2009-05-28

Beat Happening - Tales of Brave Aphrodite


Artist: Beat Happening

Song:  Tales of Brave Aphrodite

Album: Beat Happening/Screaming Trees EP (1988)

 

Beat Happening/Screaming Trees is an EP and a one-off collaboration between Beat Happening and Screaming Trees. No song is credited to any of them. It seems that they recorded the songs all together.

Originally released in 1988, it was later reissued as part of Beat Happening's box set Crashing Through in 2002.

"Tales of Brave Aphrodite" features some wonderfully wheezy organ and some of Calvin Johnson's best lyrics ever ("silver Aphrodite in her chocolate nightie" being the line that will always break you up)…

 

review

 

music

 

Tall King Saul says he wants it all
If he's willing to crawl he can have a ball

I can't do a wheelie
I can't touch the ceiling
I can't have good luck
I can't double dutch

The day you cut your hair I thought
There'll never be another a head of hair that soft

I can't figure why
We were always like a stick in the eye

Silver Aphrodite in her chocolate nightie
Says she wants to try me, she won't bite me

I can't French inhale
I can't read in braille
I can't put love in a cup
I can't do a chin up

I dropped your hand that day
That day I saw you running, running away
Now you're gone, it's no fair
I can never touch that hair

(???) chants I think I can
With the truth in the sand and a rubber band

I can't do cat's cradle
I can't set the table
I can't build an atom bomb

Hey Aphrodite come sit right by me
I consider it (inviting me?)
(That ?) are hiding

I can't fix a bike
I can't fly a kite
I can't hide my head in the sand
I can't shoot my rubber band

No no no, let's go go go
To a pond or a pound or a drag car show

I can't do a cartwheel
I can't explain how I feel
When you can't give a hang
I can't accept it

 

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