Intro to “My Beautiful Reward”
´´Good evening….it´s nice to be in, uh, sweaty hot London….enjoy yourselves….´´
Intro to “Long Time Comin”
´´Oh….good evening again….woo!….my kids are growing up now, I´ve experienced the, uh, at least the first two of the three stages of parenthood, the first one is you are the benevolent hand of God, the second one you are a tolerable idiot….in the third one you are a fucking idiot (chuckles) hanging on to the second, working on the third but, uh….gonna try and get it all right, you don´t get all of it right, maybe you can get some of it better (chuckles) here´s ´Long Time Comin´´´….´´
Intro to “Silver Palomino”
´´Thank you….(?)….oh, the heat feels good….this is moderate, moderate New Jersey-weather, very moderate….oh, wrote a lot of songs about mothers and sons on this record and uh….uh, this was one, I had some friends who lost their mom at a very young age, close friends of my, my boys and, uh….this is a song about a young boy who loses his mom and, uh, feels her spirit in this horse comes out of the mountains at night, it´s called ´Silver Palomino´….´´
Intro to “The River”
´´Thanks, I didn´t, uh, I didn´t write a lot of love songs when I started, my….my father told me they were all government propaganda….to get you married and have kids and pay taxes and keep you in line so that kind of threw me for about 37 years and, uh….but I picked it up later on but, uh….it was kind of two opposites, you know, my mom was listening to the doowop music and she had all the, I always remember the novels, you know, by her nightstand were the ones, you know, all the guys look like Fabio, you know, on the cover and uh (chuckles) but what I did was I, I started to hide them, unintentionally of course (chuckles) and then I wrote a lot of hidden love songs, I think this is one of them….´´
Intro to “Tougher Than the Rest”
´´Alright….then about, mmmm, 20, no, it was only about 7 years later….(?) here we are….´´
Intro to “Part Man Part Monkey”
´´Oh, thank you, my friends, my friends….evolution….big news in the States….we´re trying to decide if it happened or not….80 years after the Scopes´ monkey trial where they put a man on trial for teaching evolution….we thought it was about time to take another look at it….now the President, he says the jury´s out on evolution….it´s too iffy….you can´t tell, there´s not enough proof….of course the monkeys don´t vote or make campaign contributions….so, uh…. now, he, he´s just doing what he has to so he can do what he wants to, you know, and uh….I always figured….take a movie like Inherit the Wind, I´m sure I´m debating myself, a movie about the Scopes´ monkey trial, couldn´t make that today….you guys get, get the Flintstones over here? (some people in the audience: ´´Yeah´´) couldn´t make that today, it´s too controversial….the whole neanderthal setting, not to mention the homosexual undercurrents between Barney and Freddie….we´re shutting that shit down in the States right now (?) (chuckles) in Kansas they´ve opened up the whole thing all over again….I figured it doesn´t mean that there´s a big man upstairs….coming out of the monkeys just means He had a sense of humour….anyway, Dorothy….there´s no place like home…..
(….) We´ve come a long way….and we´re going back…..´´
Intro to “Maria´s Bed”
´´Oh yeah….I guess, uh, that´s probably not on debate over here (chuckles) you´re going ´What is he going on about, hmmm?´ (chuckles) it gets crazy (?)(chuckles) and dangerous so (chuckles) let´s, uh….let´s turn to something less complicated, like love….the ecstasies of love, alright, come on, boys, come on, band!….´´
Intro to “Cautious Man”
´´Alright….one of my favorites….´´
Intro to “Nebraska”
´´Wrote this, uh (someone yells ´´Where´s Clarence?´´) how the fuck do I know where he is? (chuckles) he´s right here….jeez (chuckles) figured everybody knews, knows what it´s like to be condemned and I wrote this song, this is ´Nebraska´….´´
Intro to “Reno”
´´A song about love, not being able to handle the real thing….not being able to handle the wrong thing….´´
Intro to “The Wish”
´´Thank you….this is a song I was debating whether to sing or not tonight, this is a song, uh ….when you sing about your mother you´re sort of, you´re taking a big risk in the rock and roll business, uh….it´s one of those things, in country music, it´s, it´s perfectly, it´s requested as a matter of fact, you know, when you sign your contract, I think that, uh, there´s a thing that says that every other album, there´s gotta be a song about your mother on that one and uh….you got, you know, Merle Haggard, ´Mama Tried,´ Hank Williams the 3rd just put one out called ´I´m the Only Hell My Mama Ever Raised´….the basic line is, you know, mom tried but you´re just bad, uh….then, uh, rap music, you can sing about your mother in rap music, uh, Tupac, ´The Black Queen,´ a beautiful song about your mom, in gospel there was a group called the Mother Lovers….no problem there….uh, in rock, you gotta, you gotta go to like, I guess you gotta do like Jim Morrison or something who, uh, finessed the whole thing by singing about screwing his mother, that was alright….that´s, uh, that´s something that goes ok….it´s more, supposedly, correct in rock and roll business to take that approach to it….uh, I thought about saving this for Italy because there´s a lot of mother lovers over there, I know that, I know that, being half-Italian myself so yeah (some cheers) no, I´ll be singing it there too, alright, no (chuckles) I was, I wasn´t sure whether to sing it over here because youse are a bunch of cynical bastards (?) so uh….you know, why….why, uh, open myself to criticism? (?) but then, but then I thought ´Gee, you know, the Queen Mother (?) the mother of all mothers so it´s gonna work, it´s gonna have to go over so´….(someone yells something about the G8) of course (chuckles) what man said it (chuckles) alright, let´s give it a shot….´´
Intro to “Paradise”
´´Thank you….alright…..alright, the British love their mamas (chuckles)….I found this on eBay (chuckles) we´ll see how it works (chuckles)….´´
Intro to “Jesus Was an Only Son”
´´Thank you….yeah….I was, uh…..I was brought up Catholic, which means Jesus is my homeboy and uh….that´s about the size of it, I thought I got out from underneath all that but, uh, don´t think so, uh, they picked the Pope a couple weeks ago, I found myself perversely, perversely interested in the whole process, it´s kind of like watching a big trade going on for the team you don´t play for any more but, uh….yeah, but then I went back through all my songs and all the religious imagery, Mary, why was all the girls named ´Mary,´ what the hell was that about? and, uh….you know, you think ´I´m out here, I´m going, folks, goodbye, goodbye, Sisters!´ - no….but anyway I wrote this song, uh, of course now I go back to the convent where I was tortured often….quite nice, I get free beer and, uh, I´m allowed to watch the baseball game, uh….it´s either that or the strip clubs so….uh, but anyway, I wrote this song because I was interested in the relationship, again, between mothers and sons and, uh, Mary and Jesus, as if Mary was, Jesus was, uh, somebody´s boy and, uh….you know, how your first instinct is to, uh, protect your children, at the same time they have their own destiny that they´re gonna follow so this is ´Jesus Was an Only Son´….
(….) At His mother´s feet….I think the first, the first shock that hits you when you become a parent is how suddenly there´s nothing in the world you wouldn´t do to protect your kids…. uh, very shocking for self-involved musicians (chuckles) to find that one out….
(….) Shall pierce your dreams this night….you figure….what makes our choices mean something….are the things that we give up….is what give our choices weight and meaning, but you figure He had to be thinking….´That Galilee is pretty nice this time of year….that little bar down there I could manage, Mary Magdalene could tend bar, we could have some kids….watch the sun fall on their faces…..´´
Intro to “Leah”
´´I stole the title of this next song from a Roy Orbison song….the song was called ´Leah,´ it was about a pearldiver and, uh, it´s kind of one of those things that only Roy could pull off, you know, it´s kind of, you know, the guy jumps into the ocean and goes get the pearl for the girl, gets stuck at the bottom….you know the rest…..yeah, but he turned it into a beautiful, beautiful song and, uh, I got to know him a little bit before, before he died and I was at his house one afternoon and, uh, I remember him saying….´I got this new song about windsurfing´….and I was thinking ´Windsurfing, that´s, that´s not gonna fly (?)´ I didn´t say that but that´s what I was thinking and, uh….you know, it killed John Kerry in the election, windsurfing, bad…..mobile, mobile trailers, you know, the old trailers as phony chemical weapons´ labs, that was alright, windsurfing, that´s where the American people drew the line and uh….he should´ve (chuckles)….he should´ve known that (chuckles) but uh….anyway, the record comes out, there´s this beautiful song about windsurfing on it….almost made me wanna windsurf….I didn´t wanna ruin my career (chuckles) but this is a song about, uh, how we carry the seeds of our destruction and seeds of good things, it´s a song about a guy just coming down on the right side, ´Leah´….´´
Intro to “The Hitter”
´´Here´s a, uh (coughs) song that´s kind of….(coughs) I guess it´s kind of the flipside of that song….young guy, uh….leaves home and, uh, goes to New Orleans, becomes a champion, comes back through town at the end of his life and….the whole song is a conversation he has with his mother through a locked door….Freud, I´m sure, is smiling in his grave (chuckles) but, uh (coughs) I kind of grew up in a house that was kind of touched both by fortune and by a sort of harsh hand of fate and, uh, the only surprising thing, I guess, was that they don´t cancel one another out…..and you just, uh….you learn to live with them both so this is called ´The Hitter´….´´
Intro to “Matamoros Banks”
´´Thank you….wrote, uh, wrote this song as a sequel to, uh….´Across the Border,´ the song I used to end the Tom Joad-tour, sort of, uh, it´s the same, same journey, uh, man comes across the wire….looking for the same things….same hopes for his family and his kids and each year hundreds of people die trying to get into the United States in the backs of vans and in the mountains and in the deserts….at the bottom of the rivers so I wrote this song, uh, backwards, it starts with the body at the bottom of the river, the trip across the desert to the banks of the Matamoros, which is the town across from Brownsville, Texas, this is called ´Matamoros Banks´….´´
Intro to “Ramrod”
´´(?)…this song came from, uh, had a girlfriend, used to be a hill, used to go up on top of this hill, you could see all of New York City about 15 miles away, we used to pass this little church and I used to say ´We are gonna be married in that chapel´ and uh….then we broke up and sold a lot of my stuff to the Hard Rock Cafe and uh (chuckles) and the lightning hit the church and it burned down (chuckles)….´´
Intro to “The Promised Land”
´´I wanna thank everybody for coming out to the show tonight, thank you very much…..it´s always, uh, great to be back here in London, I´ve been coming for 30 years now and uh….I just wanna say I appreciate, uh, I appreciate your support and, uh….´´
| Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi. |
