It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Sighing

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool's gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proves to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying.

Temptation's page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover
That you'd just be
One more person crying.

So don't fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing.

As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don't hate nothing at all
Except hatred.

Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have
To stand naked.

An' though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you got to dodge
And it's alright, Ma, I can make it.

Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.

You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks
They really found you.

A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy
Insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not fergit
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to.

Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to.

For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Do what they do just to be
Nothing more than something
They invest in.

While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him.

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in.

But I mean no harm, nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him.

Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn't talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony.

While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer's pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death's honesty
Won't fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes
Must get lonely.

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards
False gods, I scoff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
What else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine
But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only.

Wow, my blog posts have been depressing or short and boring. Moving on.

Jack White seems to be the single popular (coincidentally white) artist since Led Zeppelin to truly *get* the blues, and put that into his music. Eric Clapton will go on and on about Robert Johnson being his greatest influence, but Jack White truly exudes the blues. It's more than just a way of playing the guitar, it's about an intense philosophy that is more felt than understood. This is seen no better than in how director Davis Guggenheim portrays Jack White in "It Might Get Loud". Jack White's approach to music and to the guitar, as he explains it in the movie, is literally the most distilled description of blues philosophy I can imagine. He describes wanting to make playing the guitar as hard as physically possible for himself. A scene in the movie of him during a live performance, missing chunks of his flesh from his hand, the blood from these wounds staining the body of his guitar, express this more than any cheap claims could manage. Similarly, his description of how he writes music - something to the tune of "Basically I think of something bad that has happened during the day, and turn that into a song" - displays something of a dark personality, but one that is indispensable to the blues.

Truthfully, it's a matter of opinion, because Clapton apparently had his share of misfortunes and issues, and channeled them into his music (particularly I'm thinking of Layla, the song he wrote for his best friend, Beatle George Harrison's wife, Clapton's unrequited love), and obviously wasn't lacking in technical prowess, but he's missing that borderline insane emotional commitment to the music that makes White so fit for the part.

And make no mistake, amid all this Jack White displays the inevitable punk influences on his music, particularly by channeling Jello Biafra on "Black Math" off of Elephant. It's interesting, and seemingly necessary, that Jack White is post-blues revival, post-rock, post-punk, post-New Age, post-metal, in short one of the most contemporary popular musicians now recording, and he plays an undoubtedly blues style of music all across the board. His post-blues, post-punk, and contemporary stylings come into play where his lyrics take a turn from classic blues fair to said contemporary styles, that is, turning his tortured musings from folk-y themes to modern issues or even somewhat psychedelic lyrics.