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Departure
Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) wrote the following poem:
DÉPART
Assez vu. La vision s'est rencontrée à tous les airs.
Assez eu. Rumeurs des villes, le soir, et au soleil, et toujours.
Assez connu. Les arrêts de la vie. -- O Rumeurs et Visions!
Départ dans l'affection et le bruit neufs!
which has been translated into English by Loiuse Varese as follows:
DEPARTURE
Seen enough. The vision was met with in every air.
Had enough. Sounds of cities, in the evening and in the sun and always.
Known enough. Life's halts. --O Sounds and Visions!
Departure in new affection and new noise.
And on some of the t-shirts from the Monster Tour was written "On Tour '95 New Sights. New Noise. --Rimbaud" So it seems quite possible that the title of the R.E.M. song Departure as well as some of the lyrics to The Wake-Up Bomb come from this Rimbaud poem. [Peter West first found the poem; Ron Henry found the French version; shuey noted out the t-shirt] * [Stipe] said once (I think the article was in Spin?) that he'd read all of Rimbaud's works before he even knew how to pronounce the poet's name, because he knew that Patti Smith loved Rimbaud. [h1b2a3m4] * It might be worth noting that the Rimbaud allusion dovetails nicely with the sense that 70s glam rockers were pushing experience to its limits, as did Rimbaud in his short but dramatic life. [Ron Henry]
"car crash, ptomaine, disposable
lighter"
Ptomaine -- chemical associated
with rotting flesh, and mistakenly thought responsible for food
poisoning at one time. [macrae]
"Win a eulogy from William Greider"
William Greider is the politics and economics correspondent for
Rolling Stone, author of many books including his most recent,
One World, Ready or Not. [rbr]