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Location: Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India

The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life is when dreams are surrendered to reality.

Friday, December 08, 2006

...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

2 Comments:

Blogger Sachin R K said...

Thank you for a beautiful song

January 03, 2007 3:09 PM  
Blogger ReadnRyte said...

My Pleasure Sachin...

Rahul

January 04, 2007 5:13 AM  

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