C&L's Late Nite Music Club with The Jezebel Spirit by Brian Eno and David Byrne
By Howie Klein Tuesday Nov 27, 2007 10:00pmBiblical scholars know the concept of the Jezebel spirit as reference to women, usually painted ones, who supposedly lead weak men astray. Fundamentalist preachers often refer to the Jezebel spirit when they want to cast aspersions on any woman with whom they disagree. In 1981 Talking Heads frontman David Byrne and producer Brian Eno (formerly of Roxy Music) recorded a groundbreaking album, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts which featured the underground hit, "The Jezebel Spirit."
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One of my favorite albums.
Could you provide some links to these so called "scholars"?
Absolutely a great album! Still groundbreaking 25+ years later. Created in the age before digital sampling. Billions and billions of bit of tape snipped and clipped to mold the found vocals into the final product.
Was tonight's Fascist Debate worth watching in full or should I just stick with the clips on here?
I missed this one....I'm going to have to find it...or order it....
Lot of good songs on this album:
America is Waiting (Now more than ever)
Mea Culpa (I think this one was from a supporter of one of those televanglist (sp? ah false prophet then) who sinned against the lawd.
Help Me Somebody (Another song using old religion preachin')
[deleted--the commenting policy of remaining civil extends to our contributers as well.]
I had this album the day it came out.
The record rep brought it over and I played it. That was the track as I was concerned.
Bad vibes.
"The Jezebel Spirit" always frightened me and made girlfiends want to
hit me with a shoe, though it seemed I should hit them with a shoe.
The clipped voice of the AM preacher haunts me still.
Of course I had a thing for Jezebels.
Musically, it is Eno at his best.
Still. C'mon. It freaks me out.
Nope. Didn't like the music. Oh well...
Very cool song, very cool album!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jVjjl34_kAI Roxy Music...Avalon.
One of my all time favorite albums!
Found all but 1 of the first 7 songs on youtube:
America is Waiting
Mea Culpa
Regiment (used as background, don't get the Fish angle)
Help Me Somebody (used as background for some German(?) guys overclocking a PC)
Moonlight in Glory (another good one!)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=8QLXTsviMxk Eno/Byrne...Mea Culpa.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Hqfk5aRXZUg&feature=related Byrne....Dirty Old Town.
The album is so great.
The attempts to make videos of the songs so lame.
Many years later I note how much Byrne was a big part of this track.
Look. This never was Popular American Music.
I was a punk DJ and it wierded me out.
But I dug it.
Years later I'd tell a stripper girlfriend she was a Jezebel and without awareness
of the origin of the name she would recoil like Linda Blair being hit with Holy Water.
If I played this recording she'd become violent.
Powerful stuff.
Love this LP! America is Waiting still runs through my brain often, and my turntable broke about fifteen years ago...
Have to agree with pete moss, though; making videos of this is pretty lame.
OK. Great.
You got me on a Brian Eno kick.
Music from Airports.
Do the Strand.
"My life in the Bush with Ghosts" - how prophetic, top notch stuff from eno and byrne :)
Tape loops and lovely guitar moves, combined with off-the-radio audio grabs.
Loved it in '81, love it now. God bless Byrne and Eno for this timeless gem.
lol
anyone else notice Mean Jean Schmit (the one who tried to take a shit on murtha) makes an apearence?
You can hear a couple song snips from this album in Oliver Stone's "Wall Street".
One of my favorite things about Crooks & Liars is the diverse taste in music.
Qu'ran is a great track, banned in Europe if I'm not mistaken.
Roberts' kid blames God for "forcing"
him to resign. Ford has to pay for their defective SUVs. The Dutch have to pay for letting Muslims get massacred in Srebrenica.
One of my all-time faves. A miracle of musical collaboration. Still fresh, still vital.
AF
no eno, but we've got girlfriend is better over at skippy's late nite music club from a few months ago.
meanwhile, tonite we feature the nicholas brothers tap dancing to cab calloway as his orchestra plays jumpin' jive!
LOL!
Anyone who associates Brian Eno w/ Roxy Music is... dated, shall we say. It's like saying Eric Clapton, formerly of The Yardbirds. The amount of artists who Eno has worked with would take up a book on it's own, not to mention his voluminous solo work. His time w/ Roxy Music is an asterisk to his career, at most.
Brian Eno is in the rarified air of artists, along with Dylan & The Beatles, whose influence on music is so wide & varied, anyone who makes music today is affected by them, whether they know it or not.
Odd that only now I hear David Byrnes guitar as along the lines of the Edge or Andy Taylor.
He has been underappreciated. Certainly by me.
oh, p.s.....
This song rocks as hard as it did when I first heard it 26 years ago. The other side of the coin is Moonlight in Glory, where religious feeling is used as a space ship, instead of a torture chamber.
So far ahead of its time it was scary. Great, Over the uears had it in cassette, LP, CD and MP3, Its a keeper.
Brave Sir
You do like Brian with Roxy right?
Look at the tapes roll with his 1967 Moog.
Any of these guys could have been original members of King Krimson.
One of the all time great albums. @ 24:
yes unfortunately "Qu'ran" was also left off the otherwise lovely new re-issue cd,
apparently for PC/cultural-sensitivity reasons. a true classic record. i would also
highly recommend david byrne's "the catherine wheel" (dance score for twyla tharp)
to anyone who likes "bush of ghosts"
Opps.
King Crimson.
I have to agree with Brave Sir Robin, Eno has done so much after Roxy Music. From his solo rock to his ambient to his work with more bands than I can list (Talking Heads, U2...) he has been a musical force. I have albums where he works with Peter Sinfield (in a land of clear colors), Harold Budd (the pearl), Jah Wobble (spinner), John Cale (wrong way up), and the list goes on. I mean, he invented ambient with his discreet music. Did I forget his work with Fripp. I'm sorry, he did a couple of albums with Robert Fripp. Oh, and he produced bright red by Laurie Anderson.
He is Brian Eno and he is bloody amazing.
But what about his presence on stage with Roxy Music?
As a beer drinking hetro at Ohio State circa mid seventies
we fell in love with his gay persona.
Musically he had us pre-ambient.
At the time he was an onstage rockstar.
See...
YouTube - Roxy Music - In Every Dream Home a Heartache.
The last 60 seconds has Eno with all old school Ampeg reel to reel plus a
1967 Moog while Phil Manzanera wails on his Gibson.
This may not be Green Day, but it kept me in my seat.
Hey whiz
Yeah, I like RM & BF well enough. I don't own lots of their music, but I certainly ain't gonna be dissin' em. But Eno outgrew them w/in two years. He's a modern Mozart, his intelligence around music is so stunning, you're merely in awe.
Also, don't forget he produced Devo's Q:Are We Not Men? as well as wrote the Windows start-up jingle.
whizkid @ 37:
just fyi: revox tape recorder; ems vcs3 synth.
I love Howie posting here, because of his 'True Stories'. :-)
One of my all time favorite albums, and two of my favorite artists.
So Howie, how long have you disliked women? They have screwed me around in more ways than one but I still love them, so here is one for you Howie!
Led Zeppelin - Dazed and Confused
http://youtube.com/watch?v=b5Xf0N9Juko
just fyi: revox tape recorder; ems vcs3 synth.
Great.
Love the correction.
The Cry Baby I thought I had was probably a Morley.
Or a Kay.
So Eno was way more up to date with his gear than I discern.
I just recall Atlantic gave Ferry the boot with King Crimson
and brought in Greg Lake cause Ferry wasn't commercial enough.
He found Eno and Manzanera for Roxy.
Again. I welcome correction
Black dog--led zeppelin
http://youtube.com/watch?v=T2M6yV6mueg
ems vcs3 synth
God.
I don't deny noizvendr is right.
I remember the brand now.
But we have this many years of synths?
I've got my ten year old Yamaha that does everythng so I guess its true.
But that thing Eno plays with Roxy looks like the first.
It has chrome bumpers and tails.
This has been illuminating.
Could Howie talk about " I Talk to the Wind"?
Or say Starcastle?
One had English singing galore.
The other had US Midwest riffs galore.
"Qu’ran is a great track, banned in Europe if I’m not mistaken."
"yes unfortunately “Qu’ran” was also left off the otherwise lovely new re-issue cd,
apparently for PC/cultural-sensitivity reasons. a true classic record."
**
Well that's odd because the track Qu'ran is on both versions of this cd that I purchased in Amsterdam.
Lat time I looked Amsterdam was still in Europe.
For any true Enophiles, this album is a must-have, along with "Here Come the Warm Jets" (with an amazing guitar solo in "Baby's on Fire") and "801 Live".
I'm a huge Eno fan, and 'My Life in the Bush of Ghosts' was actually in my computer CD player just now. Coincidence? Probably not, since I play it a dozen times a year. It never gets old and is light-years better than anything put today. Other fantastic Eno albums are 'Taking Tiger Mountain (by strategy)' , 'After the Heat', 'Another Green World' and 'Before and After Science'. All of them ahead of their time and all are great. I got Eno's latest a year ago ('Another Day on Earth'), and it borders on sucks. There was one decent song, but the rest kinda blended together to ambiently. (Yes, I liked *some* of his ambient albums, like 'Music for Films', 'Evening Star' and a few others, but this album just didn't seem to know what it wanted to do.)
whizkid @ 29:
I'm thinkin' it's more Adrian Belew there on guitar?
Great stuff!
whizkid @ 34:
Speaking of King Crimson, I wonder why they are never highlighted on LNMC. One of the longest and most innovative histories in rock with undoubtedly one of the most talented leaders and line-ups in pop.
I, too, bought this album the day it came out. Still listen to it with some regularity. Mea Culpa and America is Waiting are both perfect songs for the state of affairs in today's United States. Both songs presage the whole "right-wing radio" thing -- and to think it came out a good 10 years before Limbaugh ever hit the airwaves.
THe songs with the Muslim singing are equally relevant in today's mixed-up world. The vocal tracks for each song are lifted from some actual real world sources, i.e., talk radio, a preacher at the pulpit, a Minaret call to prayer. In fact, and fyi to whizkid @8, the vocal track for Jezebel Spirit comes from an actual exorcism. What you hear is the exorcist demanding that Satan leave this "virtuous woman." "I command you to loosen your hold on her now! I'll banished you in chains of iron." You can even hear the woman's labored breathing. [And it would have been even scarier, but the woman's family apparently would not allow Eno/Byrne to use the recordings of her voice of possession.] You're right, it's scary stuff.
I would HIGHLY advise C&L readers to acquire the brilliant "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts."
It certainly gives roots to the Talking Heads song I Zimbra from their album Fear of Music.
The best version found on YouTube is from Letterman from 1983. Sounds very similar, no? Except for the Lyrics:
GADJI BERI BIMBA CLANDRIDI
LAULI LONNI CADORI GADJAM
A BIM BERI GLASSALA GLANDRIDE
E GLASSALA TUFFM I ZIMBRA
BIM BLASSA GALASSASA ZIMBRABIM
BLASSA GLALLASSASA ZIMBRABIM
A BIM BERI GLASSALA GRANDRID
E GLASSALA TUFFM I ZIMBRA
GADJI BERI BIMBA GLANDRIDI
LAULI LONNI CADORA GADJAM
A BIM BERI GLASSASA GLANDRID
E GLASSALA TUFFM I ZIMBRA
Watching this makes me feel old, but Letterman looks like he's still in college!
I can't believe I never caught this before:
The song "hey ho!" from lords of acid rips off two very distinct repeating sections from this song.
One near the beginning, the other at -1:24.
Wow...
Great song from a great album. Not my favorite track on the album ("Qu'ran", "America Is Waiting" and "Mea Culpa" probably top it) but still really good. "Qu'ran" was sampled and used in the British TV show Peep Show, episode 1, season 1. The character Jez has done a track in that...They used tape loops on the original album, not sampling. Very ground breaking. Great stuff!
Also one of my favorites of all time. But this post has depressed me greatly.
Here's why:
In 2000 my house was burglarized and all the music I had collected over the previous 30 years was stolen. I've been able to replace most of it (except for one very rare, limited release, signed by the artist).
This post has reminded me again of that traumatic experience and of the fact that my 'replacement' CD of Bush of Ghosts isn't even the same as what was stolen.
I'd really like to find a copy that still has Qu'ran on it. It's a great song.
Now I'm going to go to my room and cry. See you later. :-(
excellent selection! what a fantastic album. thanks for highlighting bush of ghosts, howie.
This release has multi-generational appeal. I play this for my teenagers and they enjoy it. My kid put it on his Ipod. Of course, if your kids are listening to Hillary Duff or Justin Timberlake, they might not get it.
"America is waiting for a message of some sort or another..."
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is an absolutely brilliant piece of music. Those who don't "get it" probably never will.
Hey, Hey! What about "Another Green World"? Surely Eno's greatest.
MichaelB
Eno is Dog spelled Backwards. Been a heavy, heavy Enophile since '79 or so... gotta admit hearing "Heroes" as an ad for Cable (I forget if it was Comcast or DirectTV) really broke my heart in a way. I think if any one thing were responsible for the decline of this society over the last twenty years or so I'd have to say it was cable TV. Remind me to write a stern letter to Eno and Bowie (who gave a large amount of help to the Jena 6 recently. Both amazing people.
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is a classic.
KPFA has early eno interview tapes of these sessions before the Byrne added so many drums and stuff. Archive.org had it circa 1980 last I check, but the site is down presently.
I did notice Eno left off the track "Qu'ran" from the recent the remix. What's up with dat?
Found it: This interview on KPFA in 1980 has skeletal version of the works that ended up on my life in the bush of ghosts:
Brian Eno Interviewed on KPFA's Ode to Gravity, 1980 (February 2, 1980)
johnx @ 62:
stream of interview here
The title "My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts" come from a book by Amos Tutuola. It's really interesting and fun. He's a Nigerian writer and has these really odd rhythms in his prose. Also it is matter-of-fact about the culture of the hero, and so does not explain things.
http://www.amazon.com/Palm-Wine-Drinkard-Life-Bush-Ghosts/dp/0802133630/...
And my fave from this CD is 'Very Very Hungry' which was an extra track left off the original vinyl. Heavy dance music, completely atonal, in triplets.
Wow. I don't even bother glancing at the "Late Nite" posts, but this one caught my eye. This was my favorite secret album. The complexities of the music has yet to be matched today even with electronic sampling. I was pleased when I ran into an Art of Noise song that actually sampled one of the My Life in the Bush of Ghosts songs. Life imitates art.
boring monotonous crap
Giardia @ 67:
That's 'cause you're not mature enough to understand it, Giardia.
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