Then, that book again; the one by the sun-drenched pool in Deniliquin that made time stand still, even as the sky became a blue bruise and twenty cent coin raindrops fell flat on the ground.
A Jimmy Webb song cannot be explained. You either get it or you don't. The Temptations (according to the story) knocked back 'By the Time I Get to Phoenix' because it didn't have a chorus. You may as well knock back a Mozart clarinet concerto because it doesn't have a flute. When Glen Campbell got to 1975 and sang 'Rhinestone Cowboy' I wondered whether Campbell had changed, or it was just that I had grown up. He'd moved on from Jimmy Webb songs. There was air around the earlier lyrics that just wasn't there any more.
Someone once described 'Witchita Lineman' as the first existential country song. No-one has ever properly defined 'existentialim' beyond a kind of 'shut-up and enjoy the scenery' kind of non-philosophical theory espoused by 1960s pseudo-French bon vivants who liked books with no plot. And yes, I had to read Camus at high school. In French. Existentialism is waiting around for something to happen that never does. My French teacher didn't turn up most of the time. There were two of us in the class; me and a kid called Amin. He was Algerian or Morrocan or something. We waited around for the teacher half that year. I spent winter Wednesday nights taking the tram into the Alliance Francais in Flemington Road and conversing in French with blonde girls from private schools; 'En hiver nous allons skier à Falls Creek.' Two hours of that and then onto the lonely cold shaky tram up Mt Alexander Road again at 11 o'clock on sleety Wednesday winter nights.
Jimmy wrote this book like he wrote his songs. Chorus-less time-shifting earthquakes of language that work like his songs worked, even though some people didn't get them.
At the end of the day - in both senses - you write for yourself, or you write for no-one. Ain't that the truth.
The book ends in the early seventies with Jimmy Webb coming out of a bender: he moved in Harry Nilsson/John Lennon circles.
Some time later he touches a piano and remembers what it is again.
*
The Cake and the Rain
Jimmy Webb
St Martins' Press 2017
A Jimmy Webb song cannot be explained. You either get it or you don't. The Temptations (according to the story) knocked back 'By the Time I Get to Phoenix' because it didn't have a chorus. You may as well knock back a Mozart clarinet concerto because it doesn't have a flute. When Glen Campbell got to 1975 and sang 'Rhinestone Cowboy' I wondered whether Campbell had changed, or it was just that I had grown up. He'd moved on from Jimmy Webb songs. There was air around the earlier lyrics that just wasn't there any more.
Someone once described 'Witchita Lineman' as the first existential country song. No-one has ever properly defined 'existentialim' beyond a kind of 'shut-up and enjoy the scenery' kind of non-philosophical theory espoused by 1960s pseudo-French bon vivants who liked books with no plot. And yes, I had to read Camus at high school. In French. Existentialism is waiting around for something to happen that never does. My French teacher didn't turn up most of the time. There were two of us in the class; me and a kid called Amin. He was Algerian or Morrocan or something. We waited around for the teacher half that year. I spent winter Wednesday nights taking the tram into the Alliance Francais in Flemington Road and conversing in French with blonde girls from private schools; 'En hiver nous allons skier à Falls Creek.' Two hours of that and then onto the lonely cold shaky tram up Mt Alexander Road again at 11 o'clock on sleety Wednesday winter nights.
Jimmy wrote this book like he wrote his songs. Chorus-less time-shifting earthquakes of language that work like his songs worked, even though some people didn't get them.
At the end of the day - in both senses - you write for yourself, or you write for no-one. Ain't that the truth.
The book ends in the early seventies with Jimmy Webb coming out of a bender: he moved in Harry Nilsson/John Lennon circles.
Some time later he touches a piano and remembers what it is again.
*
The Cake and the Rain
Jimmy Webb
St Martins' Press 2017
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