Aaron Freeman - Nature Man (lyrics)

Nature Man (Aaron Freeman)

You could be my Nature Man

And I could be your Nature Girl

Walking with our boots on 

Streams of love trickling down 

Mr. Nature Man comes to me like a little girl

throwing daggers in the buildings

Southern eyes of greed and shame

Skin of paste and liquor

 throw your line to me I see your pain

You could be my Nature Man

And I could be your Nature Girl

Walking with our boots on 

Streams of love trickling down 

Have you held a newborne flower? 

Plucked yourself a sprig of Thyme in summer

A Yam in winter

 Take the shell of your soul and come with me

You could be my Nature Man

And I could be your Nature Girl

Walking with our boots on

Streams of love trickling down

The Cerebine's life, the berries glow

The seeds I have to show make growth seem like a possibility

The flesh peels, the bark peels off the flesh 

and succumbs to me

You could be my Nature Man

And I could be your Nature Girl

Walking with our boots on

Streams of love trickling down

Aaron Freeman (the now-deceased Gene Ween) was known in his now-former band Ween for writing the huge compendium of songs in their repertoire from which they would dip freely.  One of the things that made Gener such a thrilling performer was that he could sing in 4 or 5 different styles quite well including various vocoded and semi-demonic (but friendly demonic) altered voices.  In his very public meltdown at a Vancouver Ween performance, having lost a severe amount of weight over a matter of months, there were legitimate concerns that much deeper issues were at play than bananas and blow and pot brownie poisonings afoot.  One of the reviewers of that show rightly described one of his voices as a high pitched falsetto reminiscent of the Heat Miser (from A Year Without Santa Clause)- except in that performance his voice seemed to get stuck in that voice about half way through and never deviated after.

But for all of the debauch in the Ween repertoire- and it is a bloated lot suh that even listing relevant song titles and drug references would be largely futile- Freeman was just as much known for his blue-eyed soul. Ween are not a Philadelphia band they are rather proudly from New Hope, Pennsylvania but their song Freedom of '76 is a modern marvel in the Philadelphia Soul tradition.   Nature Man belongs strongly in the vein of those tender heart warming ballads that made up an important place in any live Ween show, songs such as: Birthday Boy, Baby Bitch, Stay Forever, Tender Situation, Flutes of Chi.

Freeman has been playing Nature Man live since at least June of 2012, numerous good sounding versions are out there including this one from Reggatabar which comes off as unintentionally comedic.  The inversion of Freeman as the Nature Girl 'walking with out boots on' is intended to play for some laughs.  But it's clear in listening to the recorded and interrupted (with laughter) live version that there is notsomuch humour hear as a harrowing and searching walk past the void upon whose edges he'd danced like a satyr over a volcano's lip.

Ween's - Banana's and Blow (performed on harp)

Harpists Kaela and Morgana are students of a performing arts school  in Australia. Kaela's also a fan of Ween and she arranged one of her favourite songs for the harp.  Kaela is the daughter of Adam Phillips, director/animator of Ween's Transdermal Celebration video.   Father Phillips recounts:

Kaela's been hearing Ween all her life. She was 5 when I animated their Transdermal Celebration video. With the album White Pepper in the car's CD player, she'd ask me to "play the song that sounds like it's got coconuts in it", that is Bananas and Blow.

She was terrified of the song Ice Castles though because I told her it was about poison toys so it became the soundtrack to her nightmares. Bad daddy.

In case you're not familiar with the touching original version here's another clip.

Aaron Freeman (Gene Ween) solo album Marvelous Clouds

Performing under his hebraic name Aaron Freeman for the first time the Golden Jew himself will perhaps quizzically release an album of material entirely written by a woebegone and suitably obscure songwriting iconoclast Rod McKuen.

McKuen it turns out is nearly as prolific a songwriter as Prince having penned some 1500 songs for artists ranging from Perry Como and Petula Clark to Waylon Jennings, Chet Baker, Johnny Cash, Andy Williams, Pete Fountain, the Kingston Trio, Percy Faith, Dusty Springfield, Johnny Mathis, Al Hirt, Greta Keller, The Boston Pops, the London Philharmonic and the Chairman of the Board himself Mr. Frank Sinatra. 

Having been a poet travelling in similar circles to Alan Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac he would later travel abroad to France where he encountered the Belgian songwriter Jacques Brel.  McKuen is well known as the translator of the chansons of Jacques Brel and in turn introduced him to the American market.  While his collections of poetry have sold broadly, with two Oscar and one Pullitzer nominations for his serious musical compositions from his later period, he is widely reviled if not seriously shat upon by cultural critics.  The appeal then to Freeman, performing under his own name for the first time but giving voice to the songs of a passed over and by most accounts shmaltzy legend, becomes self-evident for anyone familiar with the ground from country to glam that Ween traipses back and forth across like the children of Springfield and Shelbyville do about their town lines.

At the height of his popularity in 1969 McKuen was named by Newsweek magazine 'The King of Kitsch' elsewhere his purplish poetry is variously crititically and vituperatively described as 'tailor made for the sixties', 'treacle', 'schmaltzy', 'smarmy', 'sweet kitsch', 'superficial platidinous and silly'.  In short adjectives that describe a good measure of Ween's back catalogue.

Marvelous Clouds (produced by Ben Vaughan of Ween's 12 Golden Country Greats yore), a collection of 13 songs written by McKuen, is due out April 10 on Partison Records

‘Marvelous Clouds' track list:

1. As I Love My Own
2. Jean
3. Marvelous Clouds
4. A Man Alone
5. The Beautiful Strangers
6. Doesn’t Anybody Know My Name
7. One By One
8. Pushing The Clouds
9. The Lovers
10. Mr. Kelly
11. Love’s Been Good To Me
12. Lonesome Cities
13. The World I Used To Know

Ween - Your Party (live Koolhaus, Toronto, July 29 2010

There were beverages laid out for the party 
There were candy and spices and tricolored pastas 
The meat carved was drawn from succulent juices 
Served on platters of the purest gold 

I was calm when we arrived at the party 
I spoke with fervor, embracing the evening 
My wife leaned over and she whispered 'I love you' 
I held her close - we danced 

We had the best time at your party 
The wife and I thank you very much 
We had the best time at your party 
The wife and I thank you very much 

Creampuffs and bourbon and the music was louder 
My wife was competing in a game of chance 
The party raged and the guests were screaming 
I could have danced all night 

We had the best time at your party 
The wife and I thank you very much 
We had the best time at your party 
The wife and I thank you very much 

Later on when we were under the covers 
I closed my eyes, then I drifted to sleep 
I dreamt about me maybe throwing a party 
And just how great that would be 

And we said 
We had the best time at your party 
The wife and I thank you very much 
We had the best time at your party 
The wife and I thank you very much


- lyrics and music A. Freeman, M. Melchiondo

Ween setlist Koolhaus, Toronto, ON, July 29, 2010

Ween -  Koolhaus, Toronto, ON, July 29, 2010

Fiesta (sans Gener)
Take Me Away
Mr. Richard Smoker
Gabrielle
Transdermal Celebration
Piss Up A Rope
Bananas and Blow
Buckingham Green
Do You See Me
Mutilated Lips
Stallion Pt. 3
With My Own Bare Hands
Spinal Meningitis
Your Party (Gener introduces special guest David Bowie)
Lets Dance
Reggae Junkie Jew (3rd Stone From The Sun tease)
Baby Bitch
Stay Forever
Birthday Boy
Ocean Man
Dr. Rock
Johnny On The Spot 
Goin Gets Tough From The Getgo
Pandy Fackler (huge Glenn solo)
Booze Me Up And Get Me High
Push The Lil Daisies
The Mollusk
Roses Are Free


E:
Ohio
She Fucks Me
You Fucked Up

Ween play live in Toronto Canada (Koolhaus)

Forget whatever you know or supposedly know, this straight off the tip of the dome is really most if not all of what you 'need to know' about Ween. Otherwise you just have to bathe yourself in the brownness that is Ween (today, Thursday, July 29, Kool Haus, Toronto, Ontario, Canada).

Ween are honourary brothers - the blessing bestowed upon them by their godhead the Boognish who likely first appeared to them during the mid to late eighties when they self-released a series of cassettes including the Crucial Squeegie LP, The Live Brain Wedgie and Axis: Bold as Boognish.

It should be said that Aaron Freeman (The Golden Jew) and Micky Melchiondo (clearly a Wop) are from New Hope, Pennslyvania which is outside Philadelphia. Not unlike the most famous duo - in fact the progenitors of Bright Eyed Blue Eyed Philly Soul- Mr. Darryl Hall and Mr. John Oates (to whom Freeman admits a non-ironic debt to the 'ridiculous amount of soul on their early records' - like for instance Abandoned Luncheonette). On one of their better known ballads Freedom of '76, a fan favourite (Spike Jonze video directed) is as much an homage to the black and white Soul of Philly, PA is it is to the 'liberty bell cracked in half'.



Think of it this way- Deaner's mom is Quebecois so the records she had around the house (explaining perhaps their baffling title Quebec for one of their more recent prominent achievements) included Leonard Cohen whereas Gener clearly introduced Deaner to for instance Prince and Parliament Funkadelic. Therein, with alot of scotchguard in between lies the core of their early bond. Now at what may be the penultimate moment - of which there are so many at a Ween concert- their concerts sometimes culminate in the performance of Poopship Destroyer (which I believe contains elements of both Prince's Alphabet City and Shockadelica). Likewise Mickey Melchiondo's elegaic guitar solo/song Tear For Eddie is an homage to the blindingly brilliant guitarist Eddie Hayes who was with PFunk for it's most important stretch.

In 1989 they released GodWeenSatan: The Oneness. The full malice that is the Boognish was made incarnate on The Pod recorded on 4 track in Solebury Township, Pennsylvania reportedly under the influence of Scotchguard. The problem with inhaling Scotchguard is as Micky once pointed out 'it makes you see everything in grids'. The cover of The Pod is a direct and obvious homage to Leonard Cohen's Greatest Hits except in place of the debonair Canadian Cohen we get Mean Ween with an inhaler mask that is known to fans as simply The Cribbler.

There will be more time to talk about their back catalogue when intensive pre-show rituals and routines don't need to be followed to the strictest measure.

Know though that Gene and Dean are not alone on that stage they have brothers in arms for long standing including badass bassist Dave Dreiwetz, the superchunky Claude Coleman on drums and very invigorating in recent years is the addition of elder statesmen Glenn McClelland (formerly also notably of David Clayton Thomas` Blood Sweat and Tears) who responded to an open audition (to play an organ solo on Pandy Fackler) and won the role clearly meant for him.

“There are some people you can tell have a good sense of humour and they would be a lot of fun to hang with. To me, The Beatles are really funny,” Melchiondo says. “And Prince is probably the funniest fucking guy in the whole world. He changes his name to unpronounceable symbols and people get all caught up in it -- he’s probably laughing his ass off about it! … But I’m not so sure that Robert Fripp has any humour at all. That would be the last person I’d ever wanna fucking hang with.” - Mickey Melchiondo, National Post, July 29

Flutes Of Chi

Everything that you are,
that you'd like to be
Will come in three, my friend

Times thine inequity
The flutes of the chi
Will sound again, my friend

Wrap yourself up in gold,
The fruits of the old,
Are ripe to be told, my friend

For, it's not what you are,
How you've come to be
All this will will end and begin again

(solos)

Everything that you are,
that you'd like to be
Will come in three, my friend

Times thine inequity,
The flutes of the chi
Will sound again, my friend

Ween play Ween, KOOL HAUS, Toronto, Thursday, July 29, 2010

Taste the waste boy, taste the waste

On this my birthday week, leading up to Mr. Mickey Melchiondo (Deaner) and Mr. Aaron Freeman's (Gener aka The Golden Jew) upcoming performance with the whole band, we celebrate the browness that is Ween. Enter The Boognish.

Here then is one of the most legendary performances of a deeply revered fan favourite Tender Situation performed by Ween in 1991 at the legendary Wetlands in NYC.



State this ache as the final break
Tender situation - create a good illusion
Feel the grip of your salvation
This is indeed a tender situation

Make a move man, state your case
Taste the waste man, taste the waste
What is your place in my glorification
Yeah, this is really a tender situation

Get off the pot man, shake and bake
Taste the waste boy, taste the waste
Pump it up or stray from that old station
Yeah dude this is really a tender situation

[repeat all twice]

Tender situation, tender situation, tender situation

State this ache as the final break
Tender situation - create a good illusion
Feel the grip of your salvation
This is indeed a tender situation

Make a move man, state your case
Taste the waste man, taste the waste
What is your place in my glorification
Yeah, this is really a tender situation

Get off the pot man, shake and bake
Taste the waste boy, taste the waste
Pump it up or stray from that old station
Yeah dude this is really a tender situation

[repeat all twice]

Tender situation, tender situation, tender situation