(WATCH): Lift To Experience (Live In Paris, April 2001)

An entire mythology had been developed for the band (a kind of apocalyptic vision of Texan religious culture), in which God had personally commissioned them to release a double concept album called "The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads." The album is a kind of tongue-in-cheek riff on John Bunyan's 1678 religious classic "The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come," updated to present-day America wherein an angel of the Lord compels the faithful to flock to the true promised land (Texas) with guns in hand and enlist in God's army.

Their profoundly poetic (and funny) lyrics were replete with Joycean word games you'd completely miss if you weren't paying close attention. For example, when an angel reveals to the band that "the USA is the center of Jerusalem," it's not just a theological wink about America's self-perceived place in the world, but an easter egg within the word itself: Jer-USA-lem. A book could be written on the proliferation of such ornate details which infused every level of their creation: even their song titles — when read in order — formed a poem that gave a key to the meaning of the record: "Just As Was Told / Down Came The Angels / Falling From Cloud 9 / With Crippled Wings / Waiting To Hit / The Ground So Soft / These Are The Days / When We Shall Touch / Down With The Prophets / To Guard And To Guide You / Into The Storm"

(WATCH): Simon Raymonde Of Cocteau Twins On The Autumns and Lift To Experience

(LISTEN): The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads (Live In Paris) Part 1

Track List:
1.) With The World Behind
2.) Just As Was Told

SELECTED LYRICS:
This is the story of three Texas boys busy mindin' their own bidnis
When the Angel of the Lord appeared unto them saying:
"When the Winston Churchill's start firin' their Winston rifles in the sky from the Lone Star State
Drinkin' their Lone Star beer and smoking their Winston cigarettes
You know the time is drawin' nigh when the sun shall be lifted on high"
We told them that didn't sound very Sunday-go-ta-meetin
"What do you expect?" they said
"When God calls the crippled deaf and blind to lead the children of Israel to the promised land
"The children of Israel?" we asked
"Don't you boys know nothing? - The USA's the center of Jerusalem."
I hear the train a-coming
So try and rest till I trample walls over, until land dries.

Prophets on risen stars
Open fierce skies make onlookers kneel
Experiencing a death indeed
Now my young heroes everywhere advance rapidly toward Texas
Here at the troop headquarters enlist, dispatched angels remain knelt
Enduring rainy days

What's in the sky shining silver, shimering sleek?
A star, a star is born
Down came the angels
From heaven up above, oh
Drunk on the passion
And the fragrance of song
With feathered wings flapping upon the wind
To my door they did descend

"Forgive the intrusion, but we've traversed so far
All we know is to follow the star, and the star did set
Above this meagre barn that you inhabit
And you're not what we expected all covered in shit
God will bless the man with angel wings
To fly above and see beyond
Immortalise his words and give him power over the curse
To call or calm the storms."

(LISTEN): The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads (Live In Paris) Part 2

Track List:
1.) With Crippled Wings
2.) The Ground So Soft

SELECTED LYRICS:
All aboard the engine number nine
Those bound for the Jordan on the Texas state line
Here at the shelter for the saints
You'll find rest for the weary and the faint
Dry amidst the deluge in our city of refuge
From Athens to London to Paris to Rome
The stars are gonna shine
From here to Palestine
When the angels take flight
Deep from the heart of the dark Texas night

So begins the Exodus
To the land of the unclouded day
With blood bought ticket in your hand
Carving out a 'trail of tears' along the way
Travelling ever homeward under
A crippled, angry, new America
On that railroad underground
And if the train does jump the tracks
Don't think for a second that you're getting your money back
No exchanges, no refunds
Onward on foot till you see the rise of the Texas sun

Lord rescue me
Place your hand underneath my wings
And lift me up above the raging sea
And carry me to your shore
Place my body upon the rocks
Where the farthest I can fall is to the ground so soft
And in the coming days, when the waters rage
Help me to clearly see above the sea, Lord
Lord you ask so much
For someone with so little to give
This ain't my life and it never will be
I'm just trying to endure the sea, Lord

If you choose to let me sink to the floor
Of this ocean's bed
And let the waves come crashing down
Up above my head
I'm gonna take the rope from the millstone that's
Tied around my neck
And with body bound for death wrap my feet back up
Underneath my legs
So when I sink to the bottom of this deep dark sea
I will wait for Thee on bended knee

Death where is thy sting?
Grave where is thy victory?
For my saviour will come and rescue me
And redeem his treasure at the bottom of the sea
And when that light breaks through the clouds
We're all gonna sing and we're all gonna shout
When the dead shall rise from their resting place
And sing the chorus to "Amazing Grace"
Lord rescue me, place your hand underneath my wings
Lift me up above the raging sea
And carry me to your shore

(LISTEN): The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads (Live In Paris) Part 3

Track List:
1.) These Are The Days
2.) Waiting To Hit

SELECTED LYRICS:
And I can hardly wait to hear that great trumpet sound
Pouring down out across the land
These are the days that must happen to you
Bloody times ahead for God's chosen few
With our instruments swords, weapons of war
Marching around the city seven times
Yeah the whole world is gonna shake
When The Levee Breaks
So all you haircut bands, doing headstands
Thinking you'll turn the world upside down
Put your guitars up over your shoulders
A new sort of experience is taking over
'cos we're simply the best band in the whole damn land
And 'Texas Is The Reason'

The stars did align in 1999
When we getting ready for the moment to shine
With luck, star-struck
On the front of the storm we shall be born
Under the red and the blue and the white
These angels will take flight

Just a stupid ranch hand in a Texas rock band
Trying to understand God's master plan
When the Lord said "Son! Tell the world before it explodes
The glory of the Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads."
I said "Lord I'll make you a deal;
I will if you give me a smash hit so I can build a 'city on a hill'."
And He said "Son! I will if you will."
I said "My sweet Lord, it's a deal."

Born in a manger covered in after-birth
We're taking her for all she's worth
With stars above, lone star below
Under the X in Texas
Is where you'll find me, it's where I'll be
Forced out of 'The Garden Of Earthly Delights'
And one by one the states will know
As they crumble like Jericho
From Canada to Mexico
That Texas is the rock
To lift you up when your words collide
As the saints go marching on toward Zion
Tell your mother
You won't be home for Christmas this year
Say you've headed south
For the Promised Land
And with gun in hand
When America falls the world will fall with her

(LISTEN): An Excerpt From Josh T. Pearson's "The Last Of The Country Gentlemen"

Fogel writes: "In music you find release in becoming something else, in realizing the mystery of Rimbaud's 'Je suis un autre' ("I am someone else") — you cease to be you & hence undergo the annihilation of the conventional 'I' hood, a process which tends to precede deep mystical experiences — yes — Coltrane is evolution through music — becoming something else through music...Like early bluesmen and Andalucian miners turning their pain into music & leading their selves to a powerful & magnanimous realm wherein, even if just for a moment...you climb a ladder of notes to a realm beyond confinement, beyond trickery, beyond the degenerate 'I' the entertainment industry wants you to live in.

"Yet this voodoo of elevation is not exclusively in the hands of the musical elite of this world — it belongs of course to all their listeners — even further, anyone who has joined others in music knows what it's like to lose yourself in music, how the music being greater than any individual participant in it, raises your own poor being to realms blessedly beyond the illusory boundaries of your illusory self.

(WATCH): This Mortal Coil's "Song Of The Siren" And Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah" (Live)

[Note: This Mortal Coil were a collaboration of musicians from the 4AD record label including members of Pixies, Dead Can Dance, and Cocteau Twins (whose singer Liz Fraser and her lover Jeff Buckley can be heard above)]

"There are voices that draw you up - there are ways to listen your way to a wider awareness - this is of the most critical importance - we've got to lean on all the light we can muster to find a path...when truly exalted music, voices, sounds, all of which are abounding in spite of the state of this world, merge into our awareness, they take us to the King's inner court & through this widened awareness raise our perspective to new levels.

"I never understood who Elvis Presley was until I saw, late one night, towards the end of a long shift as a night watchman in a small hotel in Rome, an Italian documentary about the king. Being distracted by the luscious Italian porn broadcast in abundance elsewhere & by the delicate hypnotic voices of the Vatican channel telling the teachings of Jesus in meditative tones, gracefully accompanied by gentle close ups of Medieval devotional art, I did not see all of it but I did, by the grace of God, see Elvis perform American Trilogy in 1973 & immediately understood why Elvis is that he is.

"What we're dealing with here are images shot in the Coca-Cola reality of an oasis of plastic coins, a seeming dungeon for the spirit, where dressed in white, a golden Phoenix symbolizing rebirth, resurrection & the gaining anew of paradise lost on his back, jewels all over him, a white scarf round his neck which like Tibetan Buddhist holy men he takes off his mythological shoulders to sanctify audiences with, the legendary red white stallion, a bull of a man, the fat Elvis, the shaman, who had become the silver back of the American tribe, its very own Son of Man, raises, through the enumerations of his Gospel singing, his & the audience's awareness to the blessed realization that the realm divine permeates our lower realms through & through.

(WATCH): Josh T. Pearson (Live In Utrecht)

"Yes, I told myself, yes, this is a religious moment - this is the healer leading the participating audience into a trance - This is the Tzadik raising his followers to realms supreme by the force of his devotion - Why are these ladies crying, suddenly, on this mysterious eve in their middle age fulfilled by the American dream, why? Not anymore because of the sudden burst of sexual liberation gained by partaking in Elvis' young & innocently sensual swashbuckling movements, as Holy as those were, these aren't the teenage years of hysteric outbursts to repressed puritan lust - these are tears of Gospel, of the all encompassing reality of a moment of grace, tears cried in the presence of the divine - a spiritual orgasm too intense for eyes to remain dry - tears cried because Elvis draws his audience with him into the inner court and they become engulfed in the ensuing overbearingly powerful sense of beatitude - 'O I wish I was in the land of cotton' - not the cursed ground that generates empires on the broken backs of slaves - the sweet golden clime where the traveler's journey is done - the ultimate Graceland - where the law is Hallelujah & the fact is His work is marching on...Elvis takes his audience with him to the inner court of the King on high, & shows that chamber can exist even in a Las Vegas concert hall & hence also anywhere else.

(LISTEN): Rare Original Lift To Experience EP (Released 1997)

"That is, therefore, a prophetic performance and Elvis here performs as an ecstatic mythological dragon symbolizing the nation before God - a walking car industry a breathing Empire State Building - the prophet of American obesity in all its senses - Its dearest son crying all the pain of the civil war & a brutal midlife crisis at the same time - the perfect U.S. Pope in the Vatican of capitalism - taking a stand in this world for holiness now, for beatitude now - in this world! Yes, one finds sometimes in music, in magic, in alchemy, in words, men taking a stand, becoming a human lighthouse in this dark world where poverty wipes out masses silenced by the entertainment of the rich, where releasing all sentient beings from suffering is infinitely less important than creating a positive business climate...where Mickey Mouse's pungent plastic vomit is splashed on everything that was once true & airwaves broadcast mainly continual propaganda in form of decadent mass produced delirious pop whose half hidden purpose is to turn every living soul into a stupid, selfish hungry ghost damned to eternally consume that which he will never need so that another sentient being may have his second indoor swimming pool finally equipped with an underwater sound system — Yes — Elvis here is a knight of faith, performing his visionary voice and standing up — standing up, amid the catastrophe, in the heart of the flood, amid drugs & solitude, and the incessant yearning to join mama in her lonely death of barbiturates, in this crazy crazy world, and raises his voice to raise our spiritual essence - Elvis, the American David dethroned by the nation he gave birth to, human all too human in his lonely Cadillac pantheon, prays, like in the Jewish Kaddish, for reality to keep unfolding through the cosmic will expressed by the work of God - Glory Glory Hallelujah - His work is marching on - His work is marching on...

(WATCH): Cocteau Twins "Wax And Wane" + "Carolyn's Fingers"

"The Parable of the Barriers tells of a merciful & magnanimous King who in his generosity & grace invites all who yearn his presence to join him in his inner court. Many come and climb a first wall & find behind it great treasures; sapphires, jewels of silver, cups of gold — attracted by these, many travelers choose to stay, but some do climb over the second wall, and behind it find ever greater riches; diamonds, gold, stock options — which again many pilgrims succumb to — only one of them climbs the last wall & enters the King's inner court. Looking back from within the truly royal realm, this traveling soul realizes all the wall it had climbed, those behind which treasures had been found, were an illusion. The Baal Shem Tov — amazing, beloved Jewish mystic of 17th century Eastern European poverty...told this story at the climax of every Jewish new year, when the ram's horn is about to blow & symbolically create the world. He would tell this parable at this crucial moment, I've let myself be told, to teach his followers that there are no walls, no barriers, between this world, our world, and the world divine. The world of light, of mercy, of compassion, of love, the realm supreme can be realized by us all in the very very here, in the very very now...

"It could be in church, it could be at a karaoke bar right before you puke the whiskey you shouldn't have drunk after all that wine...mystical experiences are magic plants in the jungle of reality — they can be plucked, they can even be cultivated — they're abounding and are served at this banquet with great generosity...here, in a language as plain as running water, sung in a voice of milk & honey from which love for life emanates endlessly, touched something in me which must be like a light switch of sorts...banquets of the soul where Sufi pints are served in abundance, singing the blues like a dog with friends & red wine, realizing, with the gates of mercy open, how Billy & Nina's Jazz makes even used condoms look irresistibly romantic..."