Wish I knew you in a different lifetime—different from this one.
Wish I’d met you on another planet—closer to the sun.
The heat would rise from our bodies—and melt into the air.
Ecological convergence—a bi-symmetrical pair.
Wish I knew you in a different way
Than gender and despair.
Author: mikejopitz
Vocals, guitar Kathee
Guitar Mike
Violin Stephanie (track added later from PA)
Categories
Boom
I was born in a country in the middle of the baby boom.
My daddy was a soldier in World War Two.
He met his brother’s coffin when they marched it off the boat.
He reached into his pocket for a government smoke.
He put his shoulder to the grindstone
And tried to drink his way back home.
Categories
Bandit
Marietta Marcolini
My grandmother, Marietta Marcolini, was born in rural northern Italy and came to New York as a very young, naïve woman. She came for an arranged marriage to a much older man, who soon died and left her a single mother. Thus began her descent into America—a place where she never felt welcome or at home. I think the greatest sadness of her life was that she was never financially able to return to Italy for a visit—as she said it—“To see my mama, again.”
Sometime in the early days of the pandemic of 2020, when contagion and disaster seemed immanent possibilities, we separated from each other and our daily routines. The sense of the familiar vanished and all of us found ourselves in some kind of alienated space. I sat alone one night in April in The Maltshop (my home studio) thinking about an unsettled and lonely future.
Like Bob Dylan, “I was thinking of a series of dreams.” I had been reminiscing about the many classes I have taught and the many students I have known as a series of dreams. It seemed like an appropriate metaphor to me. However, it is always a slippery business to translate the images and sensations of dreams into words, syntax and story. Each of these elements imposes a world-view and an interpretation on what Freud called “the royal road to the unconscious.”
Categories
Courtly Love
[The Karma Refugees, 2017, Walter Benjamin, William Blake, John Keats, James Ensor, Courtly Love, Intellectual and physical ruin] When Tom Daddesio and I started our exploration of reggae music and cultural theory, we had no idea we would someday play the music. We approached it as scholars and collectors of obscure Jamaican records. Sometime around […]
Mike Opitz: lead vocal, guitar, digitally assisted production and final mix Caitlin Brutger: keyboard, harmony vocals, production and mixing Brian Heilman: guitar, harmony vocals, production, mixing and final mastering Tom Daddesio: bass *** The strange events of last fall’ s election season mixed with the falling leaves and seemed to conjure up nostalgic feelings in […]
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Karma Refugee
1. Karma “Liberation is getting out of the toils of Karma. During your many past lives, you’ve done all kinds of deeds, good and bad and you are reaping the consequences of these deeds today. And also today, you’re setting up future consequences. Before you can be liberated, you’ve got to pay off your karmic […]
Categories
The Muse 2015
I learned about Suzanne Valadon from my wife, Maureen. At first, I was taken by Valadon’s evolution from an artist’s model into an artist. Her story evokes thoughts about gender, class, sexuality, celebrity and the economics of art. It made me think of how our culture deploys and exploits images of women. I wrote “The […]
Mike Opitz Song Writing and Theory Project 