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Beginning, track number six, for those who don't touch music unless it comes from vinyl, the second track on the second side.
Few, subdued chords, played so softly by Adrian Belew that they elevate Bill Bruford's slit drum, which keeps the time perfectly disciplined and regular, to the solo instrument of the intro. Then Tony Levin's Chapman stick, ethereal and intangible, part electric bass, part guitar, and part air and rhythm, opens the way for the Roland guitar-synth played by the Alien himself, Robert Fripp, who breaks the peace with trumpet-like sounds, heralding calls that immediately steer the track into a psychedelic direction that, almost at the end of the record where the same track is found, was entirely unimaginable.
But it's just a few breaths and Fripp immediately takes the track by the hand, leading it into those dreamy and sticky atmospheres, on the edge of dissonance, where he feels so at home and where the paying audience so often gets pleasantly lost, waiting to understand where the Genius intends to take them.
Naïve.
The Alien knows the direction to take, but the instructions for taking it are understood by only a few initiates, three, to be precise. And, in an album of such wide stylistic innovation, where guitar parts are often filtered, synthesized, distorted, and then spat out, the unwary listener patiently waiting for a dreamlike Fripp in crimson hues, akin to the one heard years before, must wait. Only now do we know he is still waiting.
So it is that the bald Levin organizes the interlude with arpeggiated sounds more suited to a guitar than a bass, deftly extracted from the stick which he mentored and pioneered. Seeing him play his multi-stringed instrument and hearing the notes he brings forth is an experience to be had; one wonders how many fingers a man must have to achieve so much…..
It’s Belew’s turn, not at all intimidated by the depth of the notes slipping from Fripp's cabinets, after all, isn't it the first time the Alien takes a second guitar in the band? And he chose Adrian, not a simple choice, a monstrous talent who in four years moved from Zappa's band to Bowie's "Stage" period, then to Talking Heads, already a new sensation of the wave that swerved ninety degrees towards the intuition of world music, expanding enormously, and then, last but not least, to Laurie Anderson's group, the cutting edge of minimalist experimentation for the masses, from one daring adventure to another, always towards the future.
Meanwhile, the track clarifies the intentions of the title, “The Sheltering Sky,” an expression, a simulacrum, an attempted oxymoron that one hesitates to grasp, because truly feeling safe under the sky's vault, by day or by night, seems a concept for the few. The track, says Fripp, is only partially and randomly inspired by Paul Bowles' work, which seems to echo certain languors immediately followed by fury and confusion, then again languor and torpor.
And we return to dreaming, to losing ourselves in indistinct galaxies and nebulas, to discovering new worlds, the ones within ourselves, the most complicated universes we have inside us….. always gently lying on the quiet and tribal percussive carpet of Bruford’s wooden box, precise and metronomic, a guarantee for the three travelers of the transcendent while he, keeping time, takes care of the immanent.
Until the Chief resumes the threads of the game, plays the call of the senses again like a trumpet, repeating the hieratic and calling notes with which he had started and then dispersing them, dissolving them in the liquid mists that bring calm and relax the listener's breath, in a quiet and timeless nemesis. Fripp always tends, as he has done for years and will throughout his life, to organize disorder, creating it, promoting it, nurturing it, and then integrating it into a discipline that gives it meaning, elevating it to a new Creation.
Again the liquid chords of the beginning, again the slit drum in the foreground, the man keeping time bows imperceptibly to the listener, takes two steps back, to the side, without stopping playing, melting into the shadow.
Tracklist and Lyrics
02 Frame By Frame (00:00)
Frame by frame (Suddenly)
Death by drowning (from within)
In your, in your analysis.
Step by step (Suddenly)
Doubt by numbers (from within)
In your, in your analysis.
03 Dinosaur (00:00)
Intro
Long ago and far away in a different age
when i was a dumb young guy
fossilized photos of my life then
illustrate what an easy prey i must have been
Standing in the sun, idiot savant
something like a monument
I'm a dinosaur, somebody is digging my bones
I'm a dinosaur, somebody is digging my bones
Ignorance has alway been something i excel in
followed by naivete and pride
doesn't take a scientist to see how
any clever predator could have a piece of me
Standing in the sun, idiot savant
something like a monument
I'm a dinosaur, somebody is digging my bones
I'm a dinosaur
Oh, when i look back on the past
some wonder i'm not yet extinct
all the mistakes and bad judgements i made
nearly pushed me to the brink
it doesn't pay to be too nice
it's the one thing i have learned
still, i made my fossil bed
and now i toss and turn
I'm a dinosaur, somebody is digging my bones
I'm a dinosaur
Solo
I'm a dinosaur, somebody is digging my bones
I'm a dinosaur, somebody is digging my bones
07 Matte Kudasai (00:00)
Still, by the window pane
Pain, like the rain that's falling
She waits in the air
Matte Kudasai
She sleeps in a chair
In her sad America
When, when was the night so long
Long, like the notes I'm sending
She waits in the air
Matte Kudasai
She sleeps in a chair
In her sad America
09 People (00:00)
people fly people flee
people clam and say "it wasn't me"
people fish people beef
people arm to teeth
yes, you've got people on the tube
walking on the moon
people at the bottom of the sea
people in tombs
people in igloos
even a tribe of pygmies
people are the main spring
turning the world around
people, they're the main spring
spinning this world upside down
people sun people toast
people tire shile other people smoke
people bowl people rock
people pay to see two people box
watch me face me
dress me baby me
phone me wire me
house me bug me fire me
people are the main spring
spinning the world around
people, they're the main spring
turning this world inside out
11 Elephant Talk (00:00)
Talk, it's only talk
Arguments, agreements, advice, answers,
Articulate announcements
It's only talk
Talk, it's only talk
Babble, burble, banter, bicker bicker bicker
Brouhaha, balderdash, ballyhoo
It's only talk
Back talk
Talk talk talk, it's only talk
Comments, cliches, commentary, controversy
Chatter, chit-chat, chit-chat, chit-chat,
Conversation, contradiction, criticism
It's only talk
Cheap talk
Talk, talk, it's only talk
Debates, discussions
These are words with a D this time
Dialog, duologue, diatribe,
Dissention, declamation
Double talk, double talk
Talk, talk, it's all talk
Too much talk
Small talk
Talk that trash
Expressions, editorials, explanations, exclamations, exaggerations
It's all talk
Elephant talk? Elephant talk? Elephant talk!
12 Indiscipline (00:00)
I do remember one thing.
It took hours and hours but..
by the time I was done with it,
I was so involved, I didn't know what to think.
I carried it around with me for days and days..
playing little games
like not looking at it for a whole day
and then.. looking at it.
to see if I still liked it.
I did.
I repeat myself when under stress.
I repeat myself when under stress.
I repeat myself when under stress.
I repeat myself when under stress.
I repeat..
The more I look at it,
the more I like it.
I do think it's good.
The fact is..
no matter how closely I study it,
no matter how I take it apart,
no matter how I break it down,
It remains consistant.
I wish you were here to see it.
I like it.
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