Federico García Lorca was only in the United States for ten months. Still, the waves of impact from his writing would be foundational in establishing Hispanic Literature on our shores over the decades that followed. Poetry itself has been derived from the “song” form of storytelling since Cædmon sang what came to him overnight centuries ago. Lorca had the foresight to see that the only way to capture his culture (and lineage) was to look toward the future while honoring the past. Like so many of the authors we have discussed, it was homesickness that led Lorca to write.
Born into a wealthy family in Granada, Lorca’s childhood was almost exclusively devoted to education and the arts. While he mostly studied the law, it was literature and composition that held his attention. When he learned music, he followed his newfound love of Chopin and Debussy led to local composer Manuel de Falla. At 18, this unity of ideas found its first life when Lorca wrote to eulogize his music instructor who passed away. His early attempts at poetry were melodic pieces of song form.
Lorca moved to Madrid for college where he became friends with Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel. As part of this promising artistic movement, he began writing plays in addition to his poetry. Writing about religion and nature found its language of expression through his Gypsy heritage. However, in 1921, he was summoned home. Back in the once fruitful environment of Granada, Lorca fell into a depression over losing his cultural cohorts and inspiration. Lorca ran through the bars and the nightlife that was now housed in the ancient Alhambra castle. It was in these crowded taverns where he first heard “cante jondo” or deep song.
Based on an offshoot of Flamenco (but lacking its rhythmic stresses,) Lorca heard cante jondo as the intersection of Byzantine, Jewish, and even Gypsy culture within these methodical creations. While it was never proven, Lorca claimed to have had a half-Gypsy great-grandmother. So he embraced this panoply of musical ideas and inserted his lifelong love of nature. Months later at the palace in the same Alhambra district, Lorca debuted his new poetry with the accompaniment of future legend Andrés Segovia. In honor of the Sevillian celebration of Holy Week, his “Poem of the Cante Jondo” found startling new images that placed the observation of its rituals in a new light. As Lorca wrote, “In the White House, mankind’s perdition dies/A hundred ponies prance around/Their riders are all dead.” With his first collection of these deep songs (mostly written in ten days and left unpublished for nearly 10 years,) Lorca demythologized the storied parts of his culture and instead gave it to the inanimate objects like the bells, the guitar, and the stars above.
Under the influence of his surrealist friends from Madrid, Lorca's poetry took a turn into avant-garde - possibly because it afforded him so much freedom. For example, his collection "Canciones (Songs)" is actually not deep songs but largely dramatic and repetitive poems like "The Song of the Ladybug."
The ladybug combs
her hair in her silk hairdresser
The neighbors smile
at each other in their final windows
The ladybug organizes
the loops of his head
Through the courtyards shout parrots,
fountains of planets
Nature is the guiding force in Lorca's poetry, but it is beginning to take on the fantastical color and ability to defy any written rules. We see the ladybug and its hair as preparing its "identity" for the outside world. Unlike the ladybug, we are given a glimpse of what is outside. Lorca's writing next encompassed drawings interspersed with his wild verse as he was making poetry now reflect his visions under the influence of his longtime friend Salvador Dali. By 1928, Lorca had finally completed his work "Gypsy Ballads" where he sought to preserve the culture of a largely peripatetic community. It was out of pure admiration that he wrote about their folklore even carefully including the pillars of flamenco and bullfighting. As a member of The Group of '27 with Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel, Lorca's astral ethnographic works and the success of "Gypsy Ballads" afforded him the chance to attend Columbia in New York City.
For ten months in 1929, Lorca's eyes were opened by city life. In classes at Columbia, he was productive but distracted. However once he walked the streets, Lorca was so inspired he began to write poetry almost everywhere. At one moment, he felt the enormous geometry of the skyline dotted with skyscrapers, and the next drowning in empathy for the poverty and waste they simply could not hide ("Dawn in New York bears/four pillars of slime.") Caught up in the rapid pace and culture, Lorca was even on hand when the market crashed and sent the city reeling as he captured in "Dance of Death."
The mask! Look at the mask!
Sand, crocodile, and fear above New York!
While the Chinaman wept on the roof
not finding the nude of his wife
and the bank director examined the manometer,
that measures the cruel silence of money
In March 1930, Lorca left New York a changed man. Upon returning to his homeland, Lorca found them under new rule. Appointed as the head of a new theatre company, Lorca's mission was to bring plays (including his play "Blood Wedding") and culture to those who had never experienced it. "Outside of Madrid, the theatre, which is in its very essence a part of the life of the people, is almost dead, and the people suffer accordingly, as they would if they had lost their two eyes, or ears, or a sense of taste." This goal led to his revival of traditional theatre and even inspired his return to poetry in 1936. Following the rise of Francisco Franco and the buildup to the Spanish Civil War, Lorca was assassinated by firing squad on August 19, 1936.
How the night heron sings
how it sings in the tree
Moon crosses the sky
with a boy by the hand
from "Ballad of the Moon"
—
Mik Davis is the record store manager at T-Bones Records & Cafe in Hattiesburg.
NEW MUSIC This Week
WILCO - Cousin [LP/CD](dBpm/Sony) • On their last album, the sprawling "Cruel Country," Wilco revamped the Country/Rock sound of old. Working with producer Cate Le Bon, "Cousin" is the most brittle and edgy Wilco has sounded in a while. Its most immediate comparison would be the weirder cuts on "The Ghost Is Born." "Cousin" is a glassy-eyed noise-colored Post-Punk glimmer, while the charming single "Evicted" elicits more warmth from the chilly subject of a breakup.
JORJA SMITH - Falling or Flying [LP/CD/CS](FAMM) • With her purring R&B voice and slinky beats, Jorja Smith has been lying in wait for that precious US breakthrough. Basking in Eighties synths and sweeping romantic swoops from Smith, "Falling or Flying" cares less about having a hit and more about drawing you into Smith's brand of Soul. The propulsive "GO GO GO" and "Little Things" were already among the best singles of the year, with the former poised for chart appearance here. While the Eastern rhythms-meet-rubbery bass lines of "Try Me" could pose her first American R&B prospect.
LP - Love Lines [LP/CD](Ukerazy/BMG Rights Mgmt) • For all her talent (and that voice,) Laura Pergolizzi still has not lived up to her potential as a world-class song collaborator (Cher, Rihanna, Christina Aguilera) on her own. "Golden" suffers from too much Eighties/ Nineties influence, "Love Song" fails to match its clever production with a chorus fit for Laura Branigan. Only the dramatic pushes on "One Like You" work well enough to qualify LP for a guest spot on "American Idol."
CHARLEY CROCKETT - Live From The Ryman [STAINED GLASS LP/CD](Son of Davy/Thirty Tigers/The Orchard) • Texas pure Country crooner Charley Crockett continues to follow his own path through Americana, Country, and even AAA music (where he chalked up two Top 20 hits from "The Man From Waco.") Crockett's best features have long been his smooth voice and personality. With a well-assembled band (including trumpet,) Crockett plays all the hits and injects them live at the Grand Ole Opry-ready energy.
CODE ORANGE - The Above [LP/CD](Blue Grape) • Between Metalcore and gritty Industrialized Metal, Code Orange stretches their music into Rage Against The Machine-style growl ("Grooming My Replacement") and then brings in Billy Corgan for a nearly incongruent KoRn-ian stomper ("Take Shape.") Only the furious double-drum guitar-squelch "The Game" returns Code Orange to the chaotic thunder of their previous albums.
REISSUES OF THE WEEK
JASON ISBELL - Southeastern [2CD/BLUE LP/4LP BOX](Southeastern/Thirty Tigers/The Orchard) • In the history of NPR's "Fresh Air," there have been very few performances on the show that actually left everyone in tears. One of those was Jason Isbell circa 2013 promoting his fourth album. Having cleaned up out of rehab, Isbell set about telling the stories from a new perspective. Ten years later, "Southeastern" remains the high watermark in his career. For this edition, the album has been remastered, demos and outtakes served up, and a special live 2022 performance of the album with 400 Unit.
GREEN DAY - Dookie [BLUE LP/2CD/6 LP](Warner) • They were just a buzzy trio from Gilman St. in San Francisco. However, audiences were growing a little weary of the MTV Buzz Bin drops of more Hard Rock/Grunge and craving something more melodic. Behind the scenes, Green Day sold nearly 30,000 records each of their Lookout! catalog, and somehow even managed to be banned from their hometown punk club. For a moment, it seemed like the only people who did not see them as "selling out," were the band and those who heard "Dookie." When it dropped on February 1, 1994, it moved a paltry 9000 units. However, the critics took a liking to it especially as it turned Punk into Pop. Weeks later, fueled by constant MTV play, their anthem to boredom "Longview" hit #1 on the Alternative chart. The second single, "Basket Case" (and its funny-yet-accurate glimpse into anxiety) would hit #1 for five weeks in late Summer. By the Fall 1994, "Dookie" was entrenched in CD players everywhere. Its quick pace and clever lyrics made it easy to put on repeat. In addition, it still remains hard to separate your favorite non-single from the four heavy-rotation songs on MTV. Now 30 years later, Green Day is still pumping out great Punk/Pop. "Dookie" might not even be their strongest album (like all good debuts, it hints that better things are coming.) However, this massive DELUXE package dares to give you everything that was left behind in making this Diamond of an album.
MODEST MOUSE - The Lonesome Crowded West [BLUE PIC LP](Glacial Pace/RSD Essentials/Thinkindie) • In the early Nineties, the Pacific Northwest took a beating from bands moving there to be a part of the Seattle sound. Outside of the scene in Issaquah, Isaac Brock and some friends a sort of distant to suburbia yet claustrophobic Indie Rock. Influenced by Pavement and their chock-a-block style of writing, Modest Mouse found a way to package brooding, quiet acoustic songs and out-and-out squealing guitar ragers. Brock's lyrics and delivery were like no other. His adenoidal high-pitched quiver gave the songs the urgency that dozens of Seattle bands did not have. In addition, with Jeremiah Green and Eric Judy, the trio pounded songs that felt like basement shows ready to go overground. Over the years, "Lonesome" has only grown in stature and is even strangely accepted in corners of the Alt.Country/Americana world. Modest Mouse's view of the world as disillusioned even seems all these years later like there was always a glint of hope there as well.
PERE UBU - Elitism For The People/Architecture of Language [4LP](Fire Records) • Like Isaac Brock, one of the original high-pitched wizards was Pere Ubu's David Thomas. Storming out of the Seventies midwest Rock mecca of Cleveland in 1975, Pere Ubu challenged Rock music beyond Punk and even its Alternative future. Their music was artistic, but not elevated. It was Avant-Garde, but not trying to be seen as Avant-Garde. If anything, Pere Ubu was the synthesis of all the post-war rage/nuclear-world doubt. As dissonant as they could be, a melody of some manner was never far away. So listening to classics like the angular "Non-Alignment Pact," or the propulsive "Street Waves," the bass-line driven "Heart of Darkness", and the way their Garage instincts become a dark anthem on "Final Solution" makes sense as to where so many musicians are today. The best news, Pere Ubu is still at it today.
