this blog has been gestating since i myself was gestating inside my moms womb. moms loved laura and played her incessantly while she were pregnant with me as well as during my entire childhood. my older sisters as well were immersed in the glorious music of this now deceased musical artist.
to listen to nyro's music is to be transported into a world in which nothing is taken for granted: a world in which Love once achieved and ensnared never goes away. Love for laura is a religion and she genuflects frequently at it's altar.
i inherited moms vinyl records and recently came upon nyro's "nested" released in 1978,6 years before i was born. there is a song contained therein "crazy love" that literally makes me gasp because the lyrics are some of the most heartfelt, emotionally and superbly well-considered and intelligent that i have ever heard: "pregnant with the knowledge and the flame of your true love" : "walk soft, talk soft like an animal on silent feet....on a block of snow..." who writes like this much less sings like this anymore?
nyro was from spanish harlem. she grew up singing with her crew on street corners. songs like "up on the roof" and "spanish harlem" both of which she recorded later in her life with patti labelle. nyro's version of love is filled with pathos and passion: a love that comes from due dilligence: from work put in, work often denied and rebuffed by its object. her music is at times both sweet and hard, both tragic and soft...but always transcendant as it comes from a place of truth and utter abandon. "Come to me" she is saying but come to me knowing that i am carrying the baggage of many love affairs: i have lost often but i have also loved...and that is what is really important.
laura nyro is an orginal and her music will last forever. i have always felt that the songs from her ode to nyc, "new york tendaberry" should be played at all of the yankee, giants and mets games in that they are pure, human and full of her personal view of life in nyc.
i'm sure she's looking down on us now smiling that sweet, bemused smile of hers wondering why we haven't figured out yet that love conquers all: that love is the answer to most questions, that love makes us whole, makes us real, makes us human, makes us crazy and isn't love really at the bottom line of most things that we do or think about, anyway?
peace,
tyler
music: nested, eli and the 13th confession,new york tendaberry, smile (all by laura nyro)
4 comments:
You sound like Freud, but Freud got it wrong. Knowledge of our own death is a much stronger emotion than love, and the bottom line for almost everything we do. Humans are afraid of their mortality and do everything within their power, including loving, NOT to think about death. After death, love is the next strongest emotion.
so whether it is #1 or #2 depending on to who you listen, love is a big guiding force particularly in the music and lyrics of laura nyro.
interesting that you mention freud as he is one of my heroes...if heroes is the correct word as applied to this great man whose writings and opinions changed the way we think about most things.
thanks for our comments, mr. anon or ms. anon.
peace,
tyler
I have never heard of her. Thank youy for introducing us. I will have to look into her music. Sounds perfect for a Sunday morning with coffee and the paper.
ditty:
hmmm...or maybe a bottle of patron anejo, your main squeeze and a skin thight rubber suit with holes in the appropriate places, huh?
peace,
tyler
Post a Comment