Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Child: Child of the Moon



purchase [Child of the Moon]

Without children ... we don't continue.
I've got one, only one, and that's not "replacement" level. At my reproductive level, if we all do this over time, we'll end up with no one on earth.
Without children ... well ... you know.


But, to zoom in on this week's theme: Here's a trivia question for you to answer: What is the B side of Jumpin Jack Flash?
Of course, to answer that, you need to know what a B side is. But if you're following SMM, you already know. That would be the flipped side of the Jumping Jack Flash 45 RPM vinyl disk that came out in 1968. (The "hit" went on the A side, and the B side had some kind of filler.)
So ... Child of the Moon is "filler". Of sorts. The song "backing" Jumping Jack Flash.


Among my limited collection of early LP albums were two from the Rolling Stones. The year being about 1967, the albums would have been <Between the Buttons> and <Aftermath>. Whereas Jumping Jack Flash appeared on album in the late 60s, Child of the Moon was left for later albums - kind of an obscure Stones song. Interesting to me is the fact that a Google search of <Child of the Moon> brings up a multitude of other references. I would have thought that "Child of the Moon Wikipedia" would resolve/result in the Stones as the first link. (They are - after all - the first) Not so. Child of the Moon, while not a major musical hit, has taken on a life of its own beyond the song: TV episodes and such riding on the name/fame.


Someone else said:
... [the song] actually feels closer to pagan curse than lyric poem, a mixed-bag mojo potion invocation of a dream lover pushed to ritualistic nightmare by the hoodoo “Rain” beat of Charlie Watts’ drums, Brian Jones’ hypnotic saxophone drone, Jagger’s own fixed-pitch chant vocals and Jimmy Miller’s deeply unsettling shouting in those murky opening moments.

[www.mojo4music.com/11843/rolling-stones-child-moon]
OK. Wow.

The song does appears to be a part of the Stones' acid journey - belonging more to the late 60s Satanic Majesty or Beggars Banquet than the mid 60s, when it came out. Must have been fast-lanes/ fast times in 1967-8.

As for lyrics:

Give me a misty day, pearly gray, silver, silky faced,
Wide-awake crescent-shaped smile
... child of the moon

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