Essential Albums: Graham Parker Mona Lisa’s Sister

 

I love my mother. My mother doesn’t love art, but I’d like her to.

We were talking about art. I  sort of showed her pictures of the Mona Lisa. What I really showed her was that it was hard to appreciate the Mona Lisa because everyone wanted to take their picture with the Mona Lisa.

 

 

She said I don’t really understand the Mona Lisa. I said I don’t really understand it either. Almost no one does, but everyone does want to have their picture taken with it.

I showed her what I thought was great art.

 

She said that’s dreck! It’s simple anyone can do that.

I said all of that may be true, but they didn’t. I don’t think its simple, and I like the message. I showed her a lot of art she thought was dreck, and a lot were apple portraits that had no message that were worth tons of money. I told her I loved Keith Haring and his work because he made his message as simple and as cheap to get as possible. He put in on T-shirts, shopping bags, murals, subways, sidewalks. Keith Haring’s art isn’t really expensive. People just dig it and  get the message.

The message was don’t be ignorant, be loving.

She still thought it was dreck. I asked her what art she liked and she said that she couldn’t name anything, because she didn’t like art. I said, “That’s cool, but don’t call anything dreck if you can’t name anything that isn’t.” She agreed.

So I said listen to this. I think that this is art. Graham Parker’s “Get Started, Start a Fire.” I played it for her and told her that it was full of jokes, but wasn’t a joke. She said she could finally make out the words, and she liked it, but didn’t understand it. So I did my best to explain why at least I thought it was art.

I said look at the album cover to “The Mona Lisa’s Sister.”

It’s a portrait of a conjectured sister of Mona Lisa’s sister smoking. It takes fire to start smoking a cigarette.

She asked if Mona Lisa had a sister. I said that I had no idea that it was just a joke.

The mona lisa’s sister doesn’t smile
She tried to pose but only for a while
Leonardo sent her home since then she has lived alone
With her few belongings and a copy of a painting of herself unhappy
She is going to burn it when she’s ready

Parker imagines da Vinchi painting the sister first, but sending her home because she didn’t smile because she was lonely and unhappy. No one wants to see pictures of people unhappy, but a lot of people are.

Then she missed her shot and spent the rest of her life unhappy. The only thing she had was a da Vinchi chronicling her unhappiness that no one wanted. She thought about burning it.

My mom asked if that happened. I said no. It’s a joke. Life is a cosmic joke.

Graham Parker wants her to burn that painting. He wants her to be happy.

Get started, start a fire
Get started, start a fire
Get started, start a fire
Get started, start a fire

Next verse.

Marilyn was lying all alone with an empty bottle by the phone
Kennedy was not around she was cold when she was found
But she’d gone where the goddesses are sleeping
Where the molten tongues of flame are leaping
Or where the angel’s hearts are beating

Marilyn Monroe was very unhappy. People thought she was nothing but sexy and used her all the time. Frank Sinatra even pimped her out on occasion. She ended up with an empty bottle, after taking the pills to kill herself, and those that said that they cared for her weren’t there. They all called her untalented, but she could sing, she was naturally funny on screen. They called her dumb and made her sidle up to intellectuals and try to justify that they wanted to sleep with her despite the fact that they didn’t respect her intellect or talent.

When she died they started to worship her as a goddess, loved her, and romanticized her life. Meanwhile she was either decomposing, in heaven, or being burned in hell by people starting fires. Way too late.

A cosmic joke, but not really funny.

Get started, start a fire
Get started, start a fire
Get started, start a fire
Get started, start a fire

Last verse.

Joan of Arc was burning at the stake somebody had made a big mistake
She had lit a cigarette in an airport where you get
All your fingers taken off for smoking.
Meanwhile up the road a factory’s choking
The ones who killed her work there I’m not joking

Joan of Arc was an innocent who tried to save people, but they burned her at the stake. Parker thinks it was a mistake.

He posits that she was killed for smoking in an airport, which is illegal, because cigarettes kill people, which they do.

But he also notes that close by there are factorys run by people trying to make money that belch out smoke that kill people. The people that make cigarettes to kill people also do it to make money. Those people who were killing people to make money killed the innocent trying to be a savior.

A cosmic depressing joke, depicted with jokes.

I told her to listen because Parker seems pretty sympathetic throughout the song but the last part of the last verse he sings is full of contempt.

I’M NOT JOKING!

I said that’s art to me.

She said I don’t see that in the song. I said it’s mostly between the lines, but it’s all over the song especially the last thing he sang in the last verse with contempt.

Get started, start a fire
Get started, start a fire
Get started, start a fire
Get started, start a fire

Get started, start a fire
Get started, start a fire
Get started, start a fire
Get started, start a fire

Parker is saying burn it all down. Even the art if you have to, and start loving and start being happy and making people happy.

I showed her “The Scream.”

 

She said she loved it. I said everyone loves it, but few understand it. Everyone loves the guy screaming, because they are screaming themselves. What they don’t notice is the two guys in the background who don’t notice the unhappy guy screaming.

So I said, “If you ever find anyone that says they love ‘The Scream’ they will know that there is a guy screaming. See if they know that there are two guys not paying attention.”

Then you will know more about that art than they do.

My mom started to think about art.

I told her that I had shown her the clip from Malcolm X where the guy tells him, “If you take one step to Allah. He will take two steps to you.”

She asked me if I thought I was Allah.

I said, “Of course not, but I do love art.”

She asked me what art was, and I told her that it was anything she considered to be art as long as she considered it with some measure of honestly and integrity.

Get started, start a fire
Get started, start a fire
Get started, start a fire
Get started, start a fire

Burn it all down, even the art if you have to. Start loving. Be happy and try to make those around you a little happier.