Songs about bees, or from the perspective of a bee
It's wonderful to be alive
To be a bee in this beehive
It's tough as nails, it's smooth as silk
It's milk and honey, without milk
I work with flowers, it's my work
From this, there's no way that I can shirk
No-no-no-no-no, there is no complex philosophy
It's just because I'm a bee
Unlike the skunk, I do not smell
But I have a thing and it stings like hell
As heroes go, I'm unsung
But step on me and you'll get stung
You'll get stung
The cutest bee I've ever seen
Is our own big, fat sexy queen
It's true she hasn't got such great legs
But you should see the girl lay eggs
It's wonderful to be a bee
Although there are billions just like me
This hive of mine, I call it home
There is no place like comb sweet comb
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Busy bee
Buzzing all day long
What's the hurry?
There's surely something wrong
I can't rest while the sun and the stars are so bright
'Cause your friends are picking flowers
Take away all my light
But you see busy bee
It's all for love
People pick them
You lick them all for love
Lalalalala...
She was a virgin, of humble origin
She knew of no sin
Her eyes as bright as the stars without light
We spent all the night
Prototype versions
I always associate Tintern Abbey with their contemporaries The Virgin Sleep, whose "Secret" , I just noticed, contains a reference to "the queen of the bees" - alongside many other creatures of the field, all hip to some kind of pantheistic-pastoral gnosis that the singer's sworn not to disclose.
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A "setting" of a poem by Larry Beckett
I am a bee out in the fields of winter
And though I memorized the slope of water,
Oblivion carries me on his shoulder:
Beyond the suns I speak and circuits shiver,
But though I shout the wisdom of the maps,
I am a salmon in the ring shape river.
Composer's Notes. Harmonic structure: a set of horizontal vocal lines
is improvised in at least three ranges, the vertical effect
of which is atonal tone clusters and arhythmic counterpoint.
Performance: the written melody is to be sung, after which
the lines of lyric are to be reordered at will and sung
to improvised melody, taking advantage of the opportunity
for quartertones, third note lengths, and flexible tempo.
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Yet another Bee side - Thinking Fellers Union 282's "Hive", which imagines the happy obedient life of a drone bee – “feel comrades all around… immersed in buzz and honey dripping down”
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That Tim Buckley voicescape is one of my absolute all-time gobsmacking mind-blown forever favorites.... Don't know why it's not more celebrated or talked-about. Easily the equal of equivalent things done at this time by your Nonos and Parmegianis.
(In a class I did on experimental vocals, I played "Stairsailor" and another song from the album - "Jungle Fire" or maybe "I Woke Up" - plus the most unloosed erotomanic-glossalalic sections of "Get On Top" and "Devil Eyes" from Greetings from LA. This class was the prototype for a whole course I later did called "The Elastic Voice". I really thought the students would be utterly blown away by Buckley but they reacted oddly - seemed to find his voice grating. One said they felt his singing style wasn't properly "supported" - i.e. he'd never had formal instruction in how to use his voice properly and safely, and consequently was audibly damaging his vocal cords, would soon get nodules. This what made them feel uncomfortable, as trained singers themselves - they could feel what it would mean physically to produce such sounds)
Tintern Abbey... again, one of my favorites pieces of music ever. Just the cymbal sound alone - it always makes me picture pollen motes in a woodland clearing, irradiated by sunlight streaming through the leafy canopy. Now which Brit invented that style of broken drumming? Does it come from Ringo on "Rain" and "Tomorrow Never Knows"? Love the Wordsworth reference of the group's name - a foundational poem of English Romanticism and pastoral pantheism. Kinda amazing that Tintern Abbey never made it, during that long moment of "Itchycoo Park" and "Hole In My Shoe". Astounding also that "Bee Side" was the literal B-side (good joke!) of "Vacuum Cleaner", another sublime Britpsych classic (if oddly titled - I have no idea why!). I believe this was Tintern Abbey's sole single. Indeed the group's only release during their own lifetime. Much much later an album of bits and bobs - unreleased recordings - came out in 2021 with the title Beeside: The Complete Recordings, but sadly nothing else really approaches the heights of "Bee Side" and "Vacuum Cleaner".
Loudon Wainwright III - I remember him being a Peel favorite, sticking out like a sore thumb amidst the postpunk and the outright punk-punk and the reggae etc.... but amusing / intriguing even then. Somehow I've never got around to "doing" him until now. "Bee Side" is a clever, droll, imaginative tune. But not as clever, droll, imaginative or consternating as "Rufus Is A Tit Man". What can it be like walking around as a performer/singer-songwriter yourself and knowing your Dad wrote that about baby you?
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