# The Strange Magic of: Grant Lee Buffalo



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Every decade in popular music history has its special musical strengths and pleasures. Everyone can think back to an era and renew memories of fine music even during the seemingly most barren of periods. The 1990s were particularly good, as they brought forth a host of talented female performers, and saw the flowering(?) of Grunge. But there were other performers and groups then who also command my full attention, and one of them was the trio of Grant-Lee Phillips, V and G; Paul Kimble, B; and Joey Peters, D--Grant Lee Buffalo. Many fine songs: Lone Star Song, Homespun, Fuzzy, Arousing Thunder, more. Herewith one of their best, _Bethlehem Steel_. Many have sung about the decay of the American industrial heartland; the loss of jobs, purpose, dignity--Springsteen, Paul Simon, Neil Young, John Mellencamp; others have hinted at it. This is a fine example of the genre.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Bethlehem Steel: the lyrics--

There was a light blue as a welder's torch
It used to shine over the fields
And all the wise men strong men were drawn for miles
Followed a star to Bethlehem steel

Our mother's father worked here in world war two
On the main floor operating the drill
And in his open palms little splinters remind him of
The booming days days of Bethlehem steel

But the steeples on the hills they point
To a better life beyond this one
And that promise penetrates the clouds
And mighty walls of brick red cinnamon
Ah ah

Take a walk past Lazarus moving n' storage
Behind the Goldman's furniture store
See the smoke stacks rise on up to heaven's step
While on earth we're burnin' this miracle iron ore

But the steeples on the hills they point
To a better life beyond this one
And that promise penetrates the clouds
Even when they block the fiery sun
The sun

There was a light blue as a welder's torch
It used to shine over the fields
And all the wise men strong men were drawn for miles
Followed a star to Bethlehem steel

Bethlehem steel
Bethlehem steel
Bethlehem steel
Bethlehem steel
Yeah steel
Yeah steel
Bethlehem steel
Ah steel
Bethlehem steel
Bethlehem steel
Yeah steel
Steel
Yeah steel


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Another Grant Lee Buffalo gem: _Jupiter and Teardrop_


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Ooh - I might just have to play the _Fuzzy_ album today as I've probably heard it only once in the last decade. A pity the much-anticipated _Copperopolis_ album failed to reach the same heights as their first two.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

elgars ghost said:


> Ooh - I might just have to play the _Fuzzy_ album today as I've probably heard it only once in the last decade. A pity the much-anticipated _Copperopolis_ album failed to reach the same heights as their first two.


Surely you jest, O Ghost of Elgar; Copperopolis has much of the Buffalo's best work (In My Opinion, Of Course).:tiphat:


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I jesteth not. It's a good album but the first two albums were hard acts to follow and I just don't think it really makes it - a bit like the Band's _Stage Fright_ coming after _Music From Big Pink_ and the 'brown' album.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

_De gustibus_, indeed.


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## Rtnrlfy (Apr 26, 2016)

Copperopolis is one of my go-to commuting albums. I first heard it during a really long, dull drive from Alabama to Florida (complete with multiple bottlenecks on the interstate) - it caught my attention then and it's never let go. And I would agree, Bethlehem Steel is a great song. The end of Come to Blows is pretty great too...


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Here is one of Grant Lee Buffalo's most anthemic songs from Copperopolis, _Homespun_. Though the lyrics are somewhat obscure, it appears to be a commentary on the contemporaneous resurfacing of unauthorized "militia" movements that periodically arise, like fungi after protracted rainfall, in the American sociopolitical landscape.


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