words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup

let's get this nonsense out of the way. having scrap paper and time to kill leads to these fragments:

Misgivings never fail
to keep in step
when I tread lightly,
not ready yet

to face misunderstand's
wrath,
trying to hide and
not cross paths.

Awkward questions in reserve,
ask not what I do deserve.

"I'm sorry but I can't abide
I'll see you on the other side."

also, after listening to 'across the universe' about 10 times this afternoon, i decided to find out stuff about it. so apparently lennon wrote the song independently from mccartney. the first line of the song, "words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup", was thought up by lennon while listening to his wife drone on about something or another, and the rest of the song came together (the lyrics at least) after she had fallen asleep. the music came the next day, as well as the strange line "jai guru deva - om" that bridges verse and chorus. the line is sanskrit, and could mean a bunch of different things. likely, it is a line taken from maharishi mahesh yogi, founder of transcendental medition and someone the beatles interacted with.

that line is really kind of odd. everything else in that song seems to fit well. lennon considered it one of the most poetic of the songs he ever wrote, and it's not hard to see why. it's really a very pretty song. the words just flow, and you just sit there and they float around you. you're only really conscious of the song when the sanskrit line comes, and your awareness of it lasts for the chorus.

the recording of the song has an interesting history. lennon was never quite satisfied with the recording of the song, despite playing around with it for a bit, and they shelfed it. also, by the time they came back to it, the beatles had given up on transcendental meditation, so the song had much less appeal. ultimately, the song was given a bunch of different mixes, and there's a bunch of different versions from the beatles themselves.

on top of that, i listened to a few covers. the rufus wainwright version sounds the best to me. it seems to be at just the right speed, and doesn't sound like it's trying too hard (which the fiona apple version suffers from). wainwright's voice is like a better version of lennon's, very appropriate for the song. making simple songs sound great seems to be his forte.

okay, that was a somewhat irrelevant sojourn. back to more important stuff.