Southpaw Jones

Tuesday is Music Day!

March 06, 2007 By: Southpaw Jones Category: Lyrics, iPawed

iPawed [classic track]
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Good morning. I’m starting a new tradition here at the Gazette. You know how new CDs and DVDs are released on Tuesdays? Well, I’m going to try to tap into that energy and put some music into the world. Do I have a new recording today? Uh, no.

Instead, I present to you a recent classic from Bedroom Demos Vol. 1: Zero Demand. It’s called X-Ray Vision, and you can click below to hear and/or download the whole thing.

X-Ray Vision

This song and others are available for purchase on iTunes, and you can order hard copies on southpawjones.com!

This song came out of a weekly song title challenge at Cafe Mundi, back when Bruce Hughes joined Matt the Electrician and me regularly. I had one week to write this “X-Ray Vision,” and I distinctly remember planning not to do it. But then I got the idea of a man with uncontrollable x-ray vision. He’s looking all around, seeing through buildings, and he often can’t look his girlfriend in the face. That, my friends, is silly and tragic enough for a Southpaw Jones song. I combined that idea with a melody for an old folk song and voila!

The question is this: Did I realize that this was a fine metaphor for the life of an artist? Always tortured by the inner world instead of satisfied with the surface? Well, I wish I could say yes, but the truth is, I don’t remember.

When Joe Gross reviewed the CD for the Austin American-Statesman, he explored the idea:

Over spare, occasional drum-machine rhythms and guitar, Jones muses on the cons of uncontrollable “X-Ray Vision,” using the power as a metaphor for the constant mental wheel-turning with which artists make art: “I long to look at your skin/ I’m tired of worshiping what’s within” and “I’d rather see wrinkles than another lost soul.” But he can close with, “There’s a bone in your fried fish/I’d leave that bite there,” and pull it off.

There you go, and that there brings us to Act 2 of Music Day here at the Gazette. Now that you’ve heard the song, check out the lyrics! You should know that I almost went with “cod” instead of “fish” in that last line. It’s those decisions that haunt me in my sleep.

Original Song Lyrics
I write the songs that make the whole world read:

X-Ray Vision

You’ve got beautiful muscles and a big wholesome heart
Your ribs start together and then drift apart
There’s black in your lung from the smoke of your youth
And some minor decay in your #12 tooth

But I long to look at your skin, your skin
I’m tired of worshipping what’s within
For once I could act like those shallow ass guys
Who stare at your chest, not straight through your eyes

I couldn’t describe the shade of your hair
As well as the shapes in the building back there
The man in that high rise is about to disrobe
So I return my attention to your frontal lobe

But I long to look at your flesh
I’m bored with watching your nerve endings mesh
I’d rather be dealing with your blemished face
Than to know all the routes that your blood vessels trace

I’ve got x-ray vision and I’ve got no control
I’d rather see wrinkles than another lost soul
And I’d rather see you comin’ through the hole in my door
Than to look down in sadness at the earth’s molten core

There’s a bone in your fried fish
I’d leave that bite there.

Gained in Translation
Works magically refreshed by translation and re-translation:

X-Ray Vision
(translated from English to Portuguese, then Portuguese to English)

You have.got the pretty muscles and a heart that wholesome great
its reinforcements start together and drift there then distant
are black in its lung of the tobacco of its youth
and of some lesser deterioration in its tooth #12

But I long to look at its skin, its skin
that I am tired to adore what he is inside
for a flat time me could act as those guys
that they look at fixed in its box, straight right-hander nao of the donkey its eyes

I could not describe the mask of its hair
as.well.as the forms in the building I stop there backwards
the man who the high ascension is approximately to disrobe
thus that I return mine attention its lobe frontal

But I long to look at its meat that
I am pierced with giving to attention its mesh of endings of nerve
I to rather I would be dealing with its face blemished
of that it stops knowing all the routes who its boats of blood follow

I have.got the vision of ray X and I not have.got no control
that I would see to rather wrinklings of that one another lost soul
and I we would see it to rather comin ‘ through the puncture in my door
of that for looking at for softly in sadness in the melted nucleus of the land

He has a bone in its fish that fried
I would leave this bite there.

“The melted nucleus of the land!” I love it.

Online Museum of the Week
Oolong the Rabbit (with objects on his head) :