Child of the Moon — The Rolling Stones
#365Songs: April 8
OF COURSE everyone is doing moon stuff today.
OF COURSE “Total Eclipse of the Heart” is trending.
OF COURSE everyone is high and listening to Pink Floyd.
Well, you don’t come to #365Songs for OF COURSE moments, do you?
Or, as Henry Chinaski puts it in Barfly, you don’t come here for “unoriginal exhibitionism.” (That’s from the scene where he pushes the car ahead of him into the intersection).
The light has changed and the Lovebirds are holding up
the traffic in the inner lane. |
HENRY
SHIT!
(he honks the horn)
The Lovebirds stop kissing, the man puts the car in gear
and pulls out, looks back, gives Henry the finger.
ANGLE ON HENRY
Henry, without change of expression, follows the car.
TULLY
Maybe they’re in love.
HENRY
You can call it love; I’d call
it unoriginal exhibitionism.
TULLY
Well, maybe their work of art
will be having children.
HENRY
Oh, Christ, Tully — marriage,
God, children, relatives, and
the job. Don’t you see that any
damn fool can have that and that
most damn fools do?
ANGLE ON TULLY
TULLY
You know, you’re just a
recording machine that says “no”
to everything.
Within our little trio of writer-editors here at No Wrong Notes, I’m often the one who sounds most like the recording machine that says “no” to everything. Over the course of one particularly delightful thread, it was ultimately determined that I am “the Bosley Crowther of life.”
Well, that’s all as it should be, and I’m not settling for the unoriginal today, either!
Which is why I’ve chosen, as MY moon song for #Eclipse2024 day, this little gem from The Rolling Stones.
Not familiar with “Child of the Moon?” That’s not surprising.
Or, is it?
After all, it was the original B-side to … “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”
For whatever reason, while the A-side has gone into the history books as one of rock n’ roll’s greatest hits, the B-side kind of fell off the radar.
Which is a shame, because it’s actually quite a groovy song.
Which may actually be part of the problem. It’s REALLY groovy. Groovy to the point where—if they’d used it on the Austin Powers soundtrack—you might have thought it a bit too obvious.
That said, it’s a sound that’s coming around again.
Have you heard the recent collaboration between Liam Gallagher and John Squire? Improbably enough, ol’ post-Oasis Liam has actually emerged in recent times to be a fairly proper aging rock star, and seems to be quite a bit more likable these days than his grumpy brother. And John Squire’s Stone Roses pedigree has pretty much remained intact throughout the decades.
Why do I bring this up?
Because if you listen to their first single, it sounds a LOT like “Child of the Moon”:
The vibe of “Child of the Moon” is definitely very 1968. It’s archetypically droning and hypnotic, which lots of chiming guitars, sitars, and a suprisingly haunting sax track from Brian Jones.
The band actually filmed an “official” promotional video for the song, and it stands as a remarkable window into the tenor of the times …
… and it’s also a great reminder that The Rolling Stones, at their best, really were artists in every sense of the word.
Go trolling about the web and you’ll find a great deal written about the lyrics. Most seem to agree that it was written as a bit of a love letter to Marianne Faithfull, and while you’ll have to excuse a little of the 1968-ishness of it, there is some genuinely lovely writing here:
The wind blows, rain into my face
The sun glows at the end of the highway
Child of the moon, rub your rainy eyes
Oh, child of the moon
Give me a wide-awake crescent-shaped smile
She shivers, by the light she is hidden
She flickers like a lamp lady vision
Child of the moon, rub your rainy eyes
Child of the moon
Give me a wide-awake crescent-shaped smile
The first car on the foggy road riding
The last star for my lady is pining
Oh, child of the moon, bid the sun arise
Oh, child of the moon
Give me a misty day, pearly gray, silver, silky faced
Wide-awake crescent-shaped smile
As history would have it, there was actually a total solar eclipse on September 22, 1968, just four months after the song was released.
All the more reason why THIS is the perfect moon song for today.
~
Start following the #365Songs playlist today, and listen to each new song with each new article!
