Song of the Bricoleur: Rags Rosenberg

Interactive Transcript

spk_0 Hello and welcome to Myth Matters, an exploration at the intersection of mythology, creativity,

spk_0 and consciousness.

spk_0 I'm your host, Dr. Catherine Svela.

spk_0 Wherever you may be in this wide, beautiful, crazy world of ours, I'm glad that you

spk_0 decided to join me here today.

spk_0 I have a special guest for you today, poet and performing songwriter Rags Rosenberg.

spk_0 Rags writes what he calls mythopoetic folk rock in the tradition of songwriter poets he

spk_0 admires, specifically Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, and Tom Waits.

spk_0 Rags and I have collaborated a number of times over the years.

spk_0 I wanted to bring him on to Myth Matters today because he's released a new album called

spk_0 Song of the Brickle Lore that speaks to myth and our ongoing myth making.

spk_0 These songs are rooted in folk and Americana traditions.

spk_0 They draw on the uncertainty of modern life, the unraveling of old traditions and institutions,

spk_0 and the notion that maybe we can imagine a different, more humane future into existence.

spk_0 If you've been listening to Myth Matters, I think you can hear the resonance between

spk_0 my mission and perspective as a mythologist and the kind of art that Rags is creating.

spk_0 So, I'm excited to share him and his work with you today.

spk_0 Rags, thank you for being here.

spk_0 Well, I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for the invitation.

spk_0 There's so much we could talk about with Song of the Brickle Lore, but before we get to that,

spk_0 I'd like to talk a little bit about your identity as an artist, as part of the context,

spk_0 because I think there is a relationship between what you make and your perspective and process

spk_0 and how you see yourself as an artist in this time that might lend some depth to our conversation

spk_0 about your album Song of the Brickle Lore. So, Rags, what Rags is not the name you were born with, right?

spk_0 No, it's not. That was a name that is a name that I adopted a number of years ago.

spk_0 And it comes from a poem by William Butler Yates,

spk_0 called Circus Animals Desertion, which is quite a long poem. However, well, let me back up a

spk_0 second here and give you just a little bit of background on this, because Yates wrote this poem

spk_0 really towards the end of his life, and it was in his last collection of poems. And it was at a

spk_0 point where he was reflecting on what he'd done in his career and in his life, and what that had been

spk_0 had been using all of those Celtic mythologies and images as source material for his poetry.

spk_0 And so, the whole poem is just one after the other, these stanzas of all the different images

spk_0 that he had used over the course of his life. And in the end, it's like he makes this decision

spk_0 that he no longer wants to do that at this point. He's like 82, 83 years old and he goes, I want to

spk_0 go somewhere else. I want to go somewhere down more, something more personal, something

spk_0 down within myself. And so, he refers to all of these old images and mythologists

spk_0 that he had used in the past as circus animals and hints the title of the poem, circus animals

spk_0 desertion. And so, in the last stanza, he says, those masterful images, because complete, grew in pure

spk_0 mind, but out of what began, a mound of refuse or the sweeping of a street, old kettles, old bottles,

spk_0 and a broken can, old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut who keeps the till,

spk_0 now my ladders gone, I must lie down where all the ladders start in the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.

spk_0 So, rag and bones is what I called my musical act for a long time, but you know, there's a clothing

spk_0 store in New York, rag and bones, rag and bone shop or something like that. And there's an artist,

spk_0 a British artist, an English guy who was very good, a singer, songwriter, who calls himself the

spk_0 rag and bone man. And so, if you went to, and Googled rags and bones, you know, you have to go

spk_0 through a trillion pages for you ever got to me. And I thought, well, if I want to popularize my music,

spk_0 I'm just going to call myself Rags Rosenberg. There's not going to be a whole lot of rags

spk_0 Rosenbergs around. So, that's how that all came about. Right, right, right. Well, I definitely

spk_0 understand the internet strategy. But there's something there in your fascination with that poem.

spk_0 Well, of course, that's exactly right. Because that's what I'm trying to do. You know, I'm trying

spk_0 to go down. I'm trying to examine and express some of the things that are going on for me in my life.

spk_0 And what I love about this stanza is how broken everything is and how unpretty that he's willing

spk_0 to face in that, in that down, down where all the ladders start in the basement, you know, down,

spk_0 way down, in the beginning of things and in the place where you really are honest with yourself.

spk_0 And that was that's the whole point for me. And that's where the rags comes in. You know,

spk_0 they're not they're not finally crafted fabrics. They're rags. And you look at them honestly. And

spk_0 you make out of them what you will. I love your dedication to that poem and this image.

spk_0 And that it's even led to your transformation, you know, your public presentation of yourself as an artist,

spk_0 calling yourself rags. I think it's a model of something really important about the creative process

spk_0 and artistic identity that deserves more attention, which is the value of having a guiding image.

spk_0 And in some sense, I guess all of the emphasis these days on having a brand and having your own

spk_0 personal brand does that. And yet there's something really derivative about that and the notion of

spk_0 branding that for me anyway is kind of off putting when we're talking about

spk_0 making art that comes out of one's soul and is a unique expression.

spk_0 And how do you how do you stay in touch with that? You know, how do you stay in in touch with that?

spk_0 And it it seems to me that your devotion to this notion of rags and the rag and bone shop

spk_0 has done that for you very fruitfully and effectively. Are there any other images that have come up

spk_0 in the course of your creative life that are similar guides for you in terms of understanding

spk_0 who you are as an artist and what is in your wheelhouse, so to speak?

spk_0 Yeah, absolutely. Over the course of the years, you and I have done quite a bit of work together

spk_0 on a consulting basis. And in one of our conversations, we were talking about a guiding image.

spk_0 And we did a lot of work around that and at a certain point, you came up with this formulation

spk_0 of the poet king. And you gave me a whole list of poet kings in the world, or Solomon. There

spk_0 was King David. There was, you know, there was Al Mutamid from that area in Spain.

spk_0 And all of these poet kings had several things in common besides having a lot of concubines.

spk_0 They were wise people. And their wisdom allowed them to rule in a very humane way.

spk_0 And they were all literally poets, all of them, real poetry.

spk_0 So over the years, I've taken that idea of the poet king and internalized it in a way such that,

spk_0 I mean, as all your listeners know and have experienced,

spk_0 our minds are constantly chattering. And that chatter, that conversation that's going on inside of there

spk_0 is just a whole group of voices, different aspects of ourselves.

spk_0 But who's in charge? Who's going to make the final decision about whether you cut the corner?

spk_0 Who's going to make the final decision about whether you do the right thing?

spk_0 And so forth and so on. So for me, what's happened is the poet king formulation. That poet king

spk_0 has become that part of me that I can call upon to take charge and to help me make a decision

spk_0 that's that I can feel good about. So I think that's probably the most useful way that I have been

spk_0 able to incorporate that formulation of the poet king. But also there's a certain aspect of

spk_0 elevation. When I think of myself as a poet king, I don't, I should also say, I don't share

spk_0 this around. I don't go and now say, hey, I'm the poet king, Rags Rosenberg. It's just like,

spk_0 it's just like Leonard Collins says, you know, you don't call yourself a poet. That's something

spk_0 other people decide about you. So it's something I kind of keep to myself, but it's a guiding principle.

spk_0 I like that. Yeah. The poet king and the image of the rag and bone shop,

spk_0 those are those are mythic images. And so I'm wondering how has familiarizing yourself, as I know

spk_0 you have with myth and mythic viewpoint influenced your creative process and what you create.

spk_0 Well, I mean, it's huge, absolutely huge. All of the work that we did together and all of the

spk_0 reading I've done based on that and study based on working with you and on understanding myth has

spk_0 helped me to realize that really all the stories that I tell in my songs, I mean, they're not all

spk_0 linear narratives, but they are all stories that all those stories are in some way retellings

spk_0 because the stories are ancient and they show up in different cultural moments based on whatever

spk_0 that context is at that historical time. And we're in this time right now that we're all experiencing,

spk_0 which is we may get to a little bit later is a rather dark time. But all the stories that I'm telling

spk_0 are retellings of old stories in one way or another. And that's one thing I came to understand

spk_0 by working by working with myth. And so you'll hear like in song of the Brickle-Lor, and now song of

spk_0 the Brickle-Lor is a song, but it's also the title of the album. It's a 12 track album. Let's just

spk_0 take an example. An example of one of the songs is these bones. And for instance, the narrator says,

spk_0 last night I had a dream and you were in it. Or maybe it was your dream I was in. I was wrestling

spk_0 with your angel on the mountain back when I thought I could win. And that's a reference to this poem

spk_0 by Rilke. You know, where he talks about the angels coming down from heaven to wrestle with people.

spk_0 And in the end he says, those who were beaten by these angels came away stronger from that struggle.

spk_0 And it's like, okay, so we're all wrestling with angels kind of all the time. And if we allow

spk_0 ourselves to be beaten by the angel instead of insisting on our idea and our way that there's

spk_0 something larger that can come from that. And then in the second verse it says, the young man

spk_0 charts a course for the islands. The old man wonders where it all went wrong. Thanks for the wind

spk_0 and the sirens. I was captured by the rapture of their song. That is all met. That's so dizziness,

spk_0 you know, that's the whole he camels heroes journey right there. And the sirens and the wind

spk_0 blowing you off course and all the plans you make for your life. It's like, so there's some

spk_0 examples of how myth has affected my songwriting. Yeah, you know, in the angel I also hear Jacob.

spk_0 And the biblical stories of wrestling with angels, you know, which is probably to your point

spk_0 of these retellings very likely. What Rilke was drawing on. There's such a wealth of

spk_0 metaphor in the myths that then feed the art, that then amplify or shift a little bit in one

spk_0 way or another expand the metaphors. I mean, we have this incredibly rich vocabulary now of images

spk_0 and metaphors and notions as well as the storylines. And personally, I do think one of the advantages

spk_0 of being aware of that is that those those are ideas that have a resonance with us.

spk_0 That's very deep because they have a history such a long history and human history or human culture.

spk_0 So even if you don't really know the references, like, oh, well, wrestling with an angel, I don't

spk_0 know Rilke's poem and I don't know about Jacob. And yet, there's some I understand that idea. And

spk_0 I think that's a really interesting thing about working with myth and why I like to work with

spk_0 artists who were working with mythology because it's a way to really bring power to your projects.

spk_0 Right. And the one of the powerful things about the myth is that because they're so universal,

spk_0 that the listener in one of the to one of these songs really doesn't have to know the actual myth,

spk_0 doesn't have to know that old story because it's sort of embedded already in our in our

spk_0 psyches. And you may not remember this, but during some of our early work together when I was

spk_0 consulting with you where I was still living in Nashville and I was trying to really shift my

spk_0 songwriting away from that more literal kind of writing that I was trying to do there. And

spk_0 you said, when you sit down to write a song, you have to ask yourself two questions. What is the

spk_0 image? What is the metaphor? Now, I've always remembered that, obviously. And the fact of the matter

spk_0 is I don't, I don't always do that exactly like that. But in retrospect, when I look at what I have

spk_0 written at some point, I go, Oh, that's the image. Oh, that's the metaphor. And that helps me to

spk_0 complete the work. Once I understand what it is, I'm really working with in terms of the image

spk_0 in the metaphor. So that was really valuable. Right. And that's all that's all myth based.

spk_0 Right. Well, so this seems like a good time to turn specifically to your latest album,

spk_0 Song of the Brickle Lore, which is being released today. Brickle Lore, as some people might remember,

spk_0 was a topic of a podcast episode that I did a while back. And I'll drop the link to that episode

spk_0 and with the transcript and the notes for this conversation. That image of the Brickle Lore of

spk_0 someone who is using what's at hand to invent, make something new, make repairs,

spk_0 feels so appropriate to this time that we're in. And the activity that in many ways

spk_0 faces us if we think we're in a time of collapse and culture building.

spk_0 I'm curious to hear the story about the genesis of that idea. I think you mentioned it started as a song

spk_0 before it became the name of the album. Where did that come from? Your fascination with Brickle Lore.

spk_0 Well, I think originally 2011, I read a paper by Dr. David Miller who was someone that you

spk_0 introduced me to. And the paper was called Brickle Lore in the genesis court. So first he defines

spk_0 Brickle Lore in this paper. And Brickle Lore is someone who makes what they can with what they have

spk_0 on hand. It's someone who creates something new from something that's no longer useful or no

spk_0 David captures this moment and in the painting you see all of these men. And of course this is

spk_0 18th century. So of course it's all men, but they've got their arms around each other and they're

spk_0 fissing the air and they've just been ejected by the king from the palace at Versailles. And these

spk_0 are the, these were the citizens of the nation that had what they called the national assembly. So

spk_0 they were an important part of the whole society. And they were trying to develop more of a

spk_0 of a civil society. Of course this was in a period of time when then there was the Enlightenment. There

spk_0 was there was you know it was a really big time in human history or at least in Western history.

spk_0 And so they all gather in this tennis court down the basically down the street from the palace

spk_0 and they're trying to decide what to do next. And this was the birth of the French Revolution.

spk_0 And what Miller, Dr. Miller says about this is okay they were being Brickle oars. They were

spk_0 Brickle oars. They were taking something that was no longer useful, no longer working. This idea

spk_0 of government by divine right. And they were inventing something new. Ever since then Miller says

spk_0 we've all been Brickle oars. And you think about it. You know we're creating new families,

spk_0 types of family systems. We're inventing new kinds of spiritual practices. I mean a lot they're

spk_0 not that they're not based on some of the old things but we are all Brickle oars. We are all

spk_0 taking everything that we've learned from the past and we're reformulating what we want to do

spk_0 with that and how we want to live. And so one of the ideas that's embedded in that I think for

spk_0 me is that when you're in this period of history like we are now where with AI and with the

spk_0 digititation of everything and with the resurgence of fascist movement, everything is up for grabs.

spk_0 You know anything can happen and that's the whole point really is that we have agency

spk_0 in this moment to affect what direction things are going to go in as Brickle oars.

spk_0 Right right. Well let's pause here and play folks the song.

spk_0 Hey look it's four in the morning.

spk_0 The pans and provides any tune down on the floor we're still dancing.

spk_0 Spinning around the room. The choir singing hallelujah because the tunes they get turned.

spk_0 Roads. Yes. We're not there yet.

spk_0 Warm it maybe we've gone too far. Our fine.

spk_0 Rees worn and faded. The fabric is torn and free. The tinkerers trying to patch it all up.

spk_0 With duct tape and a blade. All the gypsies says don't buy the sun.

spk_0 Count to see this old parties near dawn. What's on the way? No one can say.

spk_0 Ready or not here it comes.

spk_0 Follow Ryan complaints to his therapist.

spk_0 What can the kingdom be worth? The Brantan have arms through the roof.

spk_0 Rangers of fallen to earth. You know faith was our foundation.

spk_0 Unquestioned. Hands in tears. All but ever since Fred.

spk_0 Pronounced car dead. Will it spend kind to shake here?

spk_0 Around here. We gather the family for supper. We bow our heads to praise.

spk_0 Oh father please forgive us. We have lost our ways.

spk_0 I'm poor country members. Dile is on the phone.

spk_0 Oh mama she tried as she just cries. Children you're on your own.

spk_0 Me I'm under the table feeding my appetites.

spk_0 Me getting my way through the buffet. Never satisfied.

spk_0 Whoa the chef appears in the doorway. Everyone turns to the sound.

spk_0 Well we're all out of meat and potatoes folks.

spk_0 But it's cramed all around.

spk_0 Columbus he sits in the corner.

spk_0 We're sprin to the clown.

spk_0 My mouth's there all dissolving.

spk_0 A compass spinning round. The clown says not to worry.

spk_0 Ain't nothing we need to know.

spk_0 There's a new world on the rise and crisp.

spk_0 We'll make it up as we go.

spk_0 There's a new world on the rises.

spk_0 And we'll make it up as we go.

spk_0 In the lead up to the song, you mentioned some of the institutions that we depend on that

spk_0 are going through this process, where we're all brickalores reimagining.

spk_0 And I heard that as we moved through the song, for example, you touched on government and I think

spk_0 in the first verse are touching at least a little bit on that image of the tennis court.

spk_0 And then have commentary on the church and on the family.

spk_0 I'm wondering at this point in your process with the song, now here it is out in the world,

spk_0 is there an image or to in the song, to you feel especially important or potent?

spk_0 Well, I think that the last verse really does for me encapsulate what the song is about

spk_0 and why it's important to me, where the narrator says Columbus, he sits in the corner,

spk_0 whispering to the clown. My maps are all dissolving, the compass spinning round.

spk_0 The clown says not to worry, there's nothing we need to know, there's a new world on the horizon,

spk_0 Chris, we'll make it up as we go. That idea of we'll make it up as we go, that's it right there.

spk_0 I mean, that's what we're all doing. We're doing that in our personal lives, we're doing that in our

spk_0 culture. None of this is predetermined. We're just taking what we got and we're working with it.

spk_0 So I'd say that. And then, you know, it's all narrative until you get, you know, kind of third person

spk_0 narrative, I'm just describing what's going on in this party that seems to be coming to an end in

spk_0 some way, even though we're all continuing to dance, there's something coming to an end.

spk_0 There's this personal statement, me, I'm under the table feeding my appetites, making my way through

spk_0 the buffet, never satisfied. The chef appears in the doorway, everyone turns to the sound, we're all

spk_0 out of meat and potatoes, folks, but it's cramed, roulet, all around. This idea of the way we are

spk_0 stratified now between the rich and the poor has become so clarified and undeniable in a way that

spk_0 something has to shift. So for me, that's the center of it. That's what I find really important

spk_0 in what I want to impart to people. I noticed too that questionable nourishment, where is the real,

spk_0 where is the real substance, you know, the real nourishment for people, for our souls, for

spk_0 our culture and our bodies? And the buffet, I mean, that's a great matter for for Instagram,

spk_0 or Facebook or anything on your phone that you're scrolling. That's the digital buffet right now.

spk_0 And it keeps us, it keeps us sort of drugged, it keeps us numb and distracted.

spk_0 Yeah, thinking about the issues that you're engaged with in your songs, the things that you invite us to

spk_0 think about or feel into. And what you've said about your identity as an artist reaching down

spk_0 into the rag and bone shop of the heart, listening to that, being guided by the higher wisdom of the

spk_0 poet king. I'm wondering if you feel that there's a conversation or a certain set of themes

spk_0 or issues that you come to feel are yours. You know, I've read a number of people who write about

spk_0 the creative process, who talk about the fact that at some point, you realize that

spk_0 when you're making art, that it's more than a personal expression. And I don't mean to say anything

spk_0 pejorative about personal expression, I think we need more of that from more people. But

spk_0 but that really start to realize that there's an arena of life or a set of concerns that you

spk_0 in some sense steward, you're the custodian of some certain set of topics. Does that resonate with you?

spk_0 Oh, absolutely. Another thing Leonard Cohen said was I've

spk_0 stayed out of certain territory and I'm going to defend that territory until I can't any longer.

spk_0 I mean, that's I think what you're talking about. And this idea of cultural collapse is certainly

spk_0 something that I feel I have a lot to say about. It hits me deeply because

spk_0 the of the time that we live in right now is

spk_0 it's transformational on every level. And I would say that when you listen to the songs on

spk_0 song of the brickalore, all of them, you listen to the poem at the end, the code,

spk_0 and you'll listen to John Doe about this nameless, homeless veteran that dies.

spk_0 Faith and doubt are are are famous that run through this album and this man my work,

spk_0 exile and belonging run through the work. These are all three of these themes.

spk_0 Collapse, resilience, faith and doubt, exile and belonging that are not things I ever set out to

spk_0 write about. But when I reflect upon the work, I go, oh, this is what it is. This is what I'm working

spk_0 with. And then that can help me guide myself in the future in terms of where I might point my

spk_0 myself. But these are not themes that I set out to write about. They're just things that

spk_0 they were feelings. They were things I had concern about. And I wrote and then in retrospect,

spk_0 it's like, oh, if you just sum this up into what are the themes, there they are.

spk_0 Personally, I think that songs, songs that are in one way or another speaking directly to

spk_0 problems that we face are super helpful. For one thing, I feel less alone when I hear someone else

spk_0 eloquently handling situations and concerns that I'm engaged with. I'm curious to get your thoughts

spk_0 on what the role of the artist is in these times. Or maybe what role do you assign yourself as an artist

spk_0 in these? Well, it's a big question. And it's one that I ask myself, I don't have a real

spk_0 patent answer to that in terms of my role and all of that. But I'm sort of making it up as I go,

spk_0 so to speak. So Bertold Brex got this poem in which he says, in dark times, we will sing of the

spk_0 dark times. And I'm a big fan of Martin Heidegger's essay, What are Poets for? Where he says that

spk_0 basically when you get into dark times, you think about it as a night, as the night.

spk_0 And of course, he's talking about night as this period we're in now where we've abandoned the gods

spk_0 because we no longer feed them. We no longer worship them. We no longer present sacrifices to them.

spk_0 We've become the gods. It's like, that's a problem. And it's created this situation where

spk_0 we're not managing things very well. You may have not doing such a great job. And so what's the role

spk_0 of the poet Heidegger says the role of the poet is in these dark times, in this night that we're in

spk_0 is to try to point us toward the light, towards the dawn. Where are we in this? Are we at midnight

spk_0 or we at 3am? The poet is supposed to take an honest in-depth look at where we are and speak to

spk_0 that. And so there are a few songs in this album that attempt to do that.

spk_0 So, Rags, is there anything else that you would like to tell folks before we close?

spk_0 I would say that if you have any impulse to do art, you should follow that.

spk_0 And whatever voice may be preventing you from doing that, I'm too busy, I don't have the talent,

spk_0 I don't have anything to say. Just please, set all that aside and write something, paint something,

spk_0 sculpt something, go to your garden and create something in your garden. Because one of the things

spk_0 we can do right now, all of us, in a time when there's so much cruelty in the world and so much

spk_0 ugliness, is we all have the ability in our own lives to find small ways to create beauty.

spk_0 And that's, I want to leave you with that. I think that whatever you can do to create beauty,

spk_0 any day of the week, do it.

spk_0 Thank you for that. I agree. I so appreciate you taking the time to have this conversation, Rags.

spk_0 Yeah, well, it's really wonderful for me to, I mean, you write these songs, you'd put out this album

spk_0 and it's just, you throw it out into the world and in a way, it can be a little bit like a huge black

spk_0 hole. You don't know who's down there, who's going to listen, who's going to, so having an opportunity

spk_0 to come on your show and talk a little bit about the project and to encourage people to take a

spk_0 listen and see how it might affect them is really, it completes the circle, you know, or the cycle

spk_0 for me of having an idea, sitting down and writing, making a recording of it, throwing it out

spk_0 into the world and then getting a response back from the world in some way. So doing this podcast

spk_0 with you is one way that helps me to complete that, that cycle of Song of the Brickle-Lure.

spk_0 So thank you. I'm going to be posting a link to your website with this transcript and I encourage

spk_0 keep track of what you're doing. I also want to mention that the album Song of the Brickle-Lure,

spk_0 which has come out today, is available to stream on Spotify, Amazon Music, all the places where you

spk_0 go and get your music online. But if you want to support Rags, go to his page on Bandcamp and

spk_0 Hey for something for the album. And that's easy to download if you haven't used Bandcamp before.

spk_0 It's really one of the better sites in terms of independent artists being able to get their

spk_0 music to the rest of us. So I want to say about that, that if you want to purchase

spk_0 an actual physical copy of the CD, you can do that at my website, ragsrozenberg.com.

spk_0 And the artwork, by the way, for the cover of this album was created by yours truly,

spk_0 Catherine Soveila. And it's become my image of the Brickle-Lure, what you created there. So you can

spk_0 see that and you can order the actual CD, physical CD with the image on it at my website.

spk_0 Oh great, thanks for the plug for the image.

spk_0 Yeah, it's great. Well, this guy is not just a Brickle-Lure, he's the poet king.

spk_0 On that note, thanks again to Rags, Rosenberg, for sharing his work here on Myth Matters.

spk_0 You'll find links to Rags and a song of the Brickle-Lure posted with this transcript.

spk_0 Let's take his advice and bring some beauty into the world, my friend. We are making it all up as we go

spk_0 together. And that's it for me, Catherine Soveila and Myth Matters. Take good care of yourself.

spk_0 And until next time, keep the mystery in your life alive.

Song of the Bricoleur: Rags Rosenberg

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