“April is the cruelest month” or so thought Lost Generation’s T.S. Eliot as he stated in his epic poem “The Wasteland” (1922) which, as avant-garde and visionary as he no doubt was, T.S. could never have imagined the waste problems us fashionable Parisians have been immersed in these last weeks. In short, the government wants everyone to work longer, in the hopes of beefing up the treasury of a supposed fragile pension system, and retire at the ripe old age of 64. Now, I’m not choosing sides but I will say that maybe Ringo had it right when he sang, Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty-four. The government proposal has not gone over so well with the French populace who can get very touchy when it comes to their sacred pension system and the grand leafy boulevards of this beautiful city where I live, lately have been mobbed with demonstrators who have been clashing with police, banging drums, chanting slogans, all of this with an accompanying side-bar of a monumental garbage strike. Which sounds strange because obviously the garbage itself, nor those whose trash it once was, are on strike but those who pick it up surely are … or were. And until that happened you have no idea how much crap we’re throwing out on a daily basis every evening with nary a thought of where it will all go as long as it’s not there in the morning when sleepy eyed Parisians march off to work.
Now although both TS and I belong to the Eliot, Elliot & Elliott tribe (never met a one L and two T version but surely they might exist) but still, I can’t really say that I agree with him when it comes to dissing the 4th month of the year, the fabled precursor of Spring. Why? Because for a few short teenage years, whose memories have remained indelible, I was a Long Island surfer and April was the first month, after a long cold winter of watching surf movies, you could actually get in the ocean with a full body wetsuit and ride some waves at Gilgo Beach.
What makes April less cruel this year for this Elliott, is the release of the three song EP Wonder-Full which serves as a companion piece to my album Wonder which I’m pleased to say has gone over very well with fans, critics and my immediate family. No man is a prophet in his own land and, I might add, with his wife it’s even worse. Wonder-Full contains three outtakes from the Wonder sessions and that includes the time and space morphing rocker “Metaphysical Moments,” my long-awaited (at least by me) version of Leonard Cohen’s sublime “Suzanne,” and in the spirt of Quo Vadis (I just saw the 1951 film with Robert Taylor and Peter Ustinov playing a totally gonzo Nero), “Where Are We Going Now” featuring a very cool lap steel solo by Gaspard Murphy. Wonder-Fullwill be available on all streaming platforms as well as a limited amount of signed/numbered CDs on at the official online Elliott Murphy store.