Gerald Murnane

Words In Order

Culture Sack

Last year word started to really travel about Gerald Murnane. Which is almost ironic, given the small-town Australian author doesn’t really travel himself. He lives in a town with a population of around 600 (Goroke) and has only been outside of the state of Victoria a handful of times. But he published two books amid talk that he was not merely one of the greats but a possible Nobel Prize candidate.

He’s retired. He volunteers pouring pints at the local golf-club. And then, seemingly out of fucking nowhere, he released a spoken-word album on vinyl. Not just vinyl but limited edition gatefold, signed, numbered vinyl. An edition of 300. Write and order – get it back in the mail. Personally signed.

So I did. And I’ve been a (mostly) happy chap ever since…

Side one is a single track that features Murnane reading a single 1,600-word palindrome that he wrote some 13 years earlier (allegedly taking around six months to compose). It’s married to a 16-minute musical score here composed from the letters of his name, translated via a substitution code (think, Miles Davis’ Aura) into musical notes.

All suitably mad as a brush – and being a palindrome you get wonderful stick-out phrases that are meaningless but wonderful such as:.  Mo, what is atom? And Mr. Anus Bear do not fart. And the glorious I root Maria, glory or not. (Bonus: Leo did a turd in LA.) The name of this mad-wonder: Do Good, Dog-God! Do, O God! (for the full palindrome effect, you need to take in all 1600 words and then read in reverse, but you get various moments within the borderline Tourette’s Syndrome flow).

My highlights above are just word-strings that leap out of the madness, never more so than on headphones. (This is a wonderful headphone album). And it creates different highlights each time.

The music is by Murnane-fan Chris Gregory. He also printed out the lyrics to a few songs he figured Gerald would not know but might like and they are the basis of side two of the record.

We start with Mark Mothersbaugh’s Mongoloid from the Devo album, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! Murnane reads the lines in plain-speak:

Mongoloid, he was a mongoloid
Happier than you and me
Mongoloid, he was a mongoloid
And it determined what he could see
Mongoloid, he was a mongoloid
One chromosome too many
Mongoloid, he was a mongoloid
And it determined what he could see

And he wore a hat
And he had a job
And he brought home the bacon
So that no one knew…

Up next? Well it would be anyone’s guess, but in fact it’s Murnane working through three Thomas Hardy poems – to musical accompaniment from Gregory, a soft wash of soundscape. And a poem by Hungarian scribe Dezső Kosztolányi.

Before the closer, another song-lyric, Killdozer’s Knuckles The Dog, we get one further Murnane original. This, a poem, is far straighter than the mad and maddening palindrome-as-album-centerpiece. The Ballad of RTM is like Murnane’s best short prose – a simple story in a unique voice. It’s wonderful here set against a driving country-blues guitar progression, some churchy organ and the thwacking of percussion that all but indicates the mowing down of fences.

Murnane is an excellent reader. His voice filled with a deadpan nonchalance. These words are in front of him. So he reads them…

Holy shit but this is all wonderful. Crazy. And weird. And amazing it even happened. You’ll shake your head. In approval. Or fervent disagreement. Either way.

And in either case that’s a good thing.
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