Sidi's Asides

Transcript taken from Lisa Kadrowski’s most controversial Radio 9.0 Music News-ic podcast, originally broadcast on a Thursday much like any other, other than the fact that it was specifically Thursday 28^th September 2012^†. Lisa Kadrowski was born and raised in Bajo Crispin, California and later went on to major in Ethnographic Musicology* at the University of Ohio. She has attempted to publish three socio-political novellas, as well as a much disputed and arguably confused article in which she insists on aligning South African Apartheid with modern day Venezuela. She currently lives in Frostburg, Maryland with her piano teacher and two cats.

^†A date of no particular significance.

*In 1995 the University of Ohio was forced to give a statement confirming that the Faculty of Ethnographic Musicology was entirely fictional, invented by Kadrowski herself who subsequently was accused by the Ohio Journal of Poetic Query of having personally forged university certification. Under intense media scrutiny in both Ohio and North Dakota, Kadrowski publicly confessed to having faked all university accreditation in 1997 and apologised profusely. Her apology is notably yet to be accepted.

De-coding “Afro”-Anglo rh(why?)thms: An exploration of Paul Simon’s Graceland with Lisa Kadrowski

A Radio 9.0 Broadcast

Written and presented by Lisa Kadrowski

Produced by Ben Jennerson

Mixed by Carl

Order of tracks (listening while reading recommended, but not necessary yo) - Boy in the Bubble (1), Graceland (2), I Know What I Know (3), Homeless (4), Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes (5), You Can Call Me Al (6)

“We’re going to Graceland, Graceland, Memphis Tennessee, we’re going to Graceland”. And it with those immortal words that Paul Simon’s seminal album Graceland opens.

It was a slow day
And the sun was beating
On the soldiers by the side of the road
There was a bright light
A shattering of shopw-

(1)

Surprisingly, it doesn’t open with those words exactly, apologies but I think I’m right in thinking that those lyrics do come eventually.

-the cradle of the civil war

I’m going to Graceland
Graceland
In Memphis,Tennessee
I’m going to Graceland

(2)

There you go. Track 2, 56 seconds in. Alright! Yes, I knew it came up somewhere, or there, in fact. One always remembers these details, just as one always remembers the year, the moment upon discovering a work that changes the course of your life. I think it must have been early 2011 when I first discovered Paul Simon’s Graceland, whilst leafing through my since absent father’s CD rack. He was jailed mid 2012 for petty theft in record stores, alongside grave tax evasion, so even the location, the context, the memory space in which I found that scratched silver disc has great significance for me. And for my Dad: the repo-man eventually took that CD rack, took it away.

Nonetheless, here was this fresh new music, a new sound for a forgotten generation. I was 35 at the time, and certainly felt alone and forgotten about. An African heart for my lonely, white body.

Ah. Sorry, that sounds like I’m trying to – sorry, that sounds politically…obtuse- Okay, right–

I know what I know
I’ll sing what I said
We come and we go
That’s a thing that I keep
In the back of my head

(3)

These chunky rhythms, those thick creamy movements come to us from an unknown location, the non-space of Africa via the talent of Paul Simon through perhaps I don’t know, Tanzania? Then through the recording studio, as voice and drum is then transformed through science into electronic sounds which reach the listener’s ear via the form of the boom box, or perhaps Sony headphones. What I’m trying to say is, it’s all about connections, right, and they are interesting.

We come and we go
That’s a thing that I keep
In the back of my head

Wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh

Okay I mentioned before “the non-space of Africa”, I didn’t mean that and I was just talking with flow, I’m sorry if I offended any listeners there, I know you can’t call Africa a non-space. I mean as mystical as it is, it is a “space”, a kind of place…

She said, “There’s something about you
That really reminds me of money,”
She is the kind of girl
Who could say things that
Weren’t that funny

Again, I’m sorry about that, I didn’t really mean that to come out that way. Okay, um. Right. So, let’s consider the music rather than the social…mode by which we de-construct that music. Okay. So “Call me Al”. “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes”. Are these euphemisms? Mnemonics? Acronyms? Abbreviations for a transcendental location of our deepest musical desires? The question I pose is unanswered by, arguably my own, ignorance.

Emaweni webaba
Silale maweni
Webaba silale maweni

(4)

I mean, what are they even saying? The coding of Simon is intricate, a fabric woven by a white man in a deep dark Africa – oh God, I mean, I don’t mean that Africa is essentially dark, I just-

Webaba silale maweni
Webaba silale maweni

Okay. Ha. Sorry. Okay, the coding of Simon is intricate, invisible to the soft naked ear drum, and to de-code him, you have to take a visit to the continent of Africa, or Afr-ica as people like myself sometimes call it. The magical, dark continent. Shit, Ben, did you hear that? Ben, I just said ‘dark’ again, what is wrong with me-

Kulumani, Kulumani sizwe
Singenze njani
Baya jabula abasi thanda yo

Ben, can we get Carl to edit that – oh, right, yes. Sorry - Now I don’t understand what Simon is trying to say here, but perhaps nor does he himself. He speaks a language only knowable to God, maybe, or the Buddha, or Allah Akbad. But, I do feel he is trying to communicate something to us. Whether that is an emotion, or a memory, or a mere color, there is perhaps something he wants to say.

(a-wa) O kod wa u zo-nge li-sa namhlange
(a-wa a-wa) Si-bona kwenze ka kanjani

(5)

But literally what is he saying here? My God! It defies common sense! Totally untranslatable, it resembles tongues almost.

(a-wa a-wa) Amanto mbazane ayeza

Okay, I’ve just been informed that that segment just played is in fact, um, Ben, what does this say? Oh, Zulo, Zulu, okay! Like the film, I get it. And it translates as…as “They are women, they can take care of themselves” – that’s hilarious! - so apologies if in fact you did understand what was said in that bit there earlier. I can confirm that this is of course Swahili – I mean, no, Zulu, and not a tongues-like made-up parlance. Ha. That’s great if you did understand those words, right? I’m guessing you’re not an American though!

Empty as a pocket with nothing to lose
Sing, Ta na na
Ta na na na
She got diamonds on the soles of her shoes

Of course, of course you can be American and also speak Zulu. Yes, really sorry. Oh, God. Alriiight.

Now when Simon, or let’s now call him Paul to save first-name confusion – Simon is actually the guy who plays bass on this track, so we’ve got to be incredibly careful so as not to offend him – when Paul, not Simon, first approached Lady Smith Black Mumbeze, I imagine they thought, who is this Western man with nothing but a guitar and a smile? Does he speak our language? Does hold the same currency? He is foreign man, and he is surrounded by the sound, the sound, cattle in the market stall, scatterings of orphanages------

He is surrounded by the sound, the sound
Cattle in the marketplace
Scatterlings and orphanages

(6)

See what I did there? Yes, I wove the lyrics into my own parlance. That’s right. It wasn’t actually my idea, my dad suggested I do that while I was writing this segment last week. Yeah. I get to visit him once a month, so that’s helpful. You know, for whatever reason, he enjoys it in there more than you would expect. I don’t like to ask why.

He looks around, around
He sees angels in the architecture
Spinning in infinity
He says, “Amen!” and “Hallelujah!”

And the story goes that when Lady Smith Black Mumbozo first realised that this slightly larger than tiny man with the guitar and the smile and the paycheck was in fact the boyfriend, or rather ex-boyfriend of Art, Garfunkel, - it was at this point that they were interested, curious and entered into the communion of becoming this rejuvenated, surrogate boyfriend to Simon, or rather to Paul. But, the question remains: was this new “boyfriend” any good in “the sack”. Of music. The sack of music.

If you’ll be my bodyguard
I can be your long-lost pal
I can call you Betty-

And Yes he was. Yes, this new boyfriend reached a G Spot, which even fucking Art Garfunkel himself could not access. Like an African exoticism love explosion that that tall ginger honky was not privy to.

And Betty, when you call me
You can call me Al
Call me

[Kadrowski is audibly crying]. Again, I would like to apologise for using the term “African exoticism” and “ginger honky”. I didn’t mean anything untoward by it, I just- I don’t know, it just gets hard when you love the music so much and you just…say things. You know, and you wanna do it justice but every time I talk about Africa I can’t seem to say what I want to say….

Na na na na

Na na na na na na

Na na na-a na

[Kadrowski seemingly continues to sob] But these songs make me happy. And this one, it’s an unconventional choice you might say, but I think that, yes, it’s my favourite track. It’s like just a pure moment of black and white blending together in song so that black becomes gray and - Oh God, no, wait, I didn’t m------No, I just…..please, I-

At this point the recording stops, and Late December (back in ’63) by Franki Valli and the Four Seasons plays, as Radio 9.0 attempted to dodge controversy through a swift transition to Fresh Records with Hunker D Hunker, an unplanned but necessary move on the part of the station. All scheduled future broadcasts to be made by Lisa Kadrowski were, forcibly and forcefully, cancelled.

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