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Album Details

• Artist: William S. Burroughs/kurt Cobain
• Album: The Priest They Called Him
• Label: TK
• Year of Release: 1993
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: hstisgod on 2005-01-29

"The Priest They Called Him" which came out maybe 10-12 years ago was this wild short story that William S Burroughs commands over the recording of Kurt Cobain's (Nirvana) eerie rendition of "Silent Night, Holy Night."

In this mad piece of poet's fiction there are stories of sawed off limbs, mild to dangerous drug addictions, the devil and all that other carbon action. I simply can't explain the craziness that comes out in this story just shy of 10 minutes long. But, perhaps I'll give it a whirl here in these passages…

Burroughs' raspy voice bellows, while the only half-conscious (from Heroin most likely) Cobain fumbles beautifully with his freehand, remembering the tone of the infectious song, rather than some fourth grade band teachers music sheet. Dark and free like this review, I wont need another listen for the rest of my life in order to vividly re-capture its spoken word appeal.

Like some crazy business surely drudged up from a nightmare of drugged out proportions, Burroughs is simply mind-numbing in his efforts to just speak, much less the playful straining of tone he uses like a Kindergarten teacher trying to grab her students' attention. I can almost remember the line exactly. Something toward the effect of 'GET OUT! GET OUT! I'm a doctor For god sakes, I COULD LOSE MY LICENSE FOR THIS.' Suddenly your attention is again fully focused on the aggressiveness of this dark story.

Anyone who may already be familiar with the offbeat Burroughs and his work, should already know its rather useless attempting to describe the words of this highly respected man of creativity.

And although it's nearly impossible to find this particular piece in any random CD store, its worth every step of what will probably turn into an archaeological-like process. Most importantly its really gem's like this one that make an argument down the road for more digital experimentations.

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