It’s December 2009. I just performed a show with Sam James from The Wowz. Sam spouts words like few people, and with a guitar in hand he lets loose melodies that shortcircuit my brain with their unpredictable perfection. Working with others, especially those I rarely work with, always shifts my perspective on my own work. Sometimes it changes everything; sometimes it changes nothing. Other times it gives me ideas - new or stolen.
I wake up on Saturday morning, with no plans for the day. The temperature in my home drops low, low, low. Wrapped in a too big blanket, I stand in my living room looking at my breath, looking at Tarot cards. While strumming a stolen idea on my guitar, I imagine a being outside of time and space explaining the images to me, and next thing I know I have way too many words written down.
Below sits another 4-track tape recording, this time from early January 2010. The recording is of the song in progress. I’ve since updated some lyrics. The lyrics are below, coupled with the Camoin/Jodorowsky Tarot de Marseille cards that the being described.
Download “Make Love, Speak Tongues” by Dibson T Hoffweiler
Outside of my mansion is rock garden made of gold, and the people I tend to it are as ageless as they’re old If they’re on their hands and knees, I’ll set them to their feet And if they look up to me then I’ll set myself beneath Cos I’ll never get to meet them - no, I’ll never quite there be So I just want to give them the love they give to me.
But I don’t know anything about making love I just wanna speak in their tongues.
I see the stars above me make a perfect figure eight They’re still but ever-moving at an infinite rate I know that they’ve been there for as long as I’ve been me And they’ll continue to be there until I set them all free When I make that true, none will be alone And love will cover this world like a melting ice cream cone.
But I don’t know anything about making love I just wanna speak in their tongues.
I swim inside the swimming pool that sep’rates two dumb king In kingdoms situated such that none’s allowed to sing I say that that is silly, and then I sing that it’s so They say I must stay away, and I say they both blow But if they really blew they’d not be so down in the dumps They’d be just like their dogs, whose legs they wanna hump.
But I don’t know anything about making humps. I just wanna speak in their tongues.
I travel back in time, now, to see you standing on the stage I’ve words to share with you, but that time I’ll never change It’s as perfect now, as it was back then. It’ll be perfect later when it happens again I made it happen once now, and that’ll be enough If you go back to change it, then I’ll know true love.
But I don’t know anything about making love. I just wanna speak in their tongues.