Roxy Music: Mother of Pearl

A short string of words rising into consciousness like the aroma of honeysuckle and roses off the back porch. Springtime.

It feels like a demand. Search and recover from a lost world. Words rise to the present, when the present is not a memory but a new now.

In my mind's hearing came the phrasing, garbled as it turns out when compared to its source:

It's the same old story / About heaven and glory . . .

Was it Bob Dylan?  No, not quite his style. Leonard Cohen? Nope. Motörhead? Nope, or should I say, Nein, danke? (They do have "Death or Glory," not too far off track). Not the Clash, either, but getting warmer. 

Finally, finally, finally it fully surfaced, I reconnected with the source, which turns out to be Roxy Music's "Mother of Pearl" track from Stranded (1973), written by Bryan Ferry. Eureka! 

And the actual lyrical snippet goes like this:

It's the same old story / All love and glory / It's a pantomine.
If you're looking for love / In a looking glass world / It's pretty hard to find.

"Mother of Pearl" starts off fast and wild -- "It's a crazy scene," Ferry sings. Then about 1 minute and forty-five seconds into the song, it shifts gear like a party crash, toward reflection and musing that continues all the way to its conclusion. Very cool song -- cool enough to trigger memories of itself across space and time.

Today's Rune: Joy.