The Knife That Cuts Through My Guts

"Lou realized early on that all you need to do is touch the other's cheek and just give them some small recognition and then let them be and maybe record it and thereby perhaps justify their tragedy through art. And all art is an act of love towards the whole human race. Aw, Lou, it's the best music ever made, the instrumental intro to 'All Tomorrow's Parties' is like watching dawn break over a bank of buildings through the windows of these elegantly hermetic cages, which feels too well spoken, which I suspect is the other knife that cuts through your guts, the continents that divide literature and music and don't care about either." -Lester Bangs from Untitled Notes on Lou Reed 1980

ohhhh no this was great until it made me crazy. you know i could be missing the point entirely and just not understanding what he's saying but. i think it's true. the fact that he says "which feels too well spoken" is so funny because everything he writes about music is so well spoken obviously, and is that too much? is it supposed to be done at all? is it a contradiction altogether? music is one single entity which speaks itself, in fact it's the only thing that can, no matter what "literature" surrounds it. i guess that's not enough for some of us. maybe just for the ones who don't play music and need to express - i just can't take it as it is, and with that said i'll continue the endless futile lifelong struggle of trying to explain even a inch of the magnitude of what happens what when music happens. assuming there is a point to all this i think what helps is just having a varied vocabulary which i don't. not even big words, just for example i was watching a video of You Really Got Me on youtube and someone described the bassline as "one of the filthiest basslines in history!!!" ha! filthy! i don't know if i'd necessarily call that bass line filthy but it's certainly a useful word and i can see many bass lines being filthy i don't wanna get into it or this could get filthy. but a lot of clash and talking heads comes to mind... like "Mind"