(Following on from Part 1, we here complete Drobbingdon’s musical based upon Viva la Vida/Prospekt’s March by Coldplay.)
Act 2, Scene 1
Three years have passed. The revolution was successful: the FOX was overthrown. Drobbingdon, the leader of the revolution, has become leader of the land, with Prospekt his deputy.
In a hut in Violet Hill, now the capital of England, a small group watch Drobbingdon’s latest broadcast on an old TV…
Drobbingdon:When you try your best but you don’t succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can’t sleep
Stuck in reverse
When the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can’t replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?
Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
Tears stream down your face
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes
But the complaints rise, and Drobbingdon is forced to address the people.
Drobbingdon:The FOX is defeated, we no longer get sick, we are free! Why then are the people unhappy?
Voice in the crowd:Because we are still poor!
Drobbingdon:Our misfortunes are due to an unseen conspiracy…
Oh no, I see, a spider web is tangled up with me,
And I lost my head, the thought of all the stupid things I said,
I never meant to cause you trouble,
And I never meant to do you wrong,
And i, well if I ever caused you trouble,
Oh no, I never meant to do you harm.
Oh no I see, a spider web and its me in the middle,
So I twist and turn, here I am in my little bubble,
They spun a web for me,
They spun a web for me…
(During his current sequesterment in his bunker/basement, Archpope Drobbingdon has become convinced that the Viva la Vida album and related EP contain the basic elements of a narrative, which the band have chosen to obscure, perhaps through fear of how their radical new direction would be received. Their hints about recording a concept album may in fact be a clue. His attempts to reconstruct it have led to this, a musical play in two acts, which we at the CoCM have assembled from his sporadic e-mails and an envelope stuffed with scribbled-on napkins. We suggest that you play the songs where indicated, and read the description that follows, allowing the images to form in your mind. It’s like Titaniccrossed with The Matrix, but with songs. Seriously, it’s THAT GOOD.)
Act 1, Scene 1
Narrator (Prospekt, whom we will meet later…):No-one knows the exact day that the earth died. But we all knew it had been sick for a very long time. And when the land died, so did society. It got dark and cold, and the corn withered and died. One day, there just wasn’t any food left in the supermarkets, no fuel for the cars, no water you could drink. And we began to get sick, and die. That was a few years ago. No-one knows what today’s date is anymore. The Fox abolished clocks when they seized control. They shut down the internet and the phones, and soon they were marching into what little was left of the cities, to root out the resistance. But there are many of us who survive.
Open on a rainy rooftop in London, on a dark cold night, some years after the Event. Several people huddle together on a rooftop.
Chorus:At night we go walking till the breaking of the day
The morning is for sleeping
Through the dark streets we go searching to see God in their own way
Save the night time for your weeping
And the night over London, hey
There’s no light over London today
So we rode down to the river where the toiling ghosts spring
For the curses to be broken
We go underneath the arches where the witches are saying
There are ghost towns in the ocean…
Our Hero, Drobbingdon, and his lover are moving through the city, aiming for a resistance camp known as Violet Hill. But she is weak from hunger, and sick from the water. He tries to keep her spirit high as they move slowly.
Drobbingdon:Lovers, keep on the road you’re on. Runners until the race is run. Soldiers, you’ve got to soldier on - sometimes even right is wrong.
Lover:They are turning my head out, to see what I’m all about… Keeping my head down to see what it feels like…
Drobbingdon:But I have no doubt - one day, we’re gonna get out…
Lover: What happened to our world, Drobbingdon? What went wrong?
Drobbingdon recalls the day of the Event
Soon they spy the distant glow of Violet Hill. She stumbles, and cannot go on. He picks her up, and carries her. He cries at the gates, and they open slowly. Beyond them, he sees many shacks, lit by the first street lights he has seen since the Event. But even as he carries her through the gates, she dies. He falls to his knees, griefstricken.
Drobbingdon:Steal my heart and hold my tongue
I feel my time has come
For you I’d wait ’til Kingdom Come
Until my day is done
Say you’ll come and set me free
just say you’ll wait for me
In your tears and in your blood
In your fire and in your flood
I hear you laugh, I heard you sing
I wouldn’t change a single thing…
Now several of the rebels have gathered around them.
Drobbingdon(to the rebels): Let me in… unlock the door
I never felt this way before
I don’t know which way I’m going
I don’t know which way I’ve come
I need someone… who understands
I need someone… someone who hears
Rebel #1:We hear you, friend.
Drobbingdon:What am I going to do?
Rebel #1:Why don’t you ask Prospekt?
Drobbingdon:Prospekt? Who’s that?
Rebel #2:He’s our leader… kind of. He’s a very wise man. They say he knows how to the see the future, by staring into a glass of water.
Drobbingdon: Do you think he’d speak to me?
Rebel #1:Maybe… Hey, why don’t you write him a letter? I’ll take it to him - he’s sure to read it then!
Scene II
In Prospekt’s hut. Prospect reads the letter from Drobbingdon.
Prospekt:You ask me, ‘Will I see heaven in my future?’ Let’s see…
He stares into the water, and an image forms. He gasps, and pulls his gaze away again. What has he seen?
Prospekt:Bring him in to me!
Drobbingdon is taken in to Prospekt’s shack.
Drobbingdon:What did you see? Is there anything for me here? Is there any point in living?
Prospekt:Son, don’t ask me how full or empty your glass is. Trust me: cling to the mast, spend your whole life living in your past, going nowhere fast.
Determined to take revenge for the death of his lover, Drobbingdon makes a prophetic speech that stirs the resistance into action.
Drobbingdon: There’s a wild wind blowing
There’s a cold war coming
On the radio I heard
Baby, it’s a violent world
I can hear it coming
I can hear the silent sound
Now my feet won’t touch the ground
Time came a creeping
Oh and time’s a loaded gun
Time only can lead you on, still it’s
Such a beautiful night
Oh, love, don’t let me go
Won’t you take me where the street lights glow
I can hear it coming
Like a serenade of sound
Gravity, release me
And don’t ever hold me down
Now my feet won’t touch the ground…
The crowd cheer and chant. Yet even as they reach a crescendo, Drobbingdon mourns his lost love…
Drobbingdon:Reign of love, I can’t let go
To the sea I offer this heavy load
Locusts will lift me up
I’m just a prisoner in a reign of love…
{This is the third in a series. The first part can be found here, the second part here.}
The Cold Mountain Singers, brothers Tom and Jim Gilhooley, parted in 1949, on the eve of their 33rd birthday. The reasons for their split are still unknown, although Jim’s marriage to a minor Hollywood actress is generally believed to have driven a wedge between them. Others have suggested that Jim was planning on going solo. Whatever the reason, it would be almost fifteen years before they played together again.
Jim went to Nashville, where his stellar - but short-lived - success and subsequent alcoholism are well documented. We will look at his career later. Tom Gilhooley, however, returned to Hatchenchubee, to tend the family farm and look after their aging mother. She was to die only eight months later.
“Violet Hill” was recorded solo by Tom around this time. The song and the recording are informed by his isolation and feelings of loneliness and abandonment. It was never released in his lifetime.
“Violet Hill” is the first fruit of our ongoing project to reconstruct some of the damaged or degraded recordings left by the Cold Mountain Singers. After months of work (paid for by the tax payer, due to our on-going legal dispute with Coldplay) we are now able to post a NEVER BEFORE HEARD RECORDING by this legendary country act. Enjoy.
Then, the USA went to war, and so did The Cold Mountain Singers. They returned to performing upon their return, but they were different men, older and wiser, with a new found urgency to spread their message. Their repertoire had changed too, to incorporate original compositions.
Jim Gilhooley said about the inspiration for Fix Y’all: “Darned if ah don’t know where it came from. I was huddlin in some darn trench with my brother, German shells a-flying over our heads. Then all of a sudden, there comes this strange silence, an all the guns quit shellin, and the sunshine began to break through the clouds and smoke. The tune, the words, everything, began to play in ma head, and I had to rush to git everything writ down in time. It was like it was being channelled through me, comin down from the Most High. I looked up to the sun, and instead ah saw a bright glowing face, with short and curly mousey hair and big blue eyes. He had no beard, and when he spoke it sounded a darn site more english an middle-class than ah reckoned for. He said that it would all make sense one day. Before he disappeared he said “Make Trade Fair.” Ah guess ah didn’t know what to make of that.”
This track was recorded live in Nashville in 1948 during a successful month-long residency. Their star was still in its ascendancy, but a darkness had entered their act. It was only a matter of time before they were to be torn apart.
Tom and Jim Gilhooley (AKA The Cold Mountain Singers) were born on Cold Mountain Farm, Hatchenchubbee, Arkansas, in 1916, the twin sons of an itinerant Polish railroad labourer and an alchoholic seamstress of Scottish extraction. They were raised by both parents on their run-down farmstead until the depression began to bite, and their father left in 1931, never again seeing his boys.
Their mother struggled through, scraping a meagre existance from the dusty soil, supplimented by occasional sewing jobs. Tom and Jim learned to amuse themselves with bible reading and by singing traditional songs, accompanying themselves on guitar and banjo. They were soon a popular turn at the Waverley Saloon, and began to attract attention from the city.
By 1938, the boys were a successful act, playing to audiences throughout Arkansas, and begining to make a name for themselves. This track is believed to have been recorded in 1939, and is one of a mere handful of tracks that are known to have survived.
{The distinct similarity of some of these songs and the work of the contemporary group Coldplay is currently the subject of a major legal proceeding, and I am unable to comment further at this time.}
Then, the USA went to war, and so did The Cold Mountain Singers. They returned to performing upon their return, but they were different men, older and wiser, with a new found urgency to spread their message. Their repertoire had changed too, to incorporate original compositions.
