Thursday, October 25, 2018

Memory Excellence 11: Midnight Harvest

11. Midnight Harvest

I see your plums and I want them
By late moonlight I covet them

Midnight, midnight
I see moon and I see plums
And I will I will harvest them

Do you know how they harvest nutmeg?
They have a long-handled basket

Midnight, midnight
With my long-handled basket
I will harvest moon and plums

I will not covet but I will want
I will not steal but I will have

Midnight, midnight
I see moon and I see plums
And I will have and harvest them

There was a plum tree a block and a half from my duplex whose plums I wanted. I'd walk past the tree and come up with ideas for harvesting them after dark. Then I went to a garage sale at their house and asked them about the plums. "Oh, take as many as you want," they said, "we don't really eat them anyway." I ate lots of their plums. While we were at the garage sale, a car rear-ended another car while looky-looing at the goods. Such is desire.

I stole the title from a Winchester Geese song (a very punk rock 4-track experiment that's another story and another compilation entirely) about the Grim Reaper. The weird stanza about nutmeg and long-handled baskets originated from a Penzey's catalog.

The recording took place in a former church in Malmo, Nebraska, inhabited by the Stoll family, whose hospitality I appreciate greatly. Joanie and I drove across the country in the Geo Metro, its muffler dragging on the ground whenever we hit a bump (I'd been rear-ended a couple times that year). The hatchback was full of my old desktop PC and monitor, a guitar, an amplifier - honestly, I have no idea how we fit all of that in there along with camping equipment. The Geo Metro is magic. Here's a picture of me in that church along with then-Omaha-resident Chris Fischer of Unread, who also provided excellent hospitality and arranged for things. Much appreciated.