Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet – Gavin Bryars
*
Jesus’ blood never failed me yet, never failed me yet
Jesus’ blood never failed me yet
this one fing I know for he loves me so
Hypnotic. Elegaic. Melancholic. Stirring. Completely original. One of my favourite pieces of music, it brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it, and as I get older (losing my hair, many years from now – actually a few days away..) it gets better and better. I bought the CD version in 1993 when we lived in West Hollywood and played it every day much to my wife Jenny’s frustration. Perhaps I heard it on KCRW, the college radio station we listened to every morning with our coffee and cereals and bagels, a show called Morning Becomes Eclectic, where DJ Chris Douridas would play mainly new stuff by indie bands like Smashing Pumpkins or artists like Björk, British bands like Suede or Kate Bush or Prefab Sprout and a bit of jazz and folky stuff. It wasn’t as eclectic as it was billed – hardly any soul music, no hip hop, very little music from non-english-speaking countries like Brazil, Congo or Egypt for example, but it was as good as you got in LA Radio 1993. No commercials – a blessing in itself. No Rock Music – another blessing. Now and again you’d get a classic Joni Mitchell song for no good reason. So it was a little bit like the radio I grew up on, but not as good. In retrospect Radio 1 and Radio 2 in particular have been wonderful broad-minded musical sources for me and millions of other Brits. And this was pre-internet, so you couldn’t dial up any radio station you fancied, like you can now. KCRW may have fancied itself to be eclectic but it was so white, with no country music.
But come to think of it, why would they play a one hour experimental minimalist piece on the radio? Maybe they played the bit at the end with Tom Waits. Anyway Who Cares Where I First Heard It? Questions of access and self-fulfilling capsules of taste notwithstanding. I was heavily into Brian Eno’s output at the time and perhaps a review in Mojo or Uncut mentioned that? Who Fucking Cares Jack?
A N Y W A Y I bought the CD from Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard which was a favourite spot, right opposite Book Soup, the other favourite spot and although we lived about ten blocks south on King’s Road & Beverley Blvd, we always drove up there in the boat, the white 1970s Lincoln Continental, the largest two-door car ever built and a proper bad news gas guzzler. Gas was cheap then though, and so was I !
I don’t remember anyone else liking it to be honest. At that time we hung out with a gang which included David Fincher & his wife Donya Fiorentina, his PA Rachel Schadt and all their pals Marcie, James, Chip Garamella, Carol Joyce, Paul Carafotes, Ken, and Ron. David was at Propaganda Films then, Chip had a place on Sunset. Was Ron David’s agent/manager or his childhood friend?
We added more mates over the months and years, in particular Jeremy & Ashley who ran The Room a small groovy bar in Hollywood and English film producer Damian Jones & his American wife Lynn Blades who we met in that bar. Also present – Bruce Payne from ‘West’ back in the early 80s, now living in “Beverley Hills 90210” as he liked to introduce himself and his girlfriend Nina Kraft, hairdresser to the stars especially those losing their hair….Paul Webster another English film producer who was part of the Stephen Woolley/Dominique Green/Don McPherson (see My Pop Life #82) UK film gang that I met when a law student at LSE, working part-time at the Scala Cinema. Paul is a very sweet intelligent and warm man who actually came with Dom and Don (!) to watch the Brighton Beach Boys playing Magical Mystery Tour one night in West London in 2017 which was above and beyond the call of duty.
Who else populated those LA months? Various tourists and arrivals from the UK – David Thewlis and I had coffee one afternoon, Gary Kemp was a regular LA visitor, as were Richard E. Grant, Jude Law and Sadie Frost, was Anita Lewton still down in Venice? Yes. I remember Tina Jenkins bringing a bunch of BBC types over to King’s Road – we went over to Pane e Vino for dinner then came back for a nightcap – they were being terribly cool and dismissive about Los Angeles “why would you actually want to live here?” kind of English down-the-nose act. When it was time to leave there was a helicopter hovering loudly overhead & the flashing blue of the LAPD with guns drawn. “Get back inside!” they shouted. It was an incident on our palm-lined street which wet the knickers of the BBC and gave them something to talk about on the way home.
There was a premiere in ’93 for Undercover Blues, the film I’d shot on honeymoon in New Orleans the previous year (see My Pop Life 178 Tipitina). Jenny was filming Kavanagh QC with John Thaw that week in England (or Cavendish P.C. as we referred to it). The Premiere was an utter disaster in my memory and here’s some photographic evidence all shot by Carol to back me up – I’d hired a limo to take Anita Lewton, Chip & Carol and a lady called Joice who’d worked on the film with me to the screening. We had champagne and glasses in a bucket and when the cork popped, it went straight into Joice’s left eye and bounced out.
Her eye started weeping and tissues were produced but we drank the champagne and saw the stupid film and pranced around the stupid party. My shame comes from this incident, her eye was damaged and she needed surgery and had to sue the studio to get the full insurance coverage for her treatment. Meanwhile I had my photo taken and reporters asked inane questions. I didn’t even look particularly good that night. Just another wannabe twerp.
We all partied every week obviously. There was a sense of being in Hollywood, of being in our thirties, of being lucky, of being high. I kind of remember that feeling. Laughing a lot. Drunk driving a lot. Smoking weed a lot. Driving into the desert, to Joshua Tree, or Santa Barbara or Malibu or Laguna Beach or Mexico. Shopping in Ralph’s or the Beverley Centre. Going to movies all the time, twice on weekends. Talking about film constantly. Eating out pretty much every night. And waiting for the big break. When it came, I blew it (see My Pop Life #174 Learning To Be). Ah well, it’s been a life I guess.
And when I listened to Gavin Bryars’ piece in 1993 did I hear another life in that homeless man’s plaintive faith? If so I am redeemed somewhat. At least I wasn’t worshipping Kurt Cobain or Eddie Vedder. Or Jesus’ blood.
The singer is referred to as ‘the tramp’ on the record. It’s a word we don’t use anymore. Evocative of another time. He was recorded in 1971 under Waterloo Bridge with other tramps, most of whom were drinking, but he wasn’t, and he was moved to burst into song at one point. The director of the documentary, a friend of Bryars, gave him the piece of film which didn’t make the cut. At home, Bryars found that it was in tune with his piano and back at work he started to loop the 13-bar section, leaving it copying while he fetched a coffee.
“When I came back I found the normally lively art room unnaturally subdued. People were moving about much more slowly than usual and a few were sitting alone, quietly weeping.I was puzzled until I realised that the tape was still playing and that they had been overcome by the old man’s singing. This convinced me of the emotional power of the music and of the possibilities offered by adding a simple, though gradually evolving, orchestral accompaniment that respected the homeless man’s nobility and simple faith. Although he died before he could hear what I had done with his singing, the piece remains as an eloquent, but understated testimony to his spirit and optimism.“
I don’t know about “simple faith”. This is judgemental to my ear. What’s wrong with “faith”. No adjective. Anyway speaking as a believer in the power of the universe, and the mysterious wonders of the earth, this piece moves me to tears whenever I hear it. Somehow I understand in the man’s quavering voice, the last “me” which wobbles, that in fact Jesus’ blood had indeed failed him on a number of occasions. I’d been under Waterloo Bridge six years earlier researching for my play Sanctuary about the teenage homeless – some 25 years after he’d been recorded singing this piece. And why? Because I was homeless myself at the age of 13, recorded in My Pop Life #84 All Along The Watchtower. And of course there were blocks and blocks of tented and cardboard dwellings in downtown Los Angeles, the original Skid Row, still are and it is even worse this year 2021 than it was in 1993. And on it goes, year after year after year.
And now here I was in 1993 on hedonist’s isle without a care in the world listening to it. I mean what the hell was I thinking? What are any of us thinking?? What the Fucking Hell Is GOING ON??
Jenny always hated LA. She hated its fake charm. Its ugly naked ambition. She’d be asked ‘who do you know?‘ by wannabe power-brokers, English agents who’d got a foot in the door and were forging their oh-so-important path to power and “success”. “Who are your friends here?” She liked some of the shops though 😉
One of the photo packs that I’ve raided to illustrate this post has LA ’93 Babylon written on it in Jenny’s hand. She drank her way through the ordeal. I always liked LA, I like the smell of it, the jacarandas, the honeysuckle, the passion flowers, the bougainvilla, the jasmine. I like driving on the freeway – or rather I did, it is rather too crowded these days. I like the ocean, the mighty Pacific and the beach towns Manhattan Beach, Venice, Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades. But there’s something in Jenny’s reaction that is bang on. People lie in Los Angeles. Status is important. Who you know. People don’t tell you what they feel. Do they feel? Sound familiar? There are tons of English there, getting on just fine, and preferring the sunny to the rainy.
And looking back on this period now I just feel sad mainly that I chased that foolish dream, that I wasted my talents and powers and energies on my own glory, and didn’t follow up writing about homelessness with further testimonies and manifestos. Didn’t look back, didn’t look down. Looked forward and up. We all do it. But what a world we’ve made with that terrible instinct. What a terrible self-obsessed dirty fucked up world.
We didn’t even have selfies in those days. All these photographs are taken with an SLR camera using film, a heavy piece of equipment which we never turned around onto ourselves – what?
Of the beautiful people pictured only two couples remain – Chip & Carol. And us. The rest became junkies, celebrity split ups, alcoholics and ffilm-makers. Some of them I can’t even remember their names. I’m only still in touch with Paul Carafotes. And Anita Moukkes.
At the end of 1993 I was offered Wayne’s World 2, shooting in Hollywood, recycling the character from Withnail & I but without the drugs, and called Del Preston. It was as close to the dream as I ever got, and has a post of its own about the London Premiere in January 1994 at My Pop Life #188 Spirit In The Sky At the end of the night my entourage and I got chucked out of Tramp, a nightclub in London. Funny that.
I had to wake up at 1.30am on filming days and get driven to the set. The reason why I got a car was because on Day One my alarm didn’t go off and I had to drive myself down to South Central somewhere and after about 20 blocks I realised I’d forgotten my directions, so I had to turn around and drive back. Which made me late. Over an hour. Nobody said a word. Into make up, interrupted for a camera rehearsal, back to make up, wig, tattoos but not my arms because there wasn’t the time..
It was the most talking I had in the movie, a speech about Sri Lanka formerly Ceylon where I had to beat the shopkeeper and his son to death with their own shoes. I did it in a wide shot, a mid shot and a close up about 25 -30 times in all and then they called lunch. I was wrapped for the day. The director thanked me, Mike Myers and Dana Carvey thanked me, and the 1st Assistant Director thanked me and said maybe they’d be providing me with a car for future filming days since I was a foreigner and on the wrong side of the road, either that or they’d buy me a FUCKING ALARM CLOCK. And I was amazed because I realised how professional they all were, they had all been, that nothing was mentioned until the stuff was in the can. And Then I got the truth. I can’t watch it now, it makes me cringe with embarrassment.
And they did provide a car after that. And a driver. Most days I was in a leather waistcoat which meant a 1.30am alarm call and an hour’s drive up to the Waynestock Site where myself and Michael Thomas sat until breakfast, well I sat and he painted on all my tattoos by hand. Some music playing, we chatted. A four-hour job, from 2.30-6.30. I was ready for breakfast after that lot.
So yes the year finished on an amazing high. I didn’t capitalise on it at all, not even hiring a publicist in the UK, let alone in the US. Self-sabotage, or a lucky escape? I’ve certainly stayed under the radar ever since.
And why didn’t Jenny like Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet? It’s annoying because I want her to be right about everything. So does she. Life isn’t that simple though is it.
I don’t like it when Tom Waits joins in after about 50 minutes. Doesn’t need it. This happens on the CD version, the one I bought. It stops being important immediately at this precise point. The original from the LP Sinking Of The Titanic in 1975 is much better. And a mere 26 minutes long. I’ll leave it for you below. It’s just an astonishing piece of music. Christians like it. Non-Christians like it. Perfect for a solo car journey, bus, train, plane journey. Just sit with it. Let it be with you. And ask yourself.
What The Fuck Is Going On?
The national anthem of the end of all humanity
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