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Yes, I’ve scripted my performance.
Intro to I’ll Be Your Mirror
Three of the best and most influential albums ever recorded are The Velvet Underground and Nico by, of course, The Velvet Underground, Village Green Preservation Society by The Kinks, and Horses by Patti Smith.
With HORSES, Patti takes classic, primal, foundational rock’n’roll songs— G-L-O-R-I-A. Land of a Thousand Dances—and layes her own poetry over top of them. Taking the old and making it new. The oral tradition. The folk tradition.
And The Velvet Underground’s I’ll Be Your Mirror, that’s the mission statement for any artist: "I will be your mirror. I will reflect what you are, in case you don’t know. I will show you the beauty are."
So in the spirit Patti Smith, I’ve placed my own poetry atop Lou Reed’s I’LL BE YOUR MIRROR, and I’ve held that mirror up to the little village green of Castle Shannon, Pennsylvania, a little coal mining town that worked its way into suburbia.
I play this song in memory of the Claude Monet of Castle Shannon, the late David Allen Flynn.
I’LL BE YOUR MIRROR
song lyrics by Lou Reed, additional imagery by Robert Andrew Wagner
I'll be your mirror, reflect what you are, in case you don't know.
I'll be the wind, the rain and the sunset,
a light on your door, to show that you're home.
I'll be the bark of a dog
at seven a.m.
as you return home
from the night shift.
I'll be a spinster
who's been on barbiturates
since 1950.
I'll be a seventy-two year old woman
who goes to mass every morning.
I'll be saying to everyone who asks,
"Hey, buddy, spare a quarter,”
”No, man, spare a dime,”
while paging through the help-wanted section
of the Pittsburgh Press
at a newsstand
on Smithfield Street.
I'll be your mirror, reflect what you are, in case you don't know.
I'll be a bent cola can
rattling down the street.
I'll be minimum wage
and unpaid dinner
to dishwashers
who still can't get the crust
off the pots and pans
no matter how hard they scrub
I'll be rollers, belts and rails
that transport slammed
packages marked FRAGILE
that rattle all the way
from Oakland, California.
I'll be the sweat-dripping bandana,
on a teamster’s head
facing certain unemployment
in an airless breathless freight truck in August
I'll be the daily quota of beer that pacifies the United Parcel Service
I'll be the broken windshield of a stolen Ford,
stripped and abandoned in the parking lot.
I'll be walking home.
I'll be your mirror, reflect what you are, in case you don't know.
I'll be drunk over the toilet
in the women's room
on the thirteenth floor
of a college dormitory.
I'll be spitting off bridges till the day I die.
I'll be a never ending collection of defective messiahs.
Phil Ochs, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Patti Smith,
John Lennon, Karl Marx and Bruno Sammartino.
I'll be the man who stashes empty beer cases
in his neighbor's trash
because he's ashamed
of what the garbage man might think.
I'll be the fly in the funeral parlor,
spilled milk in an infant's crib,
and misspelled graffiti
on the playground shelter wall.
I'll be the wind, the rain and the sunset, a light on your door, to show that you're home.
When you think the night has seen your mind, that inside you're twisted and unkind,
Let me stand to show that you are blind.
Please put down your hands.
'Cause I see you.
I find it hard to believe that you don't know the beauty you are.
I find it hard to believe that you don't know the beauty you are.
I find it hard to believe that you don't know the beauty
You are three-hundred couples
of best friends
in the City Park,
kicking debris in the river
on the first sunny day of spring.
You are a baby chewed apart
by an ill-bred dog
while mother's locked in the hallway
banging on the door
You are all the news that's fit to print.
You are what I am,
and I am what I've been through,
and I've been through hell.
You are the muddy path behind the school
where truants smoke tobacco
and make suicide pacts.
You are blood-stained sheets and pillowcases
where high school girls slit their wrists
and live to regret it.
You are three bottles
of half-digested sleeping pills
puked onto the bathroom floor.
You are ninety days of observation on the wards of St. Francis,
Six weeks of recovery in the lock up at St. Johns,
Forty-two days of withdrawal and contrition in the dorms of Greenbriar.
Now you're doubling-out,
three to eleven,
eleven to seven,
three times a week
for minimum wage.
I find it hard to believe that you don't know the beauty you are.
You are a broken record of nine-to-five
that repeats six days a week,
fifty weeks a year
for too long now.
You are three months in America,
can't speak English,
and already lost
your tailoring business
in Ambridge.
You are sewing ripped underarms
hemming pants
and reattaching buttons
in a dry cleaning store
under-the-table.
You are long lines waiting
for an application
to J&L Steel.
You are capitalism,
May God strike you dead
if you're not democratic.
You are in love, Charlie Brown.
You are a shivering stumble bum
huddled beneath a pile of rags
on a warehouse dock.
You are an empty soap-dispenser
and soggy paper towels
in the bus station lavatory.
You are a truant junky’s blood
on the Burger King Wall
Three blocks from Westinghouse High School.
I find it hard to believe that you don't know the beauty you are.
Let me be your car radio
playing feel-good AM pop music
as you sit in the rush hour traffic.
Let me be the jelly donut
drying on the passenger seat
on the interminable journey home
from the night shift.
Let me be the burns on your arms
from creasing pants
in a cage of hot steam pipes.
Let me be the splinters in your hands
from climbing a wooden fence
in a neighborhood playground
on a drunk Spring night.
Let me be the CIA
so I can turn half your neighborhood
into a bunch of mindless junkies.
Let me be alone—You can be a pain sometimes.
Let me be the soup cans and brushes on the Warhola grave
on the hill across from the slag dumps.
Let me be the unspoken words of friendship
between a man and a woman
who will never become lovers.
Let me be the imprints on your face
when you wake up on the floor
in front of the t.v.
with your jacket as a pillow.
Let me be the burnt-out bulb on the broken lamp,
The broken lamp on the crooked coffee-table
The crooked coffee-table on the dirty throw-rug
The dirty throw-rug on the spotted on the floor.
The spot where the blood dried.
The blood when mom stabbed dad
He hit her once too often
Let me be your friend.
Let me be your eyes, a hand to your darkness, so you won't be afraid.
When you think the night has seen your mind, that inside you're twisted and unkind,
let me stand to show that you are blind. Please put down your hands.
'Cause I see you.
I'll be your mirror. Reflect what you are. In case you don’t know.
'Cause I find it hard
To believe you don't know
The beauty you are.