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The peripatetic hero of Homer's The Odyssey keeps wandering into these pages--first in Suzanne Vega's Calypso, then in Cream's Tales of Brave Ulysses. Now he turns up in Home At Last, from Steely Dan's 1977 album Aja. "The central metaphor was taken from Ulysses' big problem--you know, trying to get back home," says Donald Fagen in the Making of Aja video, describing the song as "a little blues about Ulysses." A reference to the Greek wine retsina adds some local color, and, as in the Cream song, there is an allusion to the Siren episode of The Odyssey, in which the hero has himself tied to the ship's mast to resist being lured to shipwreck by the song of the Sirens: Well the danger on the rocks is surely past/Still I remain tied to the mast/Could it be that I have found my home at last/Home at last. Perhaps it should be called Homer at Last.
The hero of Homer's epic The Odyssey is featured in this song, from Cream's 1967 album Disraeli Gears, but he appears under the Latin rendering of his name, Ulysses: And you touch the distant beaches/With tales of brave Ulysses/How his naked ears were tortured/By the Sirens sweetly singing. The reference is to an episode in The Odyssey, an account of the ten-year journey undertaken by Odysseus (Ulysses) to get home following the Trojan War. His course takes him past the island of the Sirens--mythical women whose irresistible song lures sailors to shipwreck on the rocks. He orders his crew to fill their ears with beeswax, then has himself lashed to the mast so he can hear the music for himself. When he hears the Sirens' song, he begs to be released, but his men stand firm and the ship passes by safely. The girl featured in "Tales of Brave Ulysses" is associated with the Greek goddess of love: Her name is Aphrodite/And she rides a crimson shell. Aphrodite appears in The Iliad, Homer's account of the Trojan War, and can be said to have helped instigate that conflict by enabling Paris's abduction of Helen, Queen of Sparta, the event that precipitated the war.
Don Henley/Drivin' With Your Eyes Closed
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Drivin’ With Your Eyes Closed, from Don Henley's 1984 album Building the
Perfect Beast, mentions two 19th century French poet...
Smoke Signals: Secret Notes From Inside Conclave
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From The Huffington Post: According to Italian media reports, a diary has
surfaced written by an anonymous cardinal who participated in the recent
Vatican ...
keeps wandering into these pages--first in Suzanne Vega's Calypso, then in Cream's Tales of Brave Ulysses. Now he turns up in Home At Last
, from Steely Dan's 1977 album Aja
. "The central metaphor was taken from Ulysses' big problem--you know, trying to get back home," says Donald Fagen in the Making of Aja video, describing the song as "a little blues about Ulysses." A reference to the Greek wine retsina adds some local color, and, as in the Cream song, there is an allusion to the Siren episode of The Odyssey, in which the hero has himself tied to the ship's mast to resist being lured to shipwreck by the song of the Sirens: Well the danger on the rocks is surely past/Still I remain tied to the mast/Could it be that I have found my home at last/Home at last. Perhaps it should be called Homer at Last.
, Homer's account of the Trojan War, and can be said to have helped instigate that conflict by enabling Paris's abduction of Helen, Queen of Sparta, the event that precipitated the war. 
