Rimbaud was a French poet from the mid and late nineteenth
century. He was a child prodigy lumped with the Fauvists for
his vivid and exciting work which didn't resemble the usually
more mannered poetry of the time, and which led to him being
called, much later, the father of modern poetry.
He ran away from home a lot and ended up going to Paris from
his home near the Belgian border after sending Verlaine one of
his poems. He was invited to come and stay and the two
became lovers. Together they roamed the netherworlds of Paris
getting drunk on absinthe and generally being rowdy, abusive
and unpleasant - a certain kind of rock 'n' roll tour. Amazingly
enough, Verlaine's marriage survived this but not his
increasingly violent behaviour later - He even shot Rimbaud in
the wrist at one stage.
Rimbaud spent a little time in London living in Camden and
hanging out at the library of the British Musueum (free pencils!) and then wandered Europe by foot. He gave up writing
poetry at 21 or so - he was totally sick of being broke, for one thing -
but kept up writing letters and ended up as some sort of
agent in Africa and with a relationship with a local woman. He
died in Marsailles, aged 37, from something nasty, with his
sister Isabelle by his side.
It's a short, somewhat sad story. As far as the rockers go,
Jim Morrison of the Doors was a big fan and no doubt based
some of his antics on those of the man who went before - or at
least the theory of the thing - shock and horror with literary
pretensions. He might also have felt a kinship from the fact
that both had military fathers who were at least distant.
Rimbaud's father decided after a posting that he didn't even
want to see his family anymore and went off to live by himself. Who can know if Morrison's last days in Paris
involved some kind of Rimbaldian search and destroy mission?
He was, by all accounts, sick of being a rock star and there's
no doubt he wanted more serious recognition.
Another link comes through Television guitarist Tom
Verlaine just because of the name he chose for himself and
certainly, his angular, semi-minimal guitar work had great
beauty and an obvious yearning to be closer to art then a
yelled-over three minute thrash. At first glance it might not
be apparent why the name Verlaine should be chosen at all but perhaps
it was the louche loser thing that said 'Punk' quite clearly.
What of today? The Babyshambles guy certainly has the excess
thing covered (and excess by itself is merely that) and shows
threatening signs that he'd like to be taken seriously. Time
will tell on that one but right now it looks like the Libertines
might be a close as he'd come, and that isn't that close.
But what about the "art" thing generally? Some people with
binary brains (off-on, black-white) like to think that the only
valid sort of "popular" music is their sort - trash pop, classic
rock, music with deep lyrics, music with no lyrics.. whatever.
Of course, all the strands are valid - they just are - like it
or not! And then what people see as a shambles at one time
might be seen as art at another, like Rimbaud.
(thunderfinger)
Mstation Pop etc Commentary, Reviews
pre Dec 04 reviews are here
Wed, 30 Apr 2008
