• About
  • Documentary Films
  • Index
  • Nota bene
  • Protect and Serve
  • Readings

Lumpenproletariat

~ free speech

Lumpenproletariat

Tag Archives: MTV

“Untouchable” (1994) by Iggy Pop

01 Sun May 2016

Posted by ztnh in Fiction, History of Rock and Roll, Music

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

120 Minutes, 1994, Eric Schermerhorn, Iggy Pop, MTV, Pulp Fiction (1994), Quentin Tarantino, Untouchable

Iggy Pop wikipediaLUMPENPROLETARIAT—If you’ve ever heard a song a single time and, then, never again, yet it has echoed in your mind for decades, you know that’s an arresting song, which has left an indelible impression on your mind.  That was undoubtedly a memorable song.  This is a rare phenomenon within the human experience. [1]  Such is “Untouchable” by Iggy Pop for some of us.  Your author hasn’t heard this song since first hearing it during the live performance on MTV’s 120 Minutes over two decades ago when he was a kid and used to watch TV. [2]

Messina

“Untouchable” (live on 120 Minutes) (1994) [3] by Iggy Pop

She’s untouchable
I’ll wrap my arms around
She’s alien
And I try to understand
But I lose my mind
‘Cos I cannot get in
And I find myself alone

Dreams of her, they rip
Through my head like bullets, bright
Looking at her makes
Me want to rip my eyes
She’s a hollow space
One, that cannot be filled
And I find myself alone

She’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen
She’s the most beautiful; I crouch at her feet
She’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen
But when I’m with her
Yeah, when I’m with her
I destroy myself

She’s untouchable
I’ve emptied myself out
And I’ve just caved in
I leave my blood at her feet
I destroy myself
And I try to understand

She’s untouchable
I’ve emptied myself out
And I’ve just caved in
I leave my blood at her feet
I destroy myself
And I try to understand
But I find myself alone

She’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen
She’s the most beautiful; I crouch at her feet
She’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen
And when I’m with her
Yeah, when I’m with her
I destroy myself
That’s why I find myself alone
That’s why I find myself alone
That’s why I find myself alone, alone
That’s why I find myself alone
I couldn’t do you no better
Don’t break what’s left of my broken heart, baby

Songwriter:  POP, IGGY (likely)

“Untouchable” lyrics © unreleased

***

[1]  GONZO:  A musical composition by Dave Grisman from Songs Of Our Fathers is another such example.  I’ve only heard that recording once when music professor (harmony and musicianship courses), Professor Gustavson, played it for us on his surround sound stereo system in class.  I have yearned to hear it again for almost two decades now.  (I remember it being a slower tempo piece.  Professor Gustavson trained us on something called focused listening, which often involved the closing of one’s eyes (with a single caveat:  don’t fall asleep!)).

[2]  GONZO:  This song is apparently unreleased.  I’ve never heard it ever again since I first heard it live on MTV’s 120 Minutes back in 1994 (until now).  If memory serves me, 120 Minutes used to air Sunday nights, which would make the most likely original air date of this broadcast Sunday, September 25, 1994.

But it has come to my mind time and again over the years.  And this morning, on my commute to work, I heard it in my mind for some reason.  And I could only sing the only words I could remember:  She’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen…  These lyrics are in psychic counterpoint to Prince’s “The Most Beautiful Girl In The World”, a much more optimistic romantic pining.

“Untouchable” by Iggy Pop is much closer to Prince’s earlier song, “The Beautiful Ones“, in articulating how our desires can cause us sorrow and pain.  (This is a classic Buddhist principle, yet one many of us find the most challenging to reconcile with a non-monastic lifestyle.)  After all, beauty is only skin deep.  Beyond that, it becomes a question of soul or spirit or the intangible aspects of the human experience.  But it’s amazing, the chasm between what we find appealing to the eye and what we find appealing to the touch, as Quentin Tarantino once articulated in Pulp Fiction (1994) via the character, Fabienne.  Some of us are so shallow (i.e., lazy).  Thinking (and appreciating the truth) is work.  But some of us strive toward perpetual self-improvement in order to reduce the suffering of others (i.e., hard-working).  We welcome all insight toward such an end.

[3]  During the 120 Minutes broadcast, Iggy Pop explained how the song “Untouchable” was inspired by his reading of a Henry Rollins book of poetry entitled See A Grown Man Cry.

***

[1 MAY 2016]

[Last modified 06:17 PDT 5 MAY 2016]

 

Share this:

  • Tweet

Like this:

Like Loading...

David Bowie (8 JAN 1947 – 10 JAN 2016)

11 Mon Jan 2016

Posted by ztnh in History of Rock and Roll, Mindfulness, Music

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Ashes to Ashes, China Girl, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Life On Mars, MTV, Rebel Rebel, Rolling Stone, The Idiot

603px-Iman_and_David_Bowie_at_the_premiere_of_MoonLUMPENPROLETARIAT—Take a look at the lawman beating up the wrong guy.  Oh, man, I wonder if he’ll ever know he’s in the freakiest show…

Messina

 

“Life On Mars” (1971) by David Bowie

“Rebel Rebel” (1974) by David Bowie

“Ashes to Ashes” (1980) by David Bowie

“China Girl” (1983) interpreted by David Bowie

“David Bowie Criticizes MTV for Not Playing Videos By Black Artists” (1983)

“China Girl” (1977) by Iggy Pop

“Iggy Pop On Working With David Bowie” (1990)

***

In the words of Little Willie G, “And I’m not ashamed to tell you that I cry…”  It’s hard not to shed a tear at the passing of another great hero, a public figure with whom one somehow forges an intimate relationship, which becomes more profound than is ever achieved with many of one’s own relatives.  It seemed like Bowie would live forever.  Just recently, my brother had noted to me how Bowie had described what an artistic impact Kendrick Lamar’s artistic output had on him.  Life is way too short, my friends.  May you all live each day to the fullest and let your light shine, such that it inspires others to do the same.

***

ROLLING STONE—[27 JAN 2016]  When the pain hit, David Bowie was singing a song called “Reality.” It was just another concert on a tour that had stretched on a little too long, bringing him to a stiflingly hot arena stage in Prague, on a late-June evening in 2004. “Reality,” the title track to his album of the previous year, was about facing mortality and putting illusions aside, and at age 57, he had been busy doing just that. He was sober, and had finally quit smoking. He was taking medication to lower his cholesterol, working out with a trainer. That night, as usual, he looked agelessly, extraterrestrially great: lean, with longish blond hair spilling onto his unlined forehead, a fluorescent scarf around his neck. But as he stood in the spotlight, yowling lines like “Now my death is more than just a sad song” – a reference to his doomy Ziggy-era renditions of Jacques Brel’s “My Death” – he found himself struggling for breath. Bowie clutched at his shoulder and chest, leaving the song’s final words unsung.

“He looked over his shoulder at me,” recalls bassist Gail Ann Dorsey, “and he was pale, translucent almost. His shirt was drenched. And he was just standing there, not singing. I could see the audience’s expressions in the front row change – from joy to kind of looking concerned.” A bodyguard rushed onstage and helped Bowie off.

He somehow managed to return for a few more songs that night, before seeing a doctor who misdiagnosed him with a pinched nerve in his shoulder, prescribing muscle relaxants. Bowie pushed through one more shaky show at a German festival two days later, ending with the last version of “Ziggy Stardust” he’d ever sing in concert. He hit every note, made it down the stairs leading off the stage, and promptly collapsed. At a local hospital, doctors realized that he had a blocked artery in his heart, and performed emergency surgery.

That night essentially marked the end of David Bowie as a public figure. He never toured again, never gave another in-depth interview. He grew so secretive that he chided one of his closest collaborators, Tony Visconti, for revealing that they watched British comedy during studio breaks. By the time he made his surprise re-emergence in 2013 with his first album in a decade, The Next Day, he had pulled off a feat that no other rock star has quite managed, regaining all of the heady mystique of his breakthrough years, and then some. He was a legend, a living ghost, hiding in plain sight, walking his daughter to school, taking cabs, exercising alongside ordinary humans in workaday gyms in Manhattan and upstate in Woodstock. With his family, he said, he was David Jones, the person he had been before he assumed his stage name. He had, at last, truly fallen to Earth, and he liked what he found there.

His final three years, though, were an extraordinarily fertile period of creativity. In 2014, he began work on another, even better, album, Blackstar, while also helping bring to life an ambitious off-Broadway show, Lazarus, based around his old and new songs. But he had kept one more secret: Bowie maintained focus on these last creations while battling cancer (of the liver, according to one friend). He died on January 10th, two days after the release of Blackstar, and a month after the opening of Lazarus. His passing occasioned the kind of worldwide grief not seen since the deaths of Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson.

Learn more at ROLLING STONE.

***

[Last updated 27 JAN 2016  14:37 PDT]

Share this:

  • Tweet

Like this:

Like Loading...

Follow me on Twitter

My Tweets

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel
%d bloggers like this: