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18 | 18 | </div> |
19 | 19 | <div class=notes> |
20 | 20 | <h1 id="howl-abridged">Howl Abridged</h1> |
21 | | -<h2 id="by-allen-ginsberg-abridged-by-daniel-speyer">by Allen Ginsberg (abridged by Daniel Speyer</h2> |
22 | | -<h2 id="what-sphinx-of-cement-and-aluminum-bashed-open-their-skulls-and-ate-up-their-brains-and-imagination">What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?</h2> |
23 | | -<p>Originally a <a href="/speeches/gen/Howl.html">poem</a>, one of the most famous of the Beat Movement. Also, the inspiration for <a href="https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/">Meditations on Moloch</a>.</p> |
24 | | -<p>I haven’t really converted it into a song. I’ve just put some suitably creepy cello under it, while shortening it to 11 lines (an unresolved chromatic scale). The first line has a minor second, and the interval widens each time until it’s a major seventh. Also, the leading “Moloch”s go up a minor third from the upper note, then down a tritone, then back to the drone. All of this <em>may</em> be more clear looking at the sheet music (no promises).</p> |
| 21 | +<h2 id="by-allen-ginsberg-abridged-by-daniel-speyer">by Allen Ginsberg |
| 22 | +(abridged by Daniel Speyer</h2> |
| 23 | +<h2 |
| 24 | +id="what-sphinx-of-cement-and-aluminum-bashed-open-their-skulls-and-ate-up-their-brains-and-imagination">What |
| 25 | +sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their |
| 26 | +brains and imagination?</h2> |
| 27 | +<p>Originally a <a href="/speeches/gen/Howl.html">poem</a>, one of the |
| 28 | +most famous of the Beat Movement. Also, the inspiration for <a |
| 29 | +href="https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/">Meditations |
| 30 | +on Moloch</a>.</p> |
| 31 | +<p>I haven’t really converted it into a song. I’ve just put some |
| 32 | +suitably creepy cello under it, while shortening it to 11 lines (an |
| 33 | +unresolved chromatic scale). The first line has a minor second, and the |
| 34 | +interval widens each time until it’s a major seventh. Also, the leading |
| 35 | +“Moloch”s go up a minor third from the upper note, then down a tritone, |
| 36 | +then back to the drone. All of this <em>may</em> be more clear looking |
| 37 | +at the sheet music (no promises).</p> |
25 | 38 | <p><a href=https://github.com/SecularSolstice/SecularSolstice.github.io/edit/master/songs/Howl_Abridged/README.md class=editbutton>edit description</a></p> |
26 | 39 | </div> |
27 | 40 | <h2>Lyrics</h2><p class=lyrics> |
28 | 41 | I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,<br> |
| 42 | +<br> |
29 | 43 | dragging themselves through the streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,<br> |
| 44 | +<br> |
30 | 45 | angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,<br> |
| 46 | +<br> |
31 | 47 | What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?<br> |
| 48 | +<br> |
32 | 49 | Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!<br> |
| 50 | +<br> |
33 | 51 | Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments!<br> |
| 52 | +<br> |
34 | 53 | Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!<br> |
| 54 | +<br> |
35 | 55 | Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smoke-stacks and antennae crown the cities!<br> |
| 56 | +<br> |
36 | 57 | Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind!<br> |
| 58 | +<br> |
37 | 59 | Moloch who entered my soul early! Moloch in whom I am a consciousness without a body! Moloch who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy! Moloch whom I abandon! Wake up in Moloch! Light streaming out of the sky!<br> |
| 60 | +<br> |
38 | 61 | They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven! Pavements, trees, radios, tons! lifting the city to Heaven which exists and is everywhere about us!<br> |
39 | 62 | </p> |
40 | 63 | <h2>Files</h2><ul> |
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