...this sadness will last forever

Sometimes we come across something...that touches you and makes you feel really thankful for being alive.

One of this was the song 'Vincent' sung by Don McLlean as a tribute to Vincent Van Gogh. I happened on this ong very late in my life and was introduced to it by a very dear friend of mine. We were enjoying a smoke and a tea at his house after having dug into one of the most delectable of chicken curries that I have savoured. Was feeling bloated at the middle and the general air was of a python who lies immobile after having devoured a small deer...we call it hoggage. Well, as we sucked in the nicotine, Meci started humming the strains of a delightfully tragic song that I was coming across for the first time. It sounded so melancholic that I wanted it immediately. I guess he had a feeling that I would like it too..well that is another story.

It took me about one more week after that night to download it from the net, though I managed to get the lyrics the very next day. Vincent was one of the most haunting, sad and melancholic song I have heard in a long while. But it is not all that depressing either. In his lyrics, McLean references Van Gogh's different paintings to understate the lonliness that Van Gogh felt in his time as he and his paintings were not understood during his lifetime. It was while in an asylum that Van Gogh painted 'Starry nights' a series of paintings, which McLean uses as a start to the song. The following lines are so beautiful that it haunts you, as you try to make sense of what Vang Gogh must've gone thru before he decided to end it all,

Now I understandwhat you tried to say to me

and how you suffered for your sanity

and how you tried to set them free

they would not listen they did not know how

perhaps they'll listen now

For they could not love you

but still your love was true

and when no hope was left inside

on that starry starry night

You took your life as lover's often do

But I could have told you,Vincent

this world was never meant for

one as beautiful as you

At the age of 37 in a fit of depression he shot himself and died with so much sadness in him. He is supposed to have done over a thousand paintings and drawings in his ten years as an artist with most of his best works been produced in his last two years of life. His last words were said to be "...this sadness will last forever"

Vincent - Don McLean

Starry starry night

Paint your palet blue and grey look out on a summer's day

with eyes that know the darkness in my soul

Shadows on the hills

Sketch the trees and the daffodiles

catch the breeze and the winter chills

in colours on the snowy linen land

Now I understand

what you tried to say to me

and how you suffered for your sanity

and how you tried to set them free

they would not listen they did not know how

perhaps they'll listen now.

Starry starry night

Flaming flowers that brightly blaze

swirling clouds in violet haze

reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue

colours changing hue

morning fields of amber grain

weathered faces lined in pain

are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand

Now I understand

what you tried to say to me

and how you suffered for your sanity

and how you tried to set them free

they would not listen they did not know how

perhaps they'll listen now

For they could not love you

but still your love was true

and when no hope was left inside

on that starry starry night

You took your life as lover's often do

But I could have told you,Vincent

this world was never meant forone as beautiful as you

Starry starry night

Portraits hung in empty halls

framless heads on nameless walls

with eyes that watch the world and can't forget

like the strangers that you've met

The ragged men in ragged clothes

a silver thorn a bloody rose

lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow
now I think I know

what you tried to say to me and how you suffered for your sanity

and how you tried to set them free

they would now listen they're not listening still

Perhaps they never will