This tale began a few days ago when Mike - a friend for many seasons - sent some of us cronies three of his creations...vintage 1978...
Teaser: See post link at end for the story of when Mike painted the complete Endless Summer album art on the driver's door of his white VW Convertible...
Portraits of the Artist as a Young Man
Friend and Mike's cousin Steven C sent this next image:
"You've heard it said but I say..."
The other day they waited, the sky was dark and faded,
Solemnly they stated, "He has to die, you know he has to die."
All the children learnin', from books that they were burnin',
Every leaf was turnin', to watch him die, you know he had to die.
The summer sun looked down on him, his mother could but frown on him,
And all the others sound on him, but it doesn't seem to matter.
And when the day had ended, with rainbow colors blended,
His mind remained unbended, he had to die, you know he had to die.
--words and music by Jerry Garcia
Some thoughts on who "he" is...
(DavidDodd's) Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics (http://artsites.ucsc.edu/GDead/AGDL/) is a useful site. Couple of quotes from there:
In an interview published in Golden Road, Spring, 1991, p. 30, Garcia was asked about his portion of the lyric:
"Golden Road: Who or what inspired your section of "That's It For the Other One"--"The other day they waited," etc.? Garcia: ... "Seriously, I think that's an extension of my own personal symbology for "The Man of Constant Sorrow"--the old folk song--which I always thought of as being a sort of Christ parable."
"Funny, to me it's always been symbolic of a "dying" ritual, (the need of the ego to die in order for the true spirit to be born within). In other words, the "death" was a metamorphosis & therefore was something to be desired...interesting how we can have such different takes on these things. But I guess this is a subject for another topic..."--David Gans
We all know how his story ends...on a tree and into a box!
"Step out of line...the man come and take you away..."
"Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
Step out of line, the man come and take you away..."
--For What It's Worth - Buffalo Springfield
Gandhi stepped out of line...
...and it cost him imprisonments and, eventually, his death
Martin Luther King stepped over the line...to his death...
For his words and, more importantly, his actions...He was silenced...But his dream lives on...
Color my world...with many colors...
I include this related metaphor because my friend Mike, who started these reflections, is an artist.
When I was young, this was our limited color palette:
As time goes by, we were given more ways to express our unique identities...
Musical Variations on a Theme...
I included this cover of Chicago's tune because its thumbnail invited me to look inside at its amazing multiplicity of colors...
Here's with the original and more color...
As our finale, here's the classical piece that inspired the title of this musical section.
Brahms did two versions : one for full orchestra and this lesser-known one for two pianos. For personal reasons, I selected this one because in our son John's musical journeys, his teacher, Merle Langs-Greenberg, had him perform two-piano works...
This hangs next to my composing desk: John and Stephen...
Bringing balance to the gender energies...
Artists' Lounge: "Colorful" after Hours Club...
Comentários