First, a tracking shot follows him (“an old man wandering lonely”) as he goes about his daily routine (“taking time the only way he knows”): picking up used cigarette butts, taking refuge in a public toilet to warm his feet, queuing up for a daily dose of charity (“Salvation a la mode and a cup of tea”). Finally, the camera zooms in on one individual, whose rasping cough makes him difficult to ignore (“snot is running down his nose / greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes). The song persists as a confrontational movie that directs itself: a shot that pans a city beside the river, quiet men bundled in rags, huddled together under a bridge, “drying in the cold sun”. If, as Anderson claims he preferred, the cover had featured the actual tramp from the Thames Embankment who inspired the tune (“Aqualung” referring to the gurgling sound of the man’s chronic bronchitis), it would make the lyrics about the real human being inexorably more vivid and disturbing. It remains tantalizing to imagine the augmented critical and street cred the album would receive if it had only been named after almost any of the other ten songs, especially “Wind Up” or “My God”.
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