Here's some info about each of the songs on Off Jack (click on the title to see the song lyrics):
1. Meet the Incredible
Shrinking Man (Lowell Nelson)*
The basic theme of this song is, of course, a reference to the
great Buddhist science fiction movie, The Incredible Shrinking
Man. But the lyrics refer specifically to conflicted feelings
about the merits of trying to be a rock and roll legend. At the
end of The Incredible Shrinking Man, the title character
is shrinking into physical nothingness. He looks up at the Milky
Way and says, "The
unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet --
like the closing of a gigantic circle... To God, there is no zero."
2. Jekyll and Hyde
(Boniface)
Jim Burgett, a California musician, released "Jekyll and
Hyde" as the A-side of a single in July 1961. In October
of that year, he used the same song as the B-side of another single,
"Pick-Up-A-Coupl'-A-Records" (?!), but changed the title
to "Split Personality." The name change illustrates
the fact that the song isn't about Jekyll and Hyde per se,
but rather describes the singer's attitude toward his girlfriend
and women in general. Jim Burgett's original version of "Jekyll
and Hyde" was reissued on the excellent compilation CD Monster
Bop.
3. The Graveyard of
Love (Lowell Nelson / Julian West)
The lyrics to this song were partly inspired by reading way too
many issues of the great 1950s EC horror comic books (Tales
from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror, and The Haunt
of Fear), particularly stories that were ILLustrated by "Ghastly"
Graham Ingels and de-composed by Al Feldstein. If the song seems
creepy and disgusting, it's because it was designed to be that
way! (Parental advisory: explicit lyrics! Bowdlerized version
available upon request.)
4. Between Two Worlds
(Lowell Nelson)
"To Martinmas between two worlds..." Martinmas is a
Christian co-optation of Samhain, which is the name given to an
earlier conception of Halloween. It is said to be the time when
the veil between the worlds is very thin, when souls that are
leaving this physical plane can go out and souls that are reincarnating
can come in. The grotesque death imagery in our version of Halloween
is not only about our fear of the BIG death, but also the little
deaths that we endure throughout life.
5. The Lantern (Mick
Jagger / Keith Richards)*
This Rolling Stones song appeared on their psychedelic opus, Their
Satanic Majesties Request, released in December 1967. Like
many songs, it's a love story -- but it's also a ghost story.
It's the tale of two lovers who make a pact: the first one to
die will help the other find the way into the spirit world. We
made our version as psychedelic as possible -- it's even got a
backwards guitar!
6. When the Wolfbane
Blooms (Lowell Nelson / Curt Siodmak)*
The lyrics are all taken from the 1941 movie The Wolf Man
written by Curt Siodmak and starring Lon Chaney, Jr. Many people
may be familiar with the doggerel "Even
a man who is pure in heart...", but the words the gypsy
woman recites over the dead wolf man are much more thought-provoking:
"The way you walked
was thorny..." They evoke not only the dilemma of the
wolf man but also say something about the human condition in general.
7. My Death (Jacques
Brel)
This song was originally recorded by Jacques Brel in French in
September 1959, and translated to English by Mort Schuman and
Eric Blau for the 1966 Off-Broadway production, Jacques Brel
Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. The lyrics of "My Death" are among
the most profound ever written. Jacques Brel died of lung cancer
in 1974, at the age of 49.
