(posted by quarsan)
Number Four: Help Me Somebody – David Byrne Brian Eno (lyrics)
Well, where do we begin with this one? As in all my other selections, the actual track isn’t always significant. The album it comes from, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is a coherent whole, and should be taken as such.
There are few recordings that are as truly groundbreaking and ahead of their time as this. It was one of the first to use world music, to synthesise cultures to produce something new, something that couldn’t be placed in a geographic context.
It also presaged the house/techno sound and all of those young pop music people, with names that look like SMS messages owe so much to this recording. If only one of them could match it…….
The title comes from a story about a young boy wandering through the African bush, where the real and spiritual world are indivisible and the album’s soundscape is something that evokes this. Trust me I’ve heard this album sitting in the bush at night with hyenas howling in the near distance.
There is an interesting tale of Jung visiting a tribe of bushmen in the Kalahari. During his extended stay he was invited to join a magical ceremony, where the music and dancing went on all night. At some point Jung fell under the spell of the music and went into a semi trance. As he was going under he saw the bush filled with ghosts and he had some kind of major freak out.
That’s what this sounds like. after you’ve spent time in the bush, in a strange and unknowable environment, listening to this can push you over a psychic edge.
troubled diva 