The Taffeta Punk

Up in the midnight blue
That's where I'm going to
Up where the sirens scream
Through every misplaced dream
Up with the Pirate Moon...

Well today my musician of choice is Thea Gilmore, notably her song 'Pirate Moon'.  Her music is magical and haunting - not the kind of music to listen to if you're feeling energetic, yet not 'easy listening' (which is a musical classification that bugs me no end - it suggests that some music doesn't require effort or attention).

...In bloody monochrome
That's where I'll call my home.
Up where the stars will die
Before they can reach your eyes
Up with the Pirate Moon...

'Pirate Moon' is a tad melancholic too.  It's a song about escapism and contains quite a few images of death which gives it a disturbing undercurrent.  But I suppose that that's what pirates were all about, in a way.  They don't lead a highly Romantic exitance like the pirates portrayed in modern film.  They led a hard life, and the threat of death was ever present.

...Above the mirrored sea
That's where I'm going to be
Up where the whisper fails
The scar tissue of vapour trails
Up with the Pirate Moon...

Perhaps it is in fact a pirate death song.  Maybe the 'Pirate Moon' is some sort of piratey heaven?

...Up in the cloud ballet
That's where I'm going to stay
I could just disappear
You cannot reach me here
Up with the Pirate Moon.

The repeated chorus of 'Yeah, I'm going home' is quite strange too, almost like the soul returning to its spiritual origins.

So yes, it's a pretty song, but not in a fluffy way.  

The Tyger

Tyger Tyger burning bright
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer?  What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil?  What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the starts threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

- William Blake, Songs of Experience, 1794

... Something wicked this way comes.

To put it quite simply, literature is quite amazing. I firmly believe that music makes the world go round, but literature makes this movement tolerable. Unless it's dire and a waste of paper, in which case it makes me weep, on account of the fact that someone actually published it and the unnecessary impact on the environment.

So yes, the Taffeta Punk. She is working on her character description. Not that she is a character, in actual fact she is a very real person. She's the part of me who wishes that I were a poet, the part of my brain that daydreams. She is both a tangible, inspired girl and a strange smokey concept that is never quite realised. I don't know if I want to reveal her true identity to the world - I think she will rather like being masked by a shroud of secrecy.

This is the bit where I stop talking in the third person and tell you a little bit about what myself, the vessel that Taffi inhabits, does. I think that I'll call myself Taffi from now on - 'The Taffeta Punk' is a bit of a mouthful. And I know that Taffy is a pejorative name given to the Welsh, but I am Welsh (and bloody proud of it), so if I do happen to insult anyone out there then they should bare in mind that I am also insulting myself. Where was I? Oh yes, Taffi disguises herself as a responsible adult working in secondary education during the working week and vainly attempts to cling onto her student-like habits on the weekends, although now she is finding this increasingly difficult now that she is separated from her university friends (who are all rather amazing folks). Next year she will be doing her teacher training if everything goes according to plan, something which she is very much looking forward to. She'd be teaching English of course. Anything else would just be unnatural.