The Golden Coin



Young APL

 One of APL's most haunting songs is "The Golden Coin", the 8th track on his most recent album Ancient Tune.  This album began its life in the streets of Brooklyn, New York, where Adam went to live for three months during the summer of 2009.  Like so many young people, past and present, he was drawn to New York City, the artistic bosom of American culture, where the most talented of the nation's young gather to nurse from the creativity present there in massive quantities.

Living off bananas and beans, while taking in every free cultural offering available in the city, Adam finally came back home around Labor Day, exhausted, underweight, and absolutely broke, having spent all of his golden coins in NYC.  But now he was ready to focus on his new work of art, his fourth album.

He set up his recording studio in the (unused) living room of our Lexington, NC parsonage, where he proceeded to create Ancient Tune during the fall and winter of 2009.  It was the first time we in his immediate family had been so exposed to his creative process, and it was fascinating to watch and listen, as he laid down track after track on his Mac computer, in what can only be described as an incredibly arduous  process.  But as we all know, when you are doing something you are passionate about, when you are 'following your bliss' (as mythologist Joseph Campbell once put it), then you can simply lose track of time, in what is probably the closest we'll ever get in this life to experiencing 'eternity'.

The Golden Coin is, it seems to me, an indictment of modern suburban/exurban life, with its empty materialism and competition for 'who ends up with the biggest toys', symbolized by the sprawling developments of McMansions from horizon to horizon, filled with the omnipresent American SUV.  In place of this expensive 'wanting', APL offers a different kind: the simpler but ultimately greater joys of nature, art, and human love.

That's my take anyway.  (And I think that APL managed to hijack some of the vibes of Simon and Garfunkle while he was in the Big Apple.  See if you don't agree.)

Lyrics:

What I fear is I could disappear
If I end up staying here, my life would pay
me a meager sum just to slip away, slip away

The houses here are empty wooden cribs
they are longing for their kids, who’s lives had left for good
slipped away through the neighborhood, left for good

But beating on the stop signs and the playground swings
is the sense that people aren’t guilty of anything
but of wanting, but of wanting, wanting

The golden coin, the chance to shine
the hero fool, the dreamer’s crime

Far from me, in a rain-soaked mountain tree
that’s where I dream you wait for me
with a book of your rhymes to lend me out some peace of mind

And there among the river rocks and streams

neither you nor I will be blamed for anything

but of wanting, but of wanting, but of wanting

The golden coin, the chance to shine

the hero fool, the dreamer’s crime

Oh so far away, so far away

I’m wanting, I’m wanting, I’m wanting you

Your golden hair, your secret signs

your humble heart, oh love of mine.