Two things I love: Van Dyke Parks and Chuckie Cheese's

So last night I had a dream, and those are usually boring, but I swear to god I had one of the most bizarre dreams ever last night. I was recording music at a radio station, and Van Dyke Parks was there doing a radio show, so I asked if he could help with unloading tape from the machine. He helped me with that and then invited me back to his place to listen to records, to which I replied “Yes Van Dyke Parks it would be totally fucking awesome to go back to your place and listen to your records!” So we get to his place, and he lives in a tiny efficiency, that’s connected to a bigger house, that’s a fucking Chuckie Cheese’s, but, get this, it’s also a brothel! And the waitresses/prostitutes were all teenagers! Really fucked up. So I go order a slice of pizza and a beer, and there are all these video games and a gigantic neon bar with whores and pimps watching children play skee-ball. Anyways, this seventeen-year-old, exploited Slavic girl takes my order and I go back to listen to obscure Japanese and calypso records with Van Dyke fucking Parks who for some reason has fallen on hard times and lives in a one-bedroom apartment that’s connected to a Chuckie Cheese’s/whorehouse. I lose track of time and late in the night a pimp busts into the apartment and demands that I pay for the slice of pizza that I ordered hours ago. He starts accusing me of something about stealing money and proceeds to beat the shit out of me, and that’s when I woke up. Completely batshit insane dream.


So I guess I’ll post a Van Dyke Parks song today. I usually don’t like printed lyrics, they often look odd and unnatural on the page, but Van Dyke Parks’ Song Cycle is probably the closest that pop music will ever get to poetry, both lyrically and sonically.

Song of the Day: Van Dyke Parks - The Attic



The Attic
(Van Dyke Parks)

I was there upon a four poster there. Mind tousled I came to bear some thoughts from the past amid a dash of influenza. And then I came to see in baggage the memories of truncated souvenirs. The war years. High moon I said high moon lighted high moon eye to my moon.

Far beyond the blue mist enveloped lawn the blanketed night comes on. The champagne is dead and gone. The forest around sensitive sound forest primeval. Through the panes cloud buttermilk war remains and twisted cross war refrains lunatic so high moon I said high moon lighted high moon eye to my moon.

Your age will most probably carry away the letters enveloped in carrion. Vague unpleasantries of the war. May your son's progenitorship of the state haphazardly help him to carry on. God send your son safe home to you. High Moon. You're eye to my moon.