HR017 : Mike Heffley : Pierced Through by Love's Blackest Shafts 1

HEFFLEYRECORDS - writings and recordings of Mike Heffley & friends

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Related CD ID: HRM004 HR018

HR017 is part of CD Set HRM004

Artists:

Mike Heffley

Title:

Pierced Through by Love's Blackest Shafts 1

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Yul Agee:
CD 1
John Dowland†
Thomas Campion††

a. Those eyes (Anon.)
This is our first exposure to the singer’s voice singing in the real time of playing his own accompaniment, and that with an amplified steel-string acoustic guitar. The sound is pleasantly hot, his voice and speech a comfortable balance between formal and informal, schooled and idiosyncratic.

(One of his British colleagues, also a singer of this material, in a world-famous early-music ensemble, wrote:

What an amazing CD! I think if Dowland were resurrected today and didn't know anything about what had gone on since he lived, it would be pretty much what he'd expect and recognise. In a way, it's the most 'authentic' Dowland I've ever heard. It's a pity the singer reduces the guitar part so much, but I guess even that is quite likely to have gone on, what with singers accompanying themselves and all. His voice took a bit of getting used to [appreciating isn't quite the same as liking...] but eventually I warmed to it a lot.)

This song picks up from his last Medieval words to declare him the (another half a century or so before its historical time) Romantic incurable: beyond the Troubador bathos to the more worldly Elizabethan bawds and courtiers...proving, with the melancholy, that bawdiness is no liberation from said Romantic love.

b. Come away, sweet love†
No more whiney-pining here; the poet was a seasoned seducer, the singer’s voice both brass-firm and feather-breathy, moaning and growling nuances to match the words in full...

c. Come Phyllis, come into these bowers (Thomas Ford)
...it curls and unfurls around the grit of leathered fingerprints scraping wire-wound steel strings ringing to its singing: it “pierces through,” true to the CD’s title...

d. Dear, do not your fair beauty wrong (Robert Johnson)
...to a sudden shift in perspective, reflecting those centuries of courtly love’s maturing process, that of an older man wooing a younger woman. The production values have shifted noticeably too, from hot and crisp to more blunted, muffled—an aesthetic strategy?—though both words and music remain crystal-clear...

e. Come, my Celia (Alfonso Ferrabosco)
Oops! I spoke too soon; here is the hottest, crispest, and a resurgence of the most aggressively, cunningly seductive—a second wind of the youth? Celia, of course, is the name of Music Herself...being so dumb as to be caught cheating with her is the only sin...

f. Thrice toss these oaken ashes††
This one harks back from the Christian theology of courtly love (see Charles Williams) to the lover’s sense of the beloved’s pagan mother/ing; the elements of death in Eros win, the lover’s yearn for a love immortal deflates and withers.

g. When to her lute Corrina sings††
This fact complicates the singer’s gaze. He can’t resist his love object’s sadness, can’t transfigure it, can only succumb as she succumbs, follow her lead when she revives her joy.

h. The amorous sylvie (Robert Attey)
Again, the pagan mother/lover captures his heart. Were he woman himself, the confession he makes here might have been his ticket to a burning stake in this time and place. There is again a sound-shift: more reverb in both voice and guitar, more bass in the latter; his vibra-feathery high tenor stands in strong contrast thereto: archetypal woman, perfect love is a dream, and this man is its strong dreamer...so more real than reality...

i. Fair, if you expect admiring††
Okay, enough heavy love emasculate; here he’s saucy, match for any female or Eros itself. Give him reciprocity or give him death! (This is our first glimpse of the male love-angler’s most powerful secret: he can resist love’s charms if push comes to shove against him.)

j. If she forsake me (Phillip Rosetter)
Oops...again, are we sure about that? Here he’s unabashedly dejected at such a cruel strength, loth to flex any of its muscles in plain view.

k. If my complaints could passions move†
Again, that visceral realization leads to moody introspection about the dilemma. What’s the use, though? All the insight and honesty in the world will not requite some love. But he’s got our ear, closer to it here (the mic); we need that intimacy, because these lyrics are as still-small-voice subtle as thought pre-worded. This is why he plays that electrified acoustic steel and wood: the music-word chemistry is heart’s own gold, ear-bonded-mind alloyed. His plaint is with merit before the court of God, its rhythm as vital and existential as the life denied it. He plays so intellectually, sings so soully...

l. Silly boy, t'is full moon yet††
The older man, after so much pain and love of younger woman, sings to his younger self, and those he envies burningly for having her whom he wants. The production value makes the voice sound far off; we must work to hear it, but with work we can. The volume must be adjusted across tracks. In the end, he gives his silly boy a friendly tip...

m. If thou longest so much to learn††
...with a deeper dip into the depths of old-to-young lover: you, punk, will be burned! (The rough sound is not that dire; all is audible.) All your best will turn sour! She will skewer you!! You will go down, to INNOCENCE GROUND!

n. Dear, if you change††
Oh please don’t leave; I’m just telling you like it is: you leave, I die. It’s too late for me; my falsetto says it all; my high man-voice matches its message; v. 2 ratchets both content and delivery up a notch from immanent to transcendent. Headphones are a must; some parts are slightly muddy, others too hot...but both sets are within clear hearing range.

o. Hark, all you ladies††
Relaxed, loose...submit to Eros, or die! Eros rules...be there or be square! (The production values are homey, not professional...but worth the effort to hear: as are the Hot 5 & 7 recordings of Louis Armstrong.)

p. Can she excuse my wrongs? †
What woman is worthy of this admonishment?

q. My love has vowed††
I’m screwed, my baby is gone; she burned me. The meld of guitar and voice is so rich and perfect...

r. When from my love (John Bartlet)
Less bitter, more detached, even whimsical about the Wound...albeit ruefully in the voice. Still, above it, courtly about the Wound. Moving on, on with the Show... s. Tyme, cruell tyme†
BIG echo...deep, below the pain felt, into the root sustaining it: philosophical about the Wound and its inflicter, time itself, not its core content (woman), is the target of complaint...his voice is God’s.

t. Who ever thinks or hopes? †
A real muddy sound, but still audible—even closer for the mud—the lyrics are as intimate as the bad production values; overall, all production values shrink in the presence of the words. These more than most others: I Am Wounded, I can tell you of the Divine Meaning of that here, people...

u. Go, christall tears†
The slow tempo is the new big relief. The voice is a match for the slow guitar. Again, production values make us wish they were more professional; but what we have is nonetheless treasure...

v. The Lowest Trees Have Tops (Edward Dyer)
Back to clarity, to end. Compared to Sting’s rendition, it is more poignant, less historiographical/popular...more bottom-up, less top-down...

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Tracklisting of HR017

Those Eyes (Anon.)

2'37''