: Alloy: SOTW - guidelines, suggestions, and intent
Dear Alloy,
Wow!
Thank you for those wonderful "Airwaves" interpretations, Beth and
Craig! This is exactly what I was hoping for, and more! (And Craig,
there are folks here who can answer your `does anyone know what
Dolby had in mind' question. Stay tuned.)
And now, for everyone, here is a brief overview of my still-evolving
conception of the Song Of The Week project.
Every week or so I will post the lyrics to a Thomas Dolby song,
presented in roughly chronological order, and ask that you give us
your interpretation or analysis, and/or provide us with any facts
relating to the song which give it contextual meaning, and/or tell us
how the song makes you feel, and/or any other relevant bits of
information about the song and how you relate to it. Satires and
spoofs are invited <g>, but in the main let's try to keep it real.
We'll get the videos and films into discussion as well. The length
of discussion will be regulated by how much we have to say. When the
conversation dies down we'll move on to the next work. And we can
always come back to a song or video if anyone feels something has
gone unsaid.
My intention is to compile the lyrics and your commentaries into a
semi-public database (anyone may read and download, with upload and
editing privileges limited to no less than two managers). The only
editing I will employ is basic spell checking and exclusion of
unrelated sections, such as the two items at the end of Beth Meyer's
recent analysis of Airwaves. I will also exclude anything that
either the authors or the group at large wishes to keep from the
public eye.
Your comments, as always, are invited and appreciated! And if I
might be so bold as to trouble you further, may I ask that anyone who
has implementation or procedural ideas, please come forward and help
us refine this concept?
In AllThingsDolby,
/\/\iles
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 06:53:22 EDT
From: Keys35@aol.com
Subject: Re: Alloy: SOTW - Airwaves
I've always interpreted this song as being about someone who's driving
home in NYC. He's obviously lonely in a big city who turns off the highway
during rush hour, goes under a bridge and shoots himself in the head.
"Airwaves" and "Broadcast" are metaphors for people acting as transmitters -
sending out their feelings and even talking out loud and being ignored. I
haven't figured out the bridge though.
JiM (Ultra-lurker)
In a message dated 5/10/00 7:00:19 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
Stephen_Tilson@compuserve.com writes:
<< AIRWAVES
(c) 1981
Strange how the scale forms
In tiny patterns
On my antenna
And the five o'clock show, hello hello...
Brooklyn is crawling with famous people
I turn my vehicle beneath the river, west from south
Through the airwaves -
People never read the airwaves
Do we only feed the airwaves
Or stamp them out at street level?
Airwaves - the dampness of the wind
The airwaves - the tension of the skin
The airwaves I really should have seen through.
Electric fences line our new freeway
Here in the half-light, the motor homes leave
Knee-deep in water under a pylon
How slow my heartbeat, how thin the air I'm breathing in
Control has enabled the abandoned wires again
But the copper cables all rust in the acid rain
That flood the subway <If you incorporate>
With elements of our corrosion <Elements of our combustion>
Cabled in to me...
Cable them to me...
Cable them to me...
Be in my broadcast when this is over
Give me your shoulder, I need a place
To wait for morning.
No it was nothing - some car backfiring -
Please don't ask questions
I itch all over
Let me sleep.
>>
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 11:59:04 +0100
From: tim dunn <timd@gmn.com>
Subject: RE: Alloy: SOTW - Airwaves
That's good work Jim - I think you might be right...
the_copse
- -----Original Message-----
From: Keys35@aol.com [mailto:Keys35@aol.com]
Subject: Re: Alloy: SOTW - Airwaves
I've always interpreted this song as being about someone who's
driving
home in NYC. He's obviously lonely in a big city who turns off the
highway
during rush hour, goes under a bridge and shoots himself in the head.
"Airwaves" and "Broadcast" are metaphors for people acting as
transmitters -
sending out their feelings and even talking out loud and being
ignored. I
haven't figured out the bridge though.
JiM (Ultra-lurker)
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 14:16:26 +0100
From: lulfstedt@amadeus.net
Subject: Re: Alloy: Hey all..
>And on the day of 5/5/2000 11:16 pm, CJMark@aol.com thus did spake...
> Thanks for your invite to the down under.. but I don't think my car will
> make it quite that distance..
>Assisted by a rail gun it probably could though no? Why did an image of
>MacGyver eyeing off a stretch of railway track just appear in my head? 'Now
>if I just jack up that end of the track, wrap a couple hundred miles of
>copper around the rails, cool it with liquid nitrogen from that tanker in
>the siding, then plug the cables into this nearby substation using some
>sticky tape as insulation...'
Yeah Paul, or are you just a closet MacGyver fanfic writer??!!
Watch out!...I have an open invitation to visit some Australian work mates of
mine who are moving from here back to Sydney at the end of the summer, and I'm
contemplating visiting them next year sometime....so if you get a call from
someone asking you to join them for a beer and a kangaroo sarnie in a weird
faded yorkshire accent, don't freak out!
BTW,...the new chapter was great,...!
Lissu :-)
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 09:50:09 -0400 (EDT)
From: Chris Cracknell <crackers@hwcn.org>
Subject: Re: Alloy: SOTW - Airwaves
I've always seen Airwaves as a song about mankind's increasing alienation
between itself and nature and even the alienation between its fellow humans.
We communicate through hightech means, sending radio and microwave satelite
signals all over the world filled with our idle, vapid chatter while completely
ignoring a more organic, spiritual broadcast that is present all around us
desperately waiting for us to tap into it. A broadcast between plant and
river and forest and soul, sky and rock and you and me.
All the decaying imagery in the song symbolises perhaps the decay of
human spirit, crushed into banality by softdrink commercials and sitcoms,
fluff music and fast food ads. Or perhaps it symbolises the decay of
this self inflicted alienation, that the system is collapsing under it's
own weight and we're about to see a new rebirth. Or perhaps it symbolises
a wounded Gaia whose broadcast has been muffled and confused by the
interference of our global media.
The hero in the song is desperately trying to break through this alienation
and make contact with another human soul and open a real communication.
Someone who will listen for the broadcast of the heart, and the forest,
and the earth, and the sky with him.
In the end he has hope that he has found a soul to sync with but he is still
not sure. The bond is too new, too untested. For now he will just enjoy
his place to wait for morning and perhaps morning will bring with it something
deeper.
CRACKERS
(White noise from hell!!!!!!!!!)
- --
Collector of Atari 2600 carts - Accordionist - Bira Bira Devotee - Anime fan
* http://www.hwcn.org/~ad329/crab.html | Crackers' Arts Base *
* http://www.netway.com/~hozervideo/index.html | Hozer Video Games *
Nihongo ga dekimasu - 2600 programmer - Father of 2 great kids - Canadian eh
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 16:36:06 -0400
From: "Stephen M. Tilson" <Stephen_Tilson@compuserve.com>
Subject: Alloy: Song of the Week (SOTW) - suggestions
As I was sorting through the SOTW posts I discovered some nut case,
"/\/\iles" spouting off:
> I chose New Toy because it was first - chronologically.
And I should have added, "and because Robin suggested it."
Credit where credit is due,
/\/\
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End of alloy-digest V5 #116
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