Tuesday, January 16

January 16, 2018 - Red Krayola - The Jewels of the Madonna (1968)


The Jewels of the Madonna is stream of consciousness composing from the mind of Mayo Thompson and the Red Krayola, taken from the album God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail With It, an album of similar sketchy avant-garde pop tunes. I'm not quite sure how to interpret this song. It is a brief conversation between two people over drinks. One person has been blessed with either a car or some money, apparently a divine intervention from heaven. He was shining shoes and selling papers when he received this miracle.

The song appeals to my sense of the absurd. The music starts up hesitantly, like a car with bad exhaustion. The drums kick in, and while the lyrics are being delivered there are occasional bursts of random electric guitar. It's a big weird pre-punk experiment, and from 1968! It would be years before bands caught up to this style. For context, I'd group it in with some of the stuff the Fugs or Frank Zappa were doing. And, of course, other International Artists groups like The 13th Floor Elevators and Bubble Puppy.



No comments:

Post a Comment