When Jackson Frank was eleven years old, a furnace exploded at his school, sending a ball of flames down corridors until it ended up in Frank's music classroom in the Cleveland Hill Elementary School in Cheektowaga, New York. The fire killed fifteen of his fellow students and burned Frank over more than half his body.[1] It was during his time in the hospital that he was first introduced to playing music, when a teacher, Charlie Castelli, brought in an acoustic guitar to keep Frank occupied during his recovery. When he was 21, he was awarded an insurance cheque of $110,500 for his injuries, giving him enough to "catch a boat to England."
His eponymous 1965 album, Jackson C. Frank, was produced by Paul Simon while the two of them were also playing folk clubs in England. Frank was so shy during the recording that he asked to be shielded by screens so that Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel, and Al Stewart (who also attended the recording) could not see him, claiming "I can't play. You're looking at me." The most famous track, "Blues Run the Game", was covered by Simon and Garfunkel, and later by Wizz Jones, Counting Crows, Colin Meloy, Bert Jansch, Laura Marling, and Robin Pecknold (White Antelope), while Nick Drake also recorded it privately. Another song, "Milk and Honey", appeared in Vincent Gallo's film The Brown Bunny, and was also covered by Fairport Convention, Nick Drake, and Sandy Denny, whom he dated for a while. During their relationship, Jackson convinced Sandy to give up nursing (then her profession) and concentrate on music full-time.
Although Frank was well received in England for a while, in 1966 things took a turn for the worse as his mental health began to unravel. At the same time he began to experience writer's block. His insurance payment was running out so he decided to go back to the United States for two years. When he returned to England in 1968 he was deemed a different person. His depression, stemming from the childhood trauma of the classroom fire, had increased and he had no self-confidence. Al Stewart recalled that: "He [Frank] proceeded to fall apart before our very eyes. His style that everyone loved was melancholy, very tuneful things. He started doing things that were completely impenetrable. They were basically about psychological angst, played at full volume with lots of thrashing. I don't remember a single word of them, it just did not work. There was one review that said he belonged on a psychologist's couch. Then shortly after that, he hightailed it back to Woodstock again, because he wasn't getting any work."
While in Woodstock, he married Elaine Sedgwick, an English former fashion model. They had a son and later a daughter, Angeline. After his son died of Cystic Fibrosis, Frank went into a period of great depression and was ultimately committed to an institution. By the early 1970s Frank began to beg aid from friends. Karl Dallas wrote an enthusiastic piece in 1975 in Melody Maker, and in 1978, his 1965 album was re-released as Jackson Frank Again, with a new cover sleeve, although this did not encourage fresh awareness of Frank.
In 1984, Frank took a trip to New York City in a desperate bid to locate Paul Simon, but he ended up sleeping on the sidewalk. His mother, who had been in hospital for open heart surgery, found him gone with no forwarding address when she arrived home. He was living on the street and was frequently admitted and discharged from various institutions. He was treated for paranoid schizophrenia, a diagnosis that was refuted by Frank himself as he had always claimed that he actually had depression caused by the trauma he had experienced as a child.
Just as Frank’s prospects seemed to be at their worst, a fan from the area around Woodstock, Jim Abbott, discovered him in the early 1990s. Abbott had been discussing music with Mark Anderson, a teacher at the local college he was attending. The conversation had turned to folk music, which they both enjoyed, when Abbott asked the teacher if he had heard of Frank. He recollected: "I hadn’t even thought about it for a couple of years, and he goes, ‘Well yes, as a matter of fact, I just got a letter from him. Do you feel like helping a down-on-his-luck folk singer?"
Frank, who had known Anderson from their days at Gettysburg College, had decided to write him to ask if there was anywhere in Woodstock he could stay after he had made up his mind to leave New York City. Abbott phoned Frank, and then organized a temporary placement for him at a senior citizens’ home in Woodstock. Abbott was stunned by what he saw when he travelled to New York to visit Frank.
"When I went down I hadn’t seen a picture of him, except for his album cover. Then, he was thin and young. When I went to see him, there was this heavy guy hobbling down the street, and I thought, ‘That can’t possibly be him’...I just stopped and said ‘Jackson?’ and it was him. My impression was, ‘Oh my God’, it was almost like the elephant man or something. He was so unkempt, dishevelled.” A further side effect of the fire was a thyroid malfunction causing him to put on weight. “He had nothing. It was really sad. We went and had lunch and went back to his room. It almost made me cry, because here was a fifty-year-old man, and all he had to his name was a beat-up old suitcase and a broken pair of glasses. I guess his caseworker had given him a $10 guitar, but it wouldn’t stay in tune. It was one of those hot summer days. He tried to play Blues Run The Game for me, but his voice was pretty much shot."
Soon after this, Frank was sitting on a bench in Queens, New York while awaiting a move to Woodstock, when someone shot him in his left eye and consequently blinded him. At first no details were known, but it was later determined that children from the neighborhood were firing a pellet gun indiscriminately at people and Frank happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Abbott then promptly helped him move to Woodstock. During this time, Frank began recording some demos of new songs. Frank’s resurfacing led to the first CD release of his self-titled album. In some pressings, Frank's later songs were included as a bonus disc with the album.
Frank died of pneumonia and cardiac arrest in Great Barrington, Massachusetts on March 3, 1999, at the age of 56.
Though he never achieved fame during his lifetime, his songs have been covered by many well-known artists, including Simon and Garfunkel, Counting Crows, Nick Drake, Sandy Denny, Bert Jansch, Laura Marling, and Robin Pecknold (as White Antelope) of Fleet Foxes. Frank's song "I Want To Be Alone", also known as "Dialogue," appeared on the soundtrack for the film Daft Punk's Electroma. Soulsavers covered "Blues Run the Game" on their single "Revival" (7" vinyl, 30 April 2007). Marianne Faithfull covered Frank's arrangement of a traditional song, "Kimbie" on her 2008 album Easy Come, Easy Go and included the song in the repertoire of her 2009 tour. Erland & The Carnival also covered "My Name Is Carnival," apparently Frank's favourite song. Bert Jansch also covered this song as a gesture to Frank.
Sandy Denny's song, "Next Time Around," contains coded references to Frank, her ex-boyfriend. "Marcy's Song" is played by Patrick, John Hawkes' character, in the 2011 film Martha Marcy May Marlene and "Marlene" plays in the closing credits. Laura Barton's BBC Radio 4 programme "Blues Run the Game", first broadcast 20th November 2012, included interviews with Al Stewart, John Renbourn, Jim Abbott and John Kay as well as archive material of Jackson C. Frank talking and singing.
My Name Is Carnival
Jackson C. Frank Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I read your words like black hungry birds read every song
Rise and fall
Spin and call
And my name
Is carnival
Sings a scream of light out of chorus
And voices you might hear appear and disappear
In the forest
Short and tall throw the ball
And my name is carnival
Strings of yellow tears
Drip from black wire fears
In the meadow
And their white halos spin
With an anger that is thin
And turns to sorrow
King of all
Hear me call
Hear my name
Carnival
Here there is no law
But the arcade's penny claw
Hanging empty
The painted laughing smile
And the turning of the style
Do not envy
And the small
Can steal the ball
To touch the face
Of carnival
The fat woman frowns
At screaming frightened clowns
That move enchanted
And a shadow lie and waits
Outside your iron gates
With one wish granted
Colors fall
Throw the ball
Play the game
Of carnival
Without a thought of size
You come to hypnotize
The danger
The world that comes apart
Has no single heart
When life is stranger
Wheel and call
Clawed dreams all
In the name
Of carnival
Wheel and call
Clawed dreams all
In the name
Of carnival
The lyrics of Jackson C. Frank's song, "My Name Is Carnival," are full of enigmatic and metaphorical imagery that speak to the concept of carnival as not just a celebration but as a representation of life's uncertainties and unpredictable nature. Frank sings about seeing someone's face in every place he goes and reading their words like black hungry birds reading every song. Here the metaphor of birds represents situations beyond one's control that are always looming in the background of one's life.
The lines "Rise and fall, spin and call, and my name is carnival," suggest that this carnival represents the highs and lows, the ups and downs of human existence. The carnival is a place where one can experience emotions such as elevated joy or plummeting fear as Frank sings about the "sad music in the night, singing a scream of light out of chorus, and voices you might hear appear and disappear." This line indicates that the carnival is as much about losing oneself as it is about finding oneself.
Moving on, the mention of "the arcade's penny claw hanging empty" suggests that even the smallest victories or pleasures can be short-lived, and one must not envy the superficial and fleeting nature of carnivals. In the end, the carnival is a great leveller where "the small can steal the ball to touch the face of carnival." The song's final lines of "Wheel and call, clawed dreams all in the name of carnival" allude to the fact that life is just as capricious and unpredictable.
Line by Line Meaning
I've seen your face in every place that I'll be goin'
I can't escape your memory, it's haunting me everywhere I go.
I read your words like black hungry birds read every song
I carefully interpret your messages like a flock of ravenous birds devour every note.
Rise and fall
Life is a cycle of ups and downs.
Spin and call
Fate twists and turns, beckoning us forward.
And my name
I am known as
Is carnival
The embodiment of revelry and chaos.
Sad music in the night
Melancholy melodies pierce the darkness.
Sings a scream of light out of chorus
It cries out in both despair and defiance.
And voices you might hear appear and disappear
Whispers in the darkness come and go, like ghosts.
In the forest
Amidst the trees
Short and tall throw the ball
People of all sizes and shapes participate in the game.
And my name is carnival
As always, I am the spirit of this celebration.
Strings of yellow tears
Raindrops fall like tears from the sky.
Drip from black wire fears
Down the taut strands of electrical cables.
In the meadow
Across the fields
And their white halos spin
Illuminated by the streetlights, water droplets seem to dance.
With an anger that is thin
Their fury is short-lived and unimpressive.
And turns to sorrow
Leaving only sorrow and despair.
King of all
I am the ruler of this domain.
Hear me call
My voice echoes throughout the land.
Hear my name
Remember who I am.
Carnival
I am the embodiment of revelry and chaos.
Here there is no law
Anything goes here.
But the arcade's penny claw
A claw machine sits in the corner.
Hanging empty
It's currently out of toys.
The painted laughing smile
The clown's face is bright and cheerful.
And the turning of the style
The world keeps spinning, never stopping.
Do not envy
Don't be jealous of what you see.
And the small
Even the littlest among us
Can steal the ball
Can win their prize.
To touch the face
To feel the thrill of triumph.
Of carnival
In this place of revelry and chaos.
The fat woman frowns
The obese woman looks unhappy.
At screaming frightened clowns
She doesn't find the scared performers amusing.
That move enchanted
Despite her displeasure, they continue with their performance.
And a shadow lie and waits
An ominous presence lurks nearby.
Outside your iron gates
Waiting to come inside.
With one wish granted
All your dreams can come true.
Colors fall
The hues of the world suffuse everything.
Throw the ball
Participate in the game of life.
Play the game
Join in the festivities of the carnival.
Of carnival
The ultimate embodiment of revelry and chaos.
Without a thought of size
Regardless of stature
You come to hypnotize
I'm here to enchant.
The danger
The risk
The world that comes apart
This world, tearing at the seams.
Has no single heart
There is no common thread holding everything together.
When life is stranger
In a world of chaos and confusion.
Wheel and call
Life spins on, heedless of our intentions.
Clawed dreams all
Our hopes and ambitions, never quite within reach.
In the name
Representing the essence of
Of carnival
The embodiment of revelry and chaos.
Wheel and call
The cycle of life goes on.
Clawed dreams all
We strive for what we can't quite grasp.
In the name
Representing the essence of.
Of carnival
The spirit of chaos and revelry that drives us all.
Contributed by Amelia I. Suggest a correction in the comments below.