#21: Last Days of August: Revisiting Mavis
Video, Audio, Commentary
The light changes. This means I have to get up to adjust the curtains. Getting up means abandoning my carefully determined position in relation to the wall, desk, toolbox/foot stool, camera and microphone. As for the camera (iphone), it sits atop an improvised tower—from bottom to top: a very sturdy edition of Don Quijote de la Mancha (Editorial Castalia), a silver Shure microphone case, a black Pelican vault case, Wisdom Books: Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes (Robert Alter), Birds of Argentina & Uruguay (Narosky and Yzurieta), Sylvia Massey’s Recording Unhinged (for moral support), and six squares of grey acoustic foam. Atop all of this perches a mini-tripod with my phone in its clutches, peering down. The tower’s proportions and life-expectancy are those of your average wedding cake. And it’s a monument to vanity.
Speaking of clutches, that video app has me in its. I’ve been trying to get a decent take of this song. It hasn’t been going well. Certain conditions must be met. Here they are (in what may or may not be descending order of importance): the execution of the song must pass muster; the visual frame must include all relevant components (the top of my head, the neck of my guitar) while excluding any hint of the staggering mess that prevails everywhere else in the room; Pipo, the neighbor’s indefatigable beagle, must be otherwise occupied (napping, having lunch, out for a Sunday car ride, humping the ottoman—I don’t care, as long as he would just shut up for once in his beagley life); finally, I must look reasonably presentable, which brings me back to the light. When I say light I mean the sun. Seemingly out of nowhere, a sliver of unruly photons finds a way through the shutters and I must abandon my station to attend to a mischievous and quite possibly malevolent solar system. Newman!
So I’ve been doing battle—not so much with with my guitar or voice or the microphone or Pipo or the light or Newman, but with myself. Sure, the world runs away. Sure, we can’t control all the variables. News to no one. All is vanity, said the Preacher. Except that’s not what he said (according to Mr. Alter), and the preacher had a name: “Merest breath, said Qohelet, merest breath. All is mere breath.”
It’s 7 am, the last Sunday in August. The day is brisk and sunny. I need air. And I really need to get out of this cage.
Here are two renditions of There Goes Mavis. First, the star-crossed video. I did manage to get a full take last night. Unfortunately, the guitar is tuned a couple of clicks shy of A440. For anyone trying to play along, my apologies.
The second item is a rough mix of a studio recording, done many years after the song’s initial incarnation on Vuelta (2004). Not sure how we ended up on this song during that session. Maybe we were just testing the mics. Please be careful here. The volume of this audio is significantly louder than the video. Please adjust your system.
There Goes Mavis
The beach at Newcomb Hollow
Last days of August
The other side of low tide
The sun is high, the sun is high
We’re kneeling in the wet sand
Stopping up a wall breach
Quick, before the next wave
Rushes in, rushes in
The mote around the castle
Is filling up with water
But hope springs eternal
All hands ready – here it comes!
Behind us in the crowd
Some kind of commotion
A little girl is shouting
Fly away! Fly away!
But we pay no attention
The castle is in danger
The ramparts are sinking
We dig on, we dig on
Then out of the blue
There’s an orange canary
On our driftwood flagpole
Shovels down Boys! – step away
The little girl comes running
She can’t be more than seven
Her mother is behind her
With a cage, with a cage
And her mother is explaining
Baby, it’s just too far
And she’ll never survive here
On her own, on her own
But the little girl’s not listening
She’s talking to the bird
Mavis you can trust me
Now’s your big chance - Fly away!
If Mavis has been listening
She isn’t letting on
We’re all just waiting
No one moves, no one moves
And then comes the wave
Swamping the castle
No one is watching
When it falls, when it falls
We’re following the progress
Of a little bolt of orange
On the long horizon
There goes Mavis...
There Goes Mavis always makes me cry. Beautiful song. Thank you.
You are a songwriter with a poetic sensibility. That's what poets do, or one of the things poets do: they hold in their minds two events happening simultaneously (building a sandcastle, freeing the bird), describe them, and make us see how they illuminate each other, one about freedom and escape, the other about the inexorableness of the waves that can't be escaped, of building walls and of opening doors. It's a quality of paying attention and a desire not to forget or overlook how marvelous the world is, how seemingly small things can touch the heart and make music together. It's a gift to have that sensibility, and a gift to share it with listeners and readers. Thank you.