Post by wildbill on Jun 29, 2006 18:37:00 GMT -5
While searching for the lyrics to Jubilee, I found some interesting information about the song and the writers.
It was based on an old appalachian song with new original lyrics specifically written for PAPER CLIPS by Charlie Barnett and Joe Fab. Alison Krauss is accompanied by Andrea Zonn and Cheryl White. It was recorded at The Brown Cloud in Nashville, TN. Gary Paczosa was the Engineer & Thomas Johnson was Assistant Engineer.
Here are the lyrics and some personal recollections by Joe Fab.
The sun came up on Monday morn,
The world was all in flames.
It’s all a mortal man can do
To make it right again.
Swing and turn, Jubilee.
Live and learn, Jubilee.
The moon came up, I stood my ground
And swore to not give in,
To never rest and do my best
To rid this world of sin.
Swing and turn, Jubilee.
Live and learn, Jubilee.
The one who spoke cried tears of hope
That we might change in time,
And when I looked into her eyes
The fear I saw was mine.
Swing and turn, Jubilee.
Live and learn, Jubilee.
The time had come to travel on.
I made my way alone.
My soul will mend at journey’s end.
This road will take me home.
Swing and turn, Jubilee.
Live and learn, Jubilee.
“I think you have to write the other two verses. Talk to you later!” Click.
That was the message on my voice mail from my always-chipper new friend, composer Charlie Barnett. Not that I minded the task, not at all. I’d actually LIKE to add “lyricist” to the list of things I’ve done. It’s just that I’d never written lyrics before – not seriously, anyway – not lyrics that anybody would ever hear who wasn’t in the bathroom during my shower. And these particular lyrics, we hoped, would be sung by the glorious bluegrass singer Alison Krauss.
I couldn’t say no. Besides, Charlie had already done the heavy lifting on this song – the only music with words in our documentary film PAPER CLIPS. He’d worked magic in response to my request to find an authentic regional song that could become a theme woven through the score he was writing…
It was a Saturday morning a couple of weeks after I’d given him the assignment. My home phone rang and on it was Charlie in the midst of one of his signature fits of enthusiasm: “Listen to this!” I could hear him pounding on his piano – a jaunty square dance called JUBILEE that he’d found in a collection of old public domain standards. It was bouncy and catchy and all dosey-doe and completely wrong.
“No, Charlie, no! How can you think…” “Wait!” he interrupted. “Now listen when I play it s-l-o-w-l-y.” And then his hands made love to the piano keys, and I smiled at the melody that audiences would take with them when they left the theatre, a little musical implant in their minds to help them carry the message of our film out into the world with them.
Although the original JUBILEE had more verses than DAVY CROCKETT none of them fit for us. The chorus, however, was perfect poetry for the dance of life: “Swing and turn, Jubilee. Live and learn, Jubilee.”
What happened after I heard that voice mail message is a fuzzy memory. Charlie had already written two verses that were right on the money:
The sun came up on Monday morn.
The world was all in flame.
It’s all a mortal man can do
To make it right again.
The moon came up. I stood my ground
And swore to not give in,
To never rest and do my best
To rid this world of sin.
His words were wonderfully in sync with the content of PAPER CLIPS, evocative without being at all heavy-handed. Not at all like my first pass – lyrics I can’t print for you here because I can’t find them anymore (honest!). Let’s just say that the reaction to what I first turned out was unanimously negative, and I had to agree.
So here’s the point of even recounting this little tale: the combined experiences of PAPER CLIPS have taught me that whether I am working on a film or writing a lyric, the key is to stay in touch with the essence of the subject, and try to channel that into the medium at hand. No, I’m sure that doesn’t sound like much of a revelation, but for me it has been a tremendous breakthrough in creativity and expression.
I swept my initial dismay aside and dwelt upon one of the first intense moments of filming PAPER CLIPS. I sat opposite Holocaust survivor Rachel Gleitman for close to two hours as she recounted some of her amazing, distressing experiences. My job was mostly to listen, to maintain eye contact, to be her attentive audience. And from that memory came words that included my unspoken reaction to her painful recollections:
The one who spoke cried tears of hope,
That we might change in time.
And as I looked into her eyes
The fear I saw was mine.
I read the words on my laptop screen, and they felt right. The next verse came a bit more easily, as I turned to the railcar that is such a powerful image at the center of our film. Its long trip from a museum in Germany to the schoolyard in rural Tennessee had always seemed both lonely and profound:
The time had come to travel on.
I made my way alone.
My soul will mend at journey’s end.
This road will take me home.
That verse felt right too.
So now, I stand in the dark in the rear of movie theatres all over the country as I travel to festivals and openings, and I hear Alison Krauss sing those words of Charlie’s and mine. And I count the blessings that have flowed my way from being a part of this amazing experience called PAPER CLIPS.
Swing and turn, Jubilee.
Live and learn, Jubilee.
Perfect poetry for the dance of life...
© Joe Fab (2/5/05)
It was based on an old appalachian song with new original lyrics specifically written for PAPER CLIPS by Charlie Barnett and Joe Fab. Alison Krauss is accompanied by Andrea Zonn and Cheryl White. It was recorded at The Brown Cloud in Nashville, TN. Gary Paczosa was the Engineer & Thomas Johnson was Assistant Engineer.
Here are the lyrics and some personal recollections by Joe Fab.
The sun came up on Monday morn,
The world was all in flames.
It’s all a mortal man can do
To make it right again.
Swing and turn, Jubilee.
Live and learn, Jubilee.
The moon came up, I stood my ground
And swore to not give in,
To never rest and do my best
To rid this world of sin.
Swing and turn, Jubilee.
Live and learn, Jubilee.
The one who spoke cried tears of hope
That we might change in time,
And when I looked into her eyes
The fear I saw was mine.
Swing and turn, Jubilee.
Live and learn, Jubilee.
The time had come to travel on.
I made my way alone.
My soul will mend at journey’s end.
This road will take me home.
Swing and turn, Jubilee.
Live and learn, Jubilee.
“I think you have to write the other two verses. Talk to you later!” Click.
That was the message on my voice mail from my always-chipper new friend, composer Charlie Barnett. Not that I minded the task, not at all. I’d actually LIKE to add “lyricist” to the list of things I’ve done. It’s just that I’d never written lyrics before – not seriously, anyway – not lyrics that anybody would ever hear who wasn’t in the bathroom during my shower. And these particular lyrics, we hoped, would be sung by the glorious bluegrass singer Alison Krauss.
I couldn’t say no. Besides, Charlie had already done the heavy lifting on this song – the only music with words in our documentary film PAPER CLIPS. He’d worked magic in response to my request to find an authentic regional song that could become a theme woven through the score he was writing…
It was a Saturday morning a couple of weeks after I’d given him the assignment. My home phone rang and on it was Charlie in the midst of one of his signature fits of enthusiasm: “Listen to this!” I could hear him pounding on his piano – a jaunty square dance called JUBILEE that he’d found in a collection of old public domain standards. It was bouncy and catchy and all dosey-doe and completely wrong.
“No, Charlie, no! How can you think…” “Wait!” he interrupted. “Now listen when I play it s-l-o-w-l-y.” And then his hands made love to the piano keys, and I smiled at the melody that audiences would take with them when they left the theatre, a little musical implant in their minds to help them carry the message of our film out into the world with them.
Although the original JUBILEE had more verses than DAVY CROCKETT none of them fit for us. The chorus, however, was perfect poetry for the dance of life: “Swing and turn, Jubilee. Live and learn, Jubilee.”
What happened after I heard that voice mail message is a fuzzy memory. Charlie had already written two verses that were right on the money:
The sun came up on Monday morn.
The world was all in flame.
It’s all a mortal man can do
To make it right again.
The moon came up. I stood my ground
And swore to not give in,
To never rest and do my best
To rid this world of sin.
His words were wonderfully in sync with the content of PAPER CLIPS, evocative without being at all heavy-handed. Not at all like my first pass – lyrics I can’t print for you here because I can’t find them anymore (honest!). Let’s just say that the reaction to what I first turned out was unanimously negative, and I had to agree.
So here’s the point of even recounting this little tale: the combined experiences of PAPER CLIPS have taught me that whether I am working on a film or writing a lyric, the key is to stay in touch with the essence of the subject, and try to channel that into the medium at hand. No, I’m sure that doesn’t sound like much of a revelation, but for me it has been a tremendous breakthrough in creativity and expression.
I swept my initial dismay aside and dwelt upon one of the first intense moments of filming PAPER CLIPS. I sat opposite Holocaust survivor Rachel Gleitman for close to two hours as she recounted some of her amazing, distressing experiences. My job was mostly to listen, to maintain eye contact, to be her attentive audience. And from that memory came words that included my unspoken reaction to her painful recollections:
The one who spoke cried tears of hope,
That we might change in time.
And as I looked into her eyes
The fear I saw was mine.
I read the words on my laptop screen, and they felt right. The next verse came a bit more easily, as I turned to the railcar that is such a powerful image at the center of our film. Its long trip from a museum in Germany to the schoolyard in rural Tennessee had always seemed both lonely and profound:
The time had come to travel on.
I made my way alone.
My soul will mend at journey’s end.
This road will take me home.
That verse felt right too.
So now, I stand in the dark in the rear of movie theatres all over the country as I travel to festivals and openings, and I hear Alison Krauss sing those words of Charlie’s and mine. And I count the blessings that have flowed my way from being a part of this amazing experience called PAPER CLIPS.
Swing and turn, Jubilee.
Live and learn, Jubilee.
Perfect poetry for the dance of life...
© Joe Fab (2/5/05)
