Ain’t Talkin’
Words and Music by Bob Dylan (2006)

As I walked out tonight in the mystic garden
The wounded flowers were dangling from the vines
I was passing by yon cool and crystal fountain
Someone hit me from behind

Ain’t talkin’, just walkin’
Through this weary world of woe
Heart burnin’, still yearnin’
No one on earth would ever know

They say prayer has the power to help
So pray for me mother
In the human heart an evil spirit can dwell
I’m trying to love my neighbor and do good unto others
But oh, mother, things ain’t going well

Ain’t talkin’, just walkin’
I’ll burn that bridge before you can cross
Heart burnin’, still yearnin’
There’ll be no mercy for you once you’ve lost

Now I’m all worn down by weepin’
My eyes are filled with tears, my lips are dry
If I catch my opponents ever sleepin’
I’ll just slaughter them where they lie

Ain’t talkin’, just walkin’
Through the world mysterious and vague
Heart burnin’, still yearnin’
Walking through the cities of the plague

The whole world is filled with speculation
The whole wide world which people say is round
They will tear your mind away from contemplation
They will jump on your misfortune when you’re down

Ain’t talkin’, just walkin’
Eatin’ hog eyed grease in hog eyed town
Heart burnin’ – still yearnin’
Someday you’ll be glad to have me around

They will crush you with wealth and power
Every waking moment you could crack
I’ll make the most of one last extra hour
I’ll avenge my father’s death then I’ll step back

Ain’t talkin’, just walkin’
Hand me down my walkin’ cane
Heart burnin’, still yearnin’
Got to get you out of my miserable brain

All my loyal and much loved companions
They approve of me and share my code
I practice a faith that’s been long abandoned
Ain’t no altars on this long and lonesome road

Ain’t talkin’, just walkin’
My mule is sick, my horse is blind
Heart burnin’, still yearnin’
Thinkin’ ‘bout that gal I left behind

It’s bright in the heavens and the wheels are flying
Fame and honor never seem to fade
The fire’s gone out but the light is never dying
Who says I can’t get heavenly aid?

Ain’t talkin’, just walkin’
Carrying a dead man’s shield
Heart burnin’, still yearnin’
Walkin’ with a toothache in my heel

The suffering is unending
Every nook and cranny has it’s tears
I’m not playing, I’m not pretending
I’m not nursing any superfluous fears

Ain’t talkin’, just walkin’
Walkin’ ever since the other night
Heart burnin’, still yearnin’
Walkin’ ‘til I’m clean out of sight

As I walked out in the mystic garden
On a hot summer day, hot summer lawn
Excuse me, ma’am I beg your pardon
There’s no one here, the gardener is gone

Ain’t talkin’, just walkin’
Up the road around the bend
Heart burnin’, still yearnin’
In the last outback, at the world’s end

Copyright © 2006 Special Rider Music

…Drivin’ down your freeways
Midnight alleys roam
Cops in cars, the topless bars
Never saw a woman…
So alone, so alone
So alone, so alone
Motel money murder madness…
Lets change the mood from glad to sadness

LA Woman - The Doors (1971)

For noir cum jazz fans, and if you are in NY there are other venues and dates:

Shades of Jazz on Noir
Wednesday, April 23 7-9pm
Shades of Jazz on Noir is a performance project combining excerpts from classic films noir of the 40s and 50s projected onto a cinema screen and accompanied by live improvised jazz. More

The cars hiss by my window
Like the waves down on the beach
The cars hiss by my window
Like the waves down on the beach
I got this girl beside me
But she’s out of reach

Headlight through my window
Shinin’ on the wall
Headlight through my window
Shinin’ on the wall
Can’t hear my baby
Though I called and called…

Windows started tremblin’
With a sonic boom
Windows started tremblin’
With a sonic boom, boom
A cold girl’ll kill you
In a darkened room

Cars Hiss By My Window :Track 4 - LA Woman - The Doors (1971)

This iconoclastic debut by the French New Wave pioneer, Jean Luc Godard, has been re-released on a 2 disc DVD set with a new HD digital transfer from Criterion. The transfer has been supervised by the original director of photography of Breathless, Raoul Coutard. In the words of Amazon contributor, Jonathan E. Haynes “jehaynes” (Berkeley, CA): “With Coutard involved in Criterion’s issue, the film has undoubtedly been restored to some of its original, shocking, ragged beauty”.

The second disc includes archival interviews with the director and Jean-Paul Belmondo, who plays the young punk with noir affectations. Jean Seberg is perfect as the young American student in Paris ‘living dangerously’.

Australian critic, Adrian Martin in 2004: “there is a semblance of a thriller plot complete with a betrayal, tailing cops, and a final shootout… but the subtle, formal pleasures of Breathless have yet to be fully appreciated. Whether through accident or design, Godard’s low-budget on-the-fly shooting style produced remarkable innovations.”

Forget about Tarantino, Godard is the genuine originator of (Martin again) “the mixture of loose gangster-crime plot, a smart attitude, and a hip array of high and low culture citations… and there is an insolent mildly outrageous rap pouring from Belmondo’s punk motormouth, but even that scarcely contradicts the Chandler-Hammett-Spillane tradition of hard-boiled talk.” (1001 Movies)

The original film noir jazz score by Martial Solal is available on CD:

From director, Jules Dassin, whose earlier films included the noirs, Brute Force (1947) and The Naked City (1948), Thieves’ Highway about the struggles of truckers trying to make a buck hauling fruit to the San Francisco produce markets, is great melodrama with a strong social conscience. It tells a story strongly rooted in the southern European migrant experience.

The screenplay was adapted by Albert Isaac Bezzerides from his novel Thieves’ Market (1949). Bezzeridis’ noir credits include Desert Fury (1947), Kiss Me Deadly (1955), On Dangerous Ground (1952), and They Drive by Night (1948). Dassin was blacklisted by the HUAC and left the US before the final cut was made, and word has it the studio axed his original “noir” ending and added a “happy-ending” re-take.

But even with a darker ending, I would not say it is a film noir. The protagonist, a straight-up guy, Nick Garcos, wants to avenge his Greek father’s maiming by a crooked wholesaler and risk his last dime on a freight trip that will give him the stake he needs to settle down with his hometown sweetheart - the perfect role for Richard Conte. The other femme is an Italian good-time girl, played beautifully by Italian actress, Valentina Cortese, who never really wants to hurt him, but is only drawn into the story by the conniving of the wholesaler, Mike Figlia, gleefully played by Lee J. Cobb.

What struck me is how well each of the main characters is drawn, and how the rush to get the load of apples to the market, propels the story, and the character development. The most potent scene is when Nick is pinned under his truck after the changing of a flat tyre goes wrong, just off the busy highway, where a never-ending stream of trucks rip through the night: the world is not going to stop for one poor guy stuck under his truck. Nick does survive after he is rescued by his erstwhile shady partner. This exemplifies a wonderful quality of the film: each character has a chance at redemption - only Figlia and his henchmen are too rotten achieve it.

Filmically it is also a great testimony to all who worked on its production. The atmosphere of the Frisco produce markets is rendered so convincingly, that it has a cinema verite quality.

I feel qualified to say this as this is one of the very rare times, I can directly relate to what is happening on the screen. I grew up in a small corner fruit store run by my immigrant parents in a working-class suburb of Sydney - a big harbour city with a produce market at it’s center. My father is Italian and my late mother was Greek. It was a struggle and we opened 7 days a week. During school vacation my father would wake me at 4am weekdays for the trip to the city markets, where I would haul the long barrow behind him, as he moved from stall to stall haggling to find produce at a price that he could sell and make a buck. This movie connected for me deeply.

Thieves’ Highway: a good story well told, and worth remembering.

On Aug. 17, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will kick off its Academy Centennial Salute to Miklós Rózsa at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater.
Rózsa scored a number of films noir:

Double Indemnity (1944)
Ministry of Fear (1944)
Lady on a Train (1945)
The Lost Weekend (1945)
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)
The Killers (1946)
The Red House (1947)
Brute Force (1947)
The Naked City (1948)
Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948)
The Bribe (1949)
Criss Cross (1949)
The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

My favorite is the Asphalt Jungle (1950). From the opening shots, Rózsa’s dramatic almost post-modern score establishes the feel of the picture, and remains in the memory forever. More from the LA Times.

Green Day - Boulevard Of Broken Dreams

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don’t know where it goes
But it’s home to me and I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
and I’m the only one and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk a…

My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
‘Til then I walk alone

Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Aaah-ah,
Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah

I’m walking down the line
That divides me somewhere in my mind
On the border line
Of the edge and where I walk alone

Read between the lines
What’s fucked up and everything’s alright
Check my vital signs
To know I’m still alive and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk a…

My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
‘Til then I walk alone

Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Aaah-ah
Ah-ah, Ah-ah

I walk alone
I walk a…

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I’m the only one and I walk a…

My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
‘Til then I walk alone…