Dark night of the White Knight’s soul: 'Dark of My Moon' Part 2

He Had a Way

For a man who made a career out of writing poignant songs of romantic loss, it is interesting to note the extent to which Gene’s lyrics – from the chivalric juvenilia of ‘She Has a Way’ in 1965 to the cri de coeur of ‘Your Fire Burning’ in 1990 – avoided the kind of bitterness and recrimination one often sees in songs of love gone wrong (e.g. ‘Dylan’s ‘Idiot Wind’; Alanis Morrissette’s ‘You Oughta Know’; or Hüsker Dü’s ‘Never Talking to You Again’). More often than not, the voice of loss that found expression in Gene Clark’s oeuvre did not target the woman who spurned him, it looked inward for answers to the question that inevitably arises out of such circumstances: What the fuck just happened? 

When immediate answers to that question were not forthcoming, Clark’s muse sometimes led him towards the path of hopefulness (‘Think I’m Gonna Feel Better’) in which he bids a regretful farewell to the woman who rejected him, but actually summons the courage to wish her well:

I hope you understand that I

Still love you so bad

But when tomorrow morning comes

I hope that you will see the sun shine too

Come shining through

More often than not, however, the despair of romantic loss propelled the narrator – and the listener – headlong into the darkest recesses of the human psyche.

Gene often wrote from the perspective of an idealistic, sensitive youth attempting to make sense of a woman’s rejection after having followed the chivalric code of honour to the letter (e.g. “I was really good to her”; “I did all the things that I should”). Those lines from ‘She Has a Way’ epitomize the narrative tone of Clark’s early material.  Indeed the entire song encapsulates Gene’s courtly-love-infused mindset in his lyrical approach to romance.  Accordingly, for the purposes of comparing Clark’s early material with ‘Dark of My Moon’, we’ll use it as a point of reference.

In these early songs like ‘She Has a Way,’ Clark often adopted the role of the eager but passive supplicant, who waits impatiently (but waits nonetheless), and is always faithful, dutiful, courteous and gentlemanly. And he is always amenable to a reunion:

I didn’t think that I would wait for her very long,

But I didn’t realize my love for her was so strong.

Love's Greatest Fool

Now, as we all know, love is under no obligation to make sense, nor is it obliged to yield unto the wishes of even the most honourable knight in the court.  It is this reality that makes the narrator’s quest for reasonable answers to the mysteries and vicissitudes of romance all the more poignant (incidentally, this tragic irony is apparent in virtually every one of Gene’s songs of romantic loss).  Clark must have known this, yet he consistently used the spurned  “I” in his songs as a proxy who sought an explanation for the inexplicable. Whether this was a conscious use of dramatic irony is debatable.  He may have genuinely wanted answers to these questions that he voiced in song.

Although he suspects his beloved of being chronically promiscuous (“She has a way about her/That makes her run around”), and feels he’s been chewed up, spat out and made to look the fool (“The way she took me all apart/And made me the laugh of the town”), the song ends with the chorus and its gentle speculation about the chances of her settling down someday.  For the listener, it’s unclear whether the narrator is wondering if she’ll settle down with him, or whether he's questioning her capability of settling with anyone. For the Clarkian hero, however, this question is unimportant; he simply accepts his fate, is duly saddened by it, but does not wish any ill upon her.

Fast-forward approximately 25 years to ‘Dark of My Moon’ and one finds that apart from the adult trappings of its subject matter (thoroughly dysfunctional co-dependent relationship), the narrator’s reaction to events is largely consistent with that of the early Clark efforts – with some notable exceptions.

First, let’s look at the similarities vis-à-vis the structure of the song (which, incidentally, begins – by accident – in media res: apparently Gene was so anxious to get the song on his four-track that he forgot to wait for the leader to pass at the beginning of the tape).  The first 43 seconds sounds like it could have been written circa early 1965.  Imagine Michael Clarke’s clunky-but-cute drumming and McGuinn’s Rickenbacker playing alongside Gene here.  Granted, it’s tough to do because of Gene’s ghostly, echo-laden voice, sooty from cigarettes.  But listen to the melody in those first 43 seconds.  Played at a faster tempo, in a more upbeat tone and you’ve got something along the lines of ‘I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better.’ Even the lyrics sound somewhat familiar:

You're on the run

You're on the run again

And I'm missing you.

You're on the run

You're havin' fun again

At the cost of me and you.

Back in My Life...Again 

In ‘She Has a Way, the elusive woman has a tendency to “run around”; here she is “on the run again.” The former phrase connotes unfaithfulness; the latter accuses her of fleeing from the relationship, or possibly even engaging in something illegal.

The use of the word “again” is a qualifier that gives us our first clue about the dysfunctional nature of the relationship.  Clearly this isn’t the first incident of flight and return.  As we shall see, however, it may be the last.

In any event, the first 43 seconds of the song constitute a kind of introduction to the piece, much like the opening section of ‘Pledge to You.’  In both cases the intros are sung once, and never repeated (This is an interesting quirk found in Gene’s later work that I often wish he had more time to explore in the context of polished studio recordings).  At this stage the mood is wistful but not entirely hopeless. 

It is at the 0:44, however, when both singer and song are cast headlong into hell. The chord struck here is a game-changer, and hits with the force of a sledgehammer to the heart when Gene sings “Midnight hour/And the eyes of passion go flashin' out of your/Ivory tower/As you sip your wine of fashion.” The narrator could be speaking to the woman face to face, accusing her of using sex as a means of repairing past absences.  Or he might also be sitting alone after midnight, torturing himself with images of her flirtations with hipsters as part of some post-argument assertion of independence. Significantly, the “sip your wine of fashion” line is spat out with uncharacteristic contempt: stripped of her pretension by someone who knows her only too well, he exposes her as a social-climbing attention-whore.

So intent is she upon becoming a socialite that she exhibits no sense of guilt or shame for any behaviour that she believes will improve her station, no matter who gets stepped on.  Is she simply adopting a Machiavellian outlook on things?  Or is she exhibiting sign of something more serious – like sociopathy? Impossible to say really, but it’s perfectly clear that he, at least, believes her behaviour is having a deleterious effect on their relationship, if not his very existence:

You say that you will never despair because

You, no matter what you do, you don't care

And I see my sky turn black and my moon get dark without you.

Because of you.

Just as an aside, it’s interesting to see the words “because of you” in another Clark-penned song.  Obviously it was not meant as a direct allusion to the track White Light track (although I wish it were!) but it does cultivate a sense of continuity in authorship. 

If the insinuation of her being an attention-whore was not explicit enough, the next verse kicks it up a notch.  The narrator accuses the woman of literally prostituting herself to fund a hedonistic lifestyle during his absences.  These lines contain the most vicious, damning rhetoric in Gene Clark’s canon:

When I'm gone

You sell your time to anyone who can afford

To foot the bill for the way you carry on.

You have no fear of breaking hearts 'cause

You say the life that you live is just too short.

What we have here is a completely dysfunctional, codependent relationship between a belligerent

narcissist and a sentimental, sensitive masochist, who keeps going back for more:

I can't believe that you want to leave again

That's the tenth time that you went and then came back and asked me

You expect me to just be there and

Take back you and tell you how much I care

In the end, ‘Dark of My Moon’ constitutes a joust to the death between two conflicting forces: on one side is the White Knight of ‘She Has a Way’, who represents the chivalric code; a silent sentinel waiting to serve and honour his queen. On the other is the Dark Knight who lapses into “fits of passion” and castigates his queen for her indiscretions and irresponsible behaviour.

What is important here is the aftermath of the clash.  Since she is perceived to be unapologetic, impervious to guilt or shame, it is he who stands with the most to lose in the disintegration of the relationship.  It is a war of attrition that he, as the only one apparently capable of feeling, must lose.  Indeed, the final image of a dark moon in a black sky insinuates that the end of the codependent relationship is, for both participants, nigh.  And with his voice cracking and crippled in a cigarette-soiled burr, Gene’s final lines sound almost like those of a man who is consciously writing his own epitaph, as he lay on his deathbed:

And my sky gets black and my moon goes dark because of you.

Lyrics of 'Dark of My Moon'

Here are the lyrics of 'Dark of My Moon.'  I'll be posting part 2 tomorrow.

Dark of My Moon

By Gene Clark
From the album Gypsy Angel 

You're on the run

You're on the run again

And I'm missing you.

You're on the run

You're havin' fun again

At the cost of me and you.

Midnight hour

And the eyes of passion go flashin' out of your

Ivory tower

As you sip your wine of fashion and you

You say that you will never despair because

You, no matter what you do you don't care

And I see my sky turn black and my moon get dark without you.

Because of you.

When I'm gone

You sell your time to anyone who can afford

To foot the bill for the way you carry on.

You have no fear of breaking hearts 'cause

You say the life that you live is just too short.

And I get my sky painted black and my moon painted dark just by you,

And in a fit of passion the blue light’s flashin' at you.

I can't believe that you want to leave again

That's the tenth time that you went and then came back and asked me 

You expect me to just be there and

Take back you and tell you how much I care but

I see my eyes cry

As my sky turns black and my moon gets painted by you.

I have fits of passion, the sky was flashin' blue.

And my sky gets black and my moon goes dark.

I see my sky get black and my moon go dark without you

And the sky is flashin' a fit a passion blue

And there's thunder crashin', you sip your wine of fashion

and you

Get intoxicated on life and leave me here blue

And my sky gets black and my moon goes dark because of you.

New release: Here Tonight: The White Light Demos

As if in answer to the pleas of weary & frustrated Clarkophiles everywhere who have waited over 20 years for a major archival release, Omnivore Recordings is set to release Here Tonight: The White Light Demos on March 26, 2013.

Apart from the fact that all of these previously unreleased performances feature nothing but the purest of pure Gene Clark (i.e. Gene singing, with acoustic guitar and harmonica -- no other accompaniment) we are also treated to three legendary Clark compositions that have never been heard in any form: 'Jimmy Christ', 'Please Mr. Freud', and 'For No One.'

Here is the complete track list:


CD Track List:
1. WHITE LIGHT
2. HERE TONIGHT
3. FOR NO ONE
4. FOR A SPANISH GUITAR
5. PLEASE MR. FREUD
6. JIMMY CHRIST
7. WHERE MY LOVE LIES ASLEEP
8. THE VIRGIN
9. OPENING DAY
10. WINTER IN
11. BECAUSE OF YOU
12. WITH TOMORROW

God bless Omnivore Records!

My forthcoming Shindig! article on The Coral's Ian Skelly

Happy New Year!

Part 2 of my look at Gene's 'Dark of My Moon' has been delayed by two things: 1) the holidays; and 2) my current obsession, the magnificent debut solo album from the Coral's Ian Skelly, Cut from a Star.
So taken was I with this record that I felt compelled to drop everything, put other pressing matters on the back burner, and contact Shindig Magazine to pitch an idea for a story on it. They were receptive, and consequently I interviewed Ian yesterday and wrote the piece today.

I would strongly urge anyone with a love for dark, pastoral psych to seek out this record. In a word, it's magical. A stunning debut.

By the way, Ian is a big Gene Clark fan, so you just know he's a wonderful chap.  I was honoured to hear him say that he enjoys reading The Clarkophile.

‘Dark of My Moon’ Part 1: 1988-1991

Notwithstanding the excellence of So Rebellious a Lover, his 1987 duet album with Carla Olson, or Tom Petty’s high-profile 1989 cover of the evergreen ‘I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better’, Gene Clark’s professional reputation had reached its nadir in the last two and a half years of his life.

Why? Well, apart from the bridge-burning antics of the 1970s that precipitated the loss of contracts with major labels like Asylum and RSO, his mid-80s decision to form the 20th Anniversary Tribute to the Byrds – a loose aggregation of under-rehearsed, substance-abusing pirates and assorted confederates – betrayed almost pitiable desperation and shortsightedness, if not downright tackiness.  He must have really needed the money to sell his musical soul in this way.  Indeed, the Byrds tribute period is an awkward, if not cringe-inducing, time to discuss, even for Gene’s most ardent fans.  

After all, Gene had always been the coolest, most handsome Byrd; the one with sartorial dash and a darkly mysterious aura born of fascinating contrasts. He was by no means inarticulate, but Clark’s folksy speech gave no indication of the tortured poet within.  He had a muscular build that oozed rugged masculinity, yet he penned some of the most emotionally vulnerable lines in all of rock.  (As an aside, it’s my belief that this juxtaposition of strength and vulnerability largely constitutes Gene’s appeal to both sexes.) He had also created a body of work that commanded respect from his modest, but fiercely loyal, fanbase.  

The Byrds tribute period, however, tested the tenacity of one’s fandom and faith in -- as Paul Nelson put it in his notorious review of Two Sides To Every Story -- "the once-classy Clark." 

Indeed, some might say that this fateful decision robbed him of his previously unassailable cool, the stigma from which he would never fully recover (certainly the bitterness remained for McGuinn, Hillman & Crosby, who unforgivably froze Gene out of their brief reformation of the Byrds in 1989). 

Cynical, opportunistic cash-grabs like the Byrds 20^th Anniversary might reap benefits in the short term, but the lingering after-effects tend to besmirch the integrity of the brand.  Just ask any purist fan of The Who.

In the period immediately after the release of So Rebellious a Lover leading up to his death in May 1991, Gene had been out of the major leagues for over a decade.  He had seemingly resigned himself to the club circuit.  The promised follow-up to So Rebellious never seemed to materialize.  And, more ominously, on certain occasions Gene’s struggles with substance abuse were startlingly apparent – culminating in the coup de grâce at the Cinegrill in April 1991.  With all of these things in mind, any casual Clark fan could be forgiven for the retrospective assumption that, at the time of his death, Gene was simply a spent force; that there was, if you will forgive me, no other No Other in him.

“It’ll be fun to do a new record; I’m very much looking forward to it.”   Gene Clark, February 3, 1990

In spite of his fall from major-label grace, Gene certainly felt he had another record in him.  In both the posthumous official releases and various live tapes in circulation emanating from the 1988-1990 period, Gene speaks with palpable ebullience about a new record.  The stunning series of October '88 solo live recordings (he was on fire that month) provides fulsome evidence of a sober, fully focused performer in fine voice; his skills in no way diminished.  In stubborn defiance of the demons surging and conspiring within him, he continued to speak about some mysterious new album that was, alas, always on the horizon, just out of reach.  Out on the end of time.

But, tellingly, there is no effort to elaborate during these announcements; no details are ever provided.  His words are vague, non-committal.  Everything is qualified.  Everything is pending, suspended…intangible.

The word “probably” got used a lot.

Consider this exchange from October 2, 1988, Mountain Stage, West Virginia, later released on the In Concert CD, in which Larry Groce refers to a recent archival release (presumably Murray Hill’s Never Before) then turns to asking Gene about his current activities.

Groce: Your new album, solo album, is that in the works still? You said that you’ve released one of the old ---

Clark: I’ve got a new one in the works too. We’re in the preproduction right now. Should be started next month.

Groce: Original tunes?

Clark: Probably mostly.

Groce: What label is it on?  Is it placed yet?

Clark: We’re talking with a few right now, so …

With his curt response, “We’re talking with a few,” Gene accomplishes two things.  He perpetuates the notion that he’s still a big, swaggering star that the labels are fighting over – i.e., he’s still talking the talk.  (Whether this was merely braggadocio or a sign of acute delusion is up for debate.  I’d say the former.) He also manages to avoid the embarrassment of having to acknowledge that self-sabotage meant any label interest would have come from strictly minor league entities.

“I hope the moon is in the right place”

Two days later, on October 4, 1988, in Nashville, Gene introduced a song thusly:
“This is a song that I wrote not too long ago that hopefully will probably be on a record before too very long.  I’m actually supposed to start on this next month – November.  I hope the moon is in the right place, you know.” [italics mine]

Perhaps self-conscious about the quasi-mystical sound of this remark, Gene laughs with the audience, before further mocking himself, adopting the voice of a fast-talking music-biz type.  “You know how that goes, you get the moon in the wrong place…the album ain’t a hit…”

Self-deprecating comedy out of the way, Gene launches in a soul-stirring version of ‘My Marie’, replete with the “angry sons” verse he left off the legendary Mountain Stage performance.  No person in their right mind could hear this remarkable performance and come to the conclusion that Gene’s best days as a writer were behind him.

The truth of the matter is that, at the time of his death, Gene had put together his most impressive collection of songs since No Other.  And one of them, ‘Dark of My Moon’, almost seemed predictive of the final tragic irony in a life that was plagued by them. 

Yes, Gene had the songs for a major-label comeback and, quite possibly, the finest, most ambitious album of his career.  But his voice was getting weaker; his health more fragile.  

His moon was most decidedly not in the right place.  In fact it was becoming darker every day.

Coming soon: 'Dark of My Moon'

'The Day Walk' Part Two: The Hollywood Walk of Fame

'The Day Walk' (G. Clark)

Recorded September 14, 1965

The Day Walk

In your green room sit with a candle lit on a charcoal pit of dreams

You carry on

Though the streets are hot you can still allot that you can walk out and forget

There isn't time to take along.

But you're now into something that you were immune to before

And there wasn't a sign you just fell into line at the door

And the question stands in the palms of hands

Of the wretches/righteous picking pieces of their minds up off the floor.

On the mantel-place there is still a trace of the plastic face you hung

Your moments on

And the sudden scare of a landing there

On the scene that you don't care to even see when you're alone.

But the day is too short and you can't find support in the slums

You had thought you'd decide to just stick out the ride as it comes

But the emptiness of a thing that's less than what it was thought to be

Has left you wondering just how much more.

On August 21, 1965 the Byrds returned to Los Angeles from the British tour, but there would not be much in the way of time off.  Consider this: In the three-week period immediately after their return to U.S. soil, the Byrds played a welcome-home gig at the Hollywood Palladium (“The Byrds Ball”), recorded several key tracks (‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’, ‘She Don’t Care About Time’, ‘The World Turns All Around’ and the remake of ‘The Times They Are a-Changin’’), taped appearances on two TV shows (The Mike Douglas Show and Shindig) and, astonishingly, still found time to catch Dylan at the Hollywood Bowl and hang out with the then touring Beatles.   

And it was just over three weeks after their return, on September 14^th, the Byrds once again convened at the familiar surroundings of Columbia Recording Studios, Studio A, Sunset and El Centro with producer Terry Melcher to cut another Gene Clark composition. 

Boasting a muscular ‘Satisfaction’-inspired riff, Chris Hillman’s startlingly in-your-face bass, Michael Clarke’s most confident performance to date, and Gene Clark's Dylanesque surrealism, ‘The Day Walk’ was the Byrds' most ambitious song to date.  But at the song’s philosophical core lay the groundwork for Gene’s departure only five months later. Indeed, one might even say ‘The Day Walk’ constitutes Gene Clark’s resignation letter by proxy.  But it was a letter no one read for over 20 years: notwithstanding its obvious superiority to other material brought in and/or championed by McGuinn and Crosby for the upcoming Turn! Turn! Turn!, the Byrds, true to form, ditched the song; it remained unreleased until the Murray Hill Never Before collection came out in 1987.  By then even Gene himself had forgotten the title, and impulsively dubbed it 'Never Before.'

The concept of writing songs about the perils of fame is nothing new.  It was the fodder for many songs written by rock’s pampered, self-piteous elite.  The Byrds themselves would go on to write a wry anthem tangentially associated with that subject (‘So You Want to be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star’). But how many of these songs were written by a 20-year-old who had been a star for less than six months?

For Gene, the idea of becoming a star was much more attractive than the unfolding reality.

Sung in an indifferent, soporific drawl that positive reeks of pot smoke, the opening verse is directed at an unnamed “you”, which, for purposes of discussion, is assumed to be the narrator speaking to himself.  The lyrics describe a scene in which an individual bides his time offstage before a television appearance (“In your green room sit with a candle lit”).  The “sit/candle lit” line is a nice use of internal rhyme, with an image that might connote peacefulness, contemplativeness and solitude.  Juxtaposed with the immediately adjacent image of a “charcoal pit of dreams,” however, one senses a dream that once burned bright is now a scorched black hole.

The idea of allotting time in one’s busy schedule for an walk outdoors is presented as a means of solace, and yet it is plagued with the knowledge that one’s presence is always required elsewhere; that such moments of solitude are fleeting at best (“You can still allot that you can walk out and forget there isn’t time to take along”).  The line is clumsily written but sounds cool when sung, and contains almost enough dry humour to pull it off. 

There is no handbook, nor list of dos and don’ts, to handle the sudden onset of fame.  Pressures from management, fans and fellow bandmates, along with whatever demons within one’s soul conspire alongside these disparate forces, inevitably take their toll.  One need only look at Brian Jones, Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix and Pete Ham, all of whom were sensitive men, ill-equipped to deal with sudden fame, to appreciate Gene’s predicament, masterfully captured in the chorus:

But you're now into something that you were immune to before

And there wasn't a sign, you just fell into line at the door.

Equating celebrity with a virulent disease from which one had previously been immune is an utterly brilliant commentary on the vicissitudes of fame.  Hollywood history is filled with stories of people who fought, betrayed, cheated and lied to maintain their status.  If the idea of comparing fame to a sickness indicates an inchoate awareness of its ultimate perils, passive, lemming-like acceptance of its allure (“you just fell into line at the door”) intimates the insidious manner in which one was first drawn to it.

The meaning of the next two lines is difficult, insofar as the lazy delivery of the backing vocals makes accurate transcription of them a challenge:

And the question stands (sands?) in the palms of hands

Of the righteous (wretches?) picking pieces of their minds up off the floor.

Gene was very fond of the word “stand” around the time of the Turn! Turn! Turn! album; it is used in two of his three contributions (‘Set You Free This Time’ and ‘If You’re Gone’).  So while sands running through palms of hands is, admittedly, an archetypal image Clark was doubtless aware of, the idea of a standing, unanswered question seems to be the more likely choice here.

In his brilliant book, Requiem for the Timeless Volume 1, Johnny Rogan assumes the word in the second line is “righteous,” while many others are of the view it is “wretches.” I tend to agree with Rogan, so consequently all of the discussion will be based on that understanding of the lyric.

The righteous, with whom resolution of the unknown, unanswered Question rests, are preoccupied elsewhere, “picking pieces of their minds off the floor”.

This is an interesting image, which might possibly refer to the desperate, ego-driven cogs caught within the Hollywood star machine.

In the next verse, Gene continues the pattern of internal rhyme (“On the mantel-place there is still a trace of the plastic face you hung your moments on”) in a manner that further suggests exposure to, and wanton participation in, the prerequisite artificiality of showbiz, suggested in the “plastic face” hung on the mantel and presumably donned when apropos, like Shakespearean happy/sad theatre masks. (It should be noted that this image predates, by some months, the face kept “in a jar by the door” famously described in McCartney’s much-analyzed, much-celebrated ‘Eleanor Rigby’.)

The next two lines feature more inspired internal rhyme, and use the analogy of a precarious airplane landing to communicate a fear of landing “there, on the scene that you don’t care to even see when you’re alone.”

What “scene”?  Where is “there”?  Presumably this is an allusion to Britain (specifically London) or, possibly, if written while in Britain, the Sunset Strip, both of which were the hotbed of popular music at the time.

Either way it’s interpreted, the line suggests an aversion to the assorted scene-makers, hangers-on and hipsters whom glom on to celebrity in search of reflected glory.

Still out on his walk, it is apparent that time, or the lack thereof, is still an issue, as is the inability to find benign souls of substance and support in Hollywood, which is now likened to a slum:

But the day is too short and you can't find support in the slums

You had thought you'd decide to just stick out the ride as it comes

It is in the final two lines that that the previously unclear question – the question that once stood in the palms of the righteous – is now asked and addressed in the payoff line:

But the emptiness of a thing that's less than what it was thought to be

Has left you wondering just how much more.

The soullessness of fame (“the emptiness”) is discovered to be hollow (“less than it was thought to be”), all of which leads to The Question: How much more?  How much more of this can be absorbed before one’s dreams disintegrate in the embers of a blackened charcoal pit?

For Gene Clark, the answer to The Question was five brief months.

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