To Is A Preposition; Come Is A Verb is a song comedian Lenny Bruce performed in night clubs in the late 1950’s and early 60’s. It was used as evidence against him in the obscenity trials he is probably better known for than his comedy. I’ve always wanted to do this song in the style of The Who “Live At Leeds” and now, with the help of KEN STRINGFELLOW (The Posies, Big Star, REM), FERNANDO PERDOMO (Marshall Crenshaw, Echo In The Canyon) and BRIAN VIGLIONE (The Dresden Dolls, Violent Femmes, Nine Inch Nails), I have.
I read Lenny Bruce’s autobiography, “How To Talk Dirty And Influence People” when I was a teenager scouring the used book and record shops of Harvard Square. This piece was re-printed in the first chapter. I was young enough not to understand what it was about. Even without fully comprehending his dirty words, Lenny influenced me. Perhaps some part of me knew I would live in censorious times and felt, through the impressions he left on flat wax and wood pulp, that Lenny Bruce was a comrade in art.
A couple of years later I graduated from high school and moved to LA where I met Lili Haydn whose mother, Lotus Weinstock, a comedian who was engaged to Lenny when he died, must have been jazzed enough to meet a kid who was into Lenny Bruce that she introduced me to her friend Robert Weide. Bob was working on a documentary which would become the Academy Award winning “Lenny Bruce: Swear To Tell The Truth”.
The offices of Whyaduck Productions were the setting for some of my best memories from the greatest time in my life. Bob had all kinds of crazy outtakes of comedy legends that he screened for me and my musical partner Josh Clayton-Felt on the editing bay in his office. We would laugh hysterically and eat sandwiches and crush on Bob’s just-as-funny-as-he-was assistant. Looking back, most of the adults I knew at this time weren’t very smart or sensitive or well-informed historically/politically, but Bob (and Lotus) were soulful and funny exceptions. I miss them, and that time, all the time.
I was brought on as an intern on the Lenny Bruce documentary for a few months. This involved being given a box full of Lenny’s original journals and cassette recordings (currently housed at Brandeis University) to bring home to the artist crash pad I was living in at Curson and DeLongpre in Hollywood with about 6 to 8 other people depending on the month. My task/honor was to listen and read and take notes. Looking back, I think I simultaneously did a great and a less than stellar job. I can’t imagine any notes I turned in being of much value to Bob but (and I am very proud of this) I guarded the integrity of these items like a true devotee. I still can’t believe that, as a 19-year-old, I was entrusted with these historical artifacts; knew how valuable they were and, until writing this; never thought of taking anything or even making a copy. Lenny certainly would have but he was a junkie genius and I, alas, was a good kid.
Personal cassette recorders were released in 1962 and Lenny died in 1966, so the recordings I was listening to would have been taped in that window of time. The tapes included live shows (that would later be released on the Rhino compilation discs) and lots of Lenny just goofing around with his kids, having fun with this new (for him) technology, unaware that, in 1988, he would be speaking from the grave to a young artist friend of a woman he probably hadn’t started dating yet when he pressed record + play.
As responsible as I thought I was being, I played these one-of-a-kind cassettes from the early 1960’s on my crappy 1986 boombox. The same one on which I recorded my earliest hiss-filled demos. I probably read Lenny’s journals with burger grease on my fingers and easily spillable coffee in the vicinity, which all seems crazy now but those were messier times and any potentially tragic mishaps were averted. Still, my DNA is happily cooked into Lenny’s artifacts along with the lucky few who have handled them since.
Perhaps, as the first and (for now) only cover of this song, and certainly the best, my track will one day wind up in the Lenny Bruce files at Brandeis University along with my dead skin and hair follicles.
In the meantime, I hope, if this is the first you are hearing about Lenny Bruce and you like it, that you will read his book; watch Bob Weide’s documentary and Bob Fosse’s biopic starring Dustin Hoffman; and listen to Lenny’s comedy as a gateway to understanding a time that influenced everything that influenced everything that influenced everything that influenced the people that influenced the people who influenced you and me.
CREDITS
ANDRAS JONES – Vocal
KEN STRINGFELLOW – Guitar
FERNANDO PERDOMO – Bass
BRIAN VIGLIONE – Drums
Written by Lenny Bruce
Produced and Arranged by Andras Jones
Engineered by Mark Rains
Mixed by Fernando Perdomo