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Gone to Earth
Jul. 22nd, 2022 04:21 pmI got into David Sylvian by way of Japan (which I got into in turn via Duran Duran.) Japan, for those not cognizant, was a British band in the late 70s/early 80s, who really found their stride with the last two albums they did before breaking up. They were a huge influence on Duran Duran, and I traced things backwards to them the way I did with David Bowie and Jean Cocteau.
I remember tracking down imports of Japan CDs when I was in college. I'd been curious about David Sylvian, but hadn't had the chance to listen to his work. I took a leap and bought a copy of Gone to Earth, having been reassured by a friend that his music was quite similar to Japan.
Put plainly, it was not. Even with a couple of Japan members on board, this was something new and strange to me. But after the initial culture shock, I taped it and took the tape with me to the beach.
My parents bought a timeshare unit a little before timeshares had developed such a sleazy reputation. We'd been coming down to Florida each summer for so long I'd taken my first steps on the beach. A timeshare seemed the perfect arrangement--a fixed week in a fixed place by a beach we were intimately familiar with. We'd been going for many years when I trundled down with my taped copy.
I listened to it out on the balcony. Several times. In one week. The music blended perfectly with the scene--the waving palm trees, the swooping birds, the strolling clouds, the all-encompassing sunlight.
The next year, I brought the tape and listened to it out on the balcony again. And again.
I found out that Gone to Earth was originally a double album--one disc vocal; the other instrumental--and ached to have those lost songs. When I ended up living in Japan (country, not band) I came across a 2-CD version that had everything. I bought it immediately, but I had to wait until I'd gotten home to hear it, because I didn't have a CD player with me.
I updated the tape I'd made by adding some of the lost tracks to the spare spaces on it. I couldn't get them all to fit, so "Camp Fire Coyote Country" got tacked to the end of the tape I'd made of Rain Tree Crow (where it fit quite nicely, in fact). Eventually, I made a whole new tape with Disc A on side A and Disc B on side B. And I listened out on the balcony. Again and again.
Technology advanced. I went from a portable tape player to a portable CD player, then to a laptop, then to an iPod Mini, then to an iPhone, and then (this year) back down to the laptop because I forgot the little headphone adapter dongle to fit with my hastily purchased earbuds. And, when the weather permitted (it did not always) I got out to the balcony and listened.
Today I listened out on that balcony and it is the last time I will be able to do so. My parents have decided to sell the timeshares (we obtained a second one so we could host all the spouses and children my siblings have accumulated) and switch to renting units earlier in the year, when the heat is not so blinding. I will listen to Gone to Earth on whatever balcony we wind up on, but it will not be that place, where I watched the palm trees grow from obscuring the ocean view to framing it. It will not be the view I know by heart.
But I know this place well enough to use it as a memory palace. I can walk through all the rooms in my head. And if I really want to invoke it, all I have to do...
...is play Gone to Earth.
I remember tracking down imports of Japan CDs when I was in college. I'd been curious about David Sylvian, but hadn't had the chance to listen to his work. I took a leap and bought a copy of Gone to Earth, having been reassured by a friend that his music was quite similar to Japan.
Put plainly, it was not. Even with a couple of Japan members on board, this was something new and strange to me. But after the initial culture shock, I taped it and took the tape with me to the beach.
My parents bought a timeshare unit a little before timeshares had developed such a sleazy reputation. We'd been coming down to Florida each summer for so long I'd taken my first steps on the beach. A timeshare seemed the perfect arrangement--a fixed week in a fixed place by a beach we were intimately familiar with. We'd been going for many years when I trundled down with my taped copy.
I listened to it out on the balcony. Several times. In one week. The music blended perfectly with the scene--the waving palm trees, the swooping birds, the strolling clouds, the all-encompassing sunlight.
The next year, I brought the tape and listened to it out on the balcony again. And again.
I found out that Gone to Earth was originally a double album--one disc vocal; the other instrumental--and ached to have those lost songs. When I ended up living in Japan (country, not band) I came across a 2-CD version that had everything. I bought it immediately, but I had to wait until I'd gotten home to hear it, because I didn't have a CD player with me.
I updated the tape I'd made by adding some of the lost tracks to the spare spaces on it. I couldn't get them all to fit, so "Camp Fire Coyote Country" got tacked to the end of the tape I'd made of Rain Tree Crow (where it fit quite nicely, in fact). Eventually, I made a whole new tape with Disc A on side A and Disc B on side B. And I listened out on the balcony. Again and again.
Technology advanced. I went from a portable tape player to a portable CD player, then to a laptop, then to an iPod Mini, then to an iPhone, and then (this year) back down to the laptop because I forgot the little headphone adapter dongle to fit with my hastily purchased earbuds. And, when the weather permitted (it did not always) I got out to the balcony and listened.
Today I listened out on that balcony and it is the last time I will be able to do so. My parents have decided to sell the timeshares (we obtained a second one so we could host all the spouses and children my siblings have accumulated) and switch to renting units earlier in the year, when the heat is not so blinding. I will listen to Gone to Earth on whatever balcony we wind up on, but it will not be that place, where I watched the palm trees grow from obscuring the ocean view to framing it. It will not be the view I know by heart.
But I know this place well enough to use it as a memory palace. I can walk through all the rooms in my head. And if I really want to invoke it, all I have to do...
...is play Gone to Earth.
