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Re: New Song at Treasure Island (Look and Despair)

PostPosted: 15 Oct 2012, 23:26
by Wanbli
I am pretty sure the whole song is a tribute to Alan Moore's "The Watchmen"- in particular the character of Ozymandias :mrgreen:
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Re: New Song at Treasure Island (Look and Despair)

PostPosted: 15 Oct 2012, 23:32
by Ququuluru
:redx:

Re: New Song at Treasure Island (Look and Despair)

PostPosted: 15 Oct 2012, 23:43
by andrewb
I've got the lyrics-so-far up at http://www.joannanewsomlyrics.com/album ... r_as_sung/

Mapple sacka,
Andrew

Re: New Song at Treasure Island (Look and Despair)

PostPosted: 15 Oct 2012, 23:53
by ursulabear
Wanbli wrote:I am pretty sure the whole song is a tribute to Alan Moore's "The Watchmen"- in particular the character of Ozymandias :mrgreen:
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I'm pretty sure her next song is called 'The End Is Nigh'.

Re: New Song at Treasure Island (Look and Despair)

PostPosted: 16 Oct 2012, 00:20
by Jessie
You guys are awesome... and fast! Thank you! And thanks to the taper!

Re: New Song at Treasure Island (Look and Despair)

PostPosted: 16 Oct 2012, 02:03
by Ann
I prefer this song to The Diver's Wife. I mean, they're both great, but I really like this song. I feel like it's clearer, but also more powerful.

Re: New Song at Treasure Island (Look and Despair)

PostPosted: 16 Oct 2012, 09:17
by teenagelightning
I believe it's actually "plastic bag" and "ages rag". Also, this song basically says that this present moment is the next ancient civilization, which is a terrifying thought.

Re: New Song at Treasure Island (Look and Despair)

PostPosted: 16 Oct 2012, 11:06
by Andrew
^that's interesting! it would totally fit in with the newspaper theme.

And YES, I'm going to go with mapa sacro continent. The Roman empire! Can you name anything more Ozymandian?

From rereading the Horace Smith poem I have to say that "the city is gone" is actually a really good idea, even though I can't really hear a g sound myself. How about:

"I will the hunter to decipher the stone
and what lies under. The city is gone."

I think we've gotten to a good point anyway, I'm sure we'll have made mistakes even in the places we're most sure of.

And yeah I really prefer this to The Diver's Wife which felt a little bit Joanna-by-numbers, this song is completely fucking mad and some of the sections are somewhat incongruous but that only really contributes to what is the freshest sounding song I've heard from anybody in a whiiiile. My thoughts mirror Headless_Caboose's. The lyrics, or what we have of them, are great too, and so touching.

Re: New Song at Treasure Island (Look and Despair)

PostPosted: 16 Oct 2012, 11:26
by Andrew
dwaink wrote:and could this be ol florry walker?

http://www.news.com.au/top-stories/hidd ... 1113733012


okay! this is the only lead we really have so I'm going to jump on it.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/in-depth/ ... 92500.html

Fits in with the ideas of painting over things, of inscriptions, of newspaper articles, of lost art and people, of dashed love. And check out the language! X-rays were used to discover her beneath the paint.

How about "the snow swallows me whole with ol' Florry Walker"? meaning "along with".

Re: New Song at Treasure Island (Look and Despair)

PostPosted: 16 Oct 2012, 14:50
by Andrew
This is how I'm currently playing it, there are three different progressions for three different phrases:

-----C--------Dm----F----
The cause is Ozymandian.
-----C----- Dm-----F----
The mapa sacro continent
--C-------------C7------
is sanded and bevelled,
----Bb--------------Am----
the land lone and levelled
----D#------Dm------------Am------Bb---
by some unrecorded and powerful hand

(repeat sequence for all repetitions of this phrase)

--------Bb----------------Gm------------D#-----------------F-----
where all of the twenty-thousand attending your foot fall
----------Bb--------------Gm-------------------D#------------F-----
and the causes they died for are lost in the idling bird calls,
----------Bb---------------------Gm------------
and the records they left are cryptic at best,
-----D#-------F-----
lost in obsolescence.
-----Bb-----------------------Gm------------
The text will not yield, nor x-ray reveal
------D#---------F-----
with any fluorescence
-------------F-------------D#--------Bb---(C)--
where the hand of the master begins and ends.

(repeat sequence for all repetitions of this phrase)

-----Bb----
"It's alright,"
------C-------
and "It's all over now,"
-----Am-----------Dm----
and boarded the plane,
------------Bb------
his belt unfastened;
----C------------------------------Am---Dm----
the boy was known to show unusual daring.
-----------------Bb----
And, called a “boy”,
-----C--------------------------Am--------Dm---
this older man confounding Tammany Hall
----------------Bb----
(In whose employ
------C------------------------Am------------Dm---
King Tamanend himself preceded John’s fall).

(repeat 'til end)

if anyone has something different please share.

Re: New Song at Treasure Island (Look and Despair)

PostPosted: 16 Oct 2012, 17:05
by andrewb
Sorry, but what exactly is "mapa sacro"? It seems like a mix of Spanish and Latin trying to mean "sacred map" — "the sacred map continent"? That sort makes sense, but you'd think if she used a foreign phrase she would use a real one.

Re: New Song at Treasure Island (Look and Despair)

PostPosted: 16 Oct 2012, 18:50
by Andrew
I guess it's just a placeholder, I have no idea~

Re: New Song at Treasure Island (Look and Despair)

PostPosted: 17 Oct 2012, 02:29
by dwaink
sounds like she says " Mapa Sacro content "....the contents of the official map...what we humans at times see as "ours" and it isn't really because the hand of the maker(and or nature) keeps swiping that ours away. we keep building monuments to what we think we have accomplished or the territory we have ordered only to have history, or our own human frailty(our deaths) wipe away all but the barest memory of these events. there are whole massive cultures that have existed right here on this planet that we no longer even have a basic understanding of, we have bits and pieces that we try to decipher but it's gone...look at the Etruscans or the Aztecs or the Babylonians...all that history and culture and learning and monuments...all those lives...and it is just gone...look on my work and despair indeed

Re: New Song at Treasure Island (Look and Despair)

PostPosted: 17 Oct 2012, 11:13
by under a CPell
What great detectives you guys/girls all are! I'm so glad we can look all those things up on the internet. Do you think that's how Joanna (partly) arrived at her lyrics for this wonderful song?

Could "older man" be "alderman"?

Re: New Song at Treasure Island (Look and Despair)

PostPosted: 17 Oct 2012, 16:26
by Jordan~
Afaik, in any language with gendered noun endings where "map- sacr-" would mean "official map" (i.e. any Romance language), it'd be mapa sacra. "Mapa sacro" just shouldn't happen.

Re: New Song at Treasure Island (Look and Despair)

PostPosted: 17 Oct 2012, 20:27
by teenagelightning
Guys, is it possible that she is saying "The map of sacred content"? Or even, "The map of sacre content" for a french word?

Re: New Song at Treasure Island (Look and Despair)

PostPosted: 17 Oct 2012, 21:01
by Steve
Wanbli said:



Is there a way to actually download the MP3 from this site ... or is it just one of those things that clogs up your PC with lots of stuff you don't want? Or alternatively ... does anyone have a nice clean MP3 of this? (It's so much neater and doubtless of better quality than running wires across the room and recording it in the old fashioned way!)

Thank you for the post, and for all the learned discussions.

Re: New Song at Treasure Island (Look and Despair)

PostPosted: 17 Oct 2012, 21:16
by Andrew
^it's one of those awful commercial ad-clogged downloads sites with hundreds of strategically positioned "↓DOWNLOAD↓" advertisements that are a nightmare to navigate, but if you pay close attention you should be able to get it alright.

I think it probably is alderman!

Re: New Song at Treasure Island (Look and Despair)

PostPosted: 17 Oct 2012, 21:21
by Wanbli
Steve wrote:Wanbli said:



Is there a way to actually download the MP3 from this site ... or is it just one of those things that clogs up your PC with lots of stuff you don't want?


not sure what you mean - but I get no ads, pop-ups, or anything and clearly only see 1 download link under the pause/play. Looks like 219 DLs in last day or so.

Image

Hmm maybe it is my ad-block plugin that keeps it clean and simple

Re: New Song at Treasure Island (Look and Despair)

PostPosted: 17 Oct 2012, 22:37
by Ann
I've had this song stuck in my head all day. I love it so much.