michael lambe's scrapbook

Umm huh!
You wouldn’t forget him either if you
had met him where I met him
Talkin’ about desolation!
Desolation is a railroad station ‘roun’ about 2:00 am on a weeknight
When you walk into desolation like that
and suddenly, from nowhere comes a
warm song, you aren’t about to forget it.

Betty H. Neals (From Introduction to Theme for the Eulipions)

The other night I had a dream like this: a jazz band playing in a smoky old bar and one guy in particular playing sax and he is hitting all these sweet sounds,  and it’s soooo good, because of all the joy and the heartbreak in it and just being happy to be alive, him just happy to play it and me just happy to hear… How wonderful if I could sing or play like that I thought as I woke up tangled in bedclothes.

Then tonight, back in reality,  I’m on my way home from work, and I have this really strong urge to pop into Lush Life for a bit. I haven’t been there for ages. Not since Randy Weston was here. So I order a beer and the guy there puts on a Rahsaan Roland Kirk record and I hear the voice of Betty H. Neals talking about the Eulipions:

Listen!
Listen to his tune. Call’s it his “Duty Free Gift” for the traveller.
Like I said
This is the first time I’ve seen him at an airport.
I know he moves along the piers.
Calls himself a “Journey Agent”, a “Eulipian”.
Say his friends, the poets, the artists, the musicians are the journey agents too…

Betty H. Neals (From Introduction to Theme for the Eulipions)

Well, that got me interested. Who is this Betty H. Neals, I wondered, and who are these Eulipions? (And I still do, because I can’t find anything on her on the interwebs…) But back in Lush Life, the saxaphone starts playing, and I am looking out the window at the young people returning bicycles to the shop next door and they look like they’ve had a good day cycling round the city, even on a cold grey day like this, and I am thinking about how strange it is that I’m sitting here in a cafe in Kyoto, Japan, listening to old jazz records, and how weirdly normal that has become to me… What a strange and wonderful reality I’m living in I’m thinking… and then I think how really really strange it is that I heard this song before once, in a dream:

If there were so Sun,
You would have this Song
To give warmth and light
And to keep you strong.

I would make Love a Gas
Spinning ’round and ’round
And when meteors fall,
Love would reach the ground.

And this lady, and it is a lady mind you, is singing Betty H. Neal’s words like they are a hymn, all glorious and sonorous and spiritual. And despite myself I’m moved. So I ask for the album sleeve and I write every single last word down. And I’m glad I did too because you know what? You might find this in your dreams but it aint on Wikipedia.

If there was no Moon
To control the tides,
There would be these notes
As the sailors guide.

We would make Song the King.
Have all praises sung
Call the author of Love
A Eulipion.
(Betty H. Neals Theme for the Eulipions)