bewildered

Oooh! So, over the weekend I also treated myself to a few shows from LiveBlackCrowes (this site is an amazing catalog of authorized recordings from TBC shows and they are adding older shows all the time!). And I made sure I bought/downloaded the show from 12/19/08 in San Francisco, which I was lucky enough to attend. I didn't realise it at the time of the show but when TBC played Bewildered, it was truly the first time they'd touched that song since 7/18/93!!! Needless to say, getting to hear Bewildered live was amazing.

Crowesbase details that Bewildered was "[r]ecorded at Kingsway Studios in New Orleans on October 11, 1992 on an off day from the High As The Moon Tour. It was played regularly towards the end of the tour and seemed to be a strong candidate for Tall, but was abandoned and not heard from since 7/18/93." So, again, we were all very lucky to hear this song played live because it was also only the 23rd time the song had ever been played live. I should also point out that this song was not released on any album.

At the show, before they began Bewildered, Chris said: "All right, we haven't tried this one in . . . quite a while. You know I've never said that, so (laughs)."

My favourite line in Bewildered is actually the first one "I know I never took the time to try and learn the things / That make you come and go." It's such a branch and such a segue to the entire feeling of the song. I take the feeling to be one of accepted regret. That is, and I think this a common theme for Chris and Rich, yes, I regret the things I did to you but it's just how it is. I'm going to write you a song now. I'll take the song, you keep the regret.

I know I never took the time to try and learn the things
That make you come and go
Heaven knows, I'm feeling it now
All those days that came and went
All those evenings spent
With holocaust and disillusion
Acknowledge me this wink
Upon your calendar I think
Marks the day of our disaster
Misplaced affections, misread equations
And the blessing of love

When you see the curses in me
The crime of your rouses
And we can call it infidelity
Or my love of your bruises

You scrawled your family's name upon the moon
The very same night that
They toasted your splendor
The theory dear is not to fear
Oh can you tell me please, what of creation
Now this tragedy surrounding me
Has taken a turn for the worse
And borders on fascination
To call a spade a spade
In regards to shade
And all those who enter

So when you see the curses in me
And the crime of your rouses
Well now we can call it infidelity
Or my love of your bruises

My heart waits here, bewildered
A wilderness
My convictions' arrangement with vanity
With my vanity, with my vanity

To duplicate this soiled fate
For better or for worse, now or later
Answer me, answer me
This question mark you live and breathe
Only give to me
My belief, my belief in enigma
Yes it does

But when you see the curses in me
The crime of your rouses
We can call it infidelity
Or my love of your bruises

My heart waits here, bewildered
A wilderness
My convictions' arrangement with vanity
My heart waits here bewildered
A wilderness
My convictions' arrangement with vanity
With my vanity, my vanity

Purchase the show and/or track here!