Post by postscript on Jan 27, 2008 14:30:16 GMT
Hi all.
I'm responding to Dave's concern in the 'Music Therapy' thread that Jon (Milewalker) and I were going off topic. Having made the suggestion to Dave but before giving given him a chance to answer, I've decided to start a new thread as I am in creative mood and will endeavour to do the right linking so as to avoid initial duplication. Hopefully (as Dave later intimated) all will be found okay by the Mods.
I think of Stephen Foster as one who was entirely lacking in mercenary zeal (or mercenary ability if you prefer), although having found he could write songs perhaps pushed it as a means of staving off poverty but how comes from destitution such heart-wrenching music? Perhaps it is just one of the mysteries of life? From anguish and pain comes beauty?
'The Mountains of Mourne' is one of his best known and perhaps last songs which came to him by a waitress answering his question as to where some place was. She gave him that answer and he wrote the song. That leads me to oh, I'll have to check the author. The tall chap... Longfellow
As the birds come in the Spring,
We know not from where;
As the stars come at evening
From depths of the air;
As the rain comes from the cloud,
And the brook from the ground;
As suddenly, low or loud,
Out of silence a sound;
As the grape comes to the vine,
The fruit to the tree;
As the wind comes to the pine,
And the tide to the sea;
As come the white sails of ships
O'er the ocean's verge;
As comes the smile to the lips,
The foam to the surge;
So come to the Poet his songs,
All hitherward blown
From the misty realm, that belongs
To the vast Unknown.
His, and not his, are the lays
He sings; and their fame
Is his, and not his; and the praise
And the pride of a name.
For voices pursue him by day,
And haunt him by night,
And he listens, and needs must obey,
When the Angel says: "Write!"
I think again of O'Shaugnessy.
We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.
We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
So, perhaps what we should be debating is the nature and source of creativity?
Look again at that opening verse of O'Shaugnessy. Doesn't it fit Hayley on the CD cover of the UK Odyssey? And the mystic, wistful look to the proscenium arch when she is waiting the completion of a musical phrase before continuing singing?
Peter S.
I'm responding to Dave's concern in the 'Music Therapy' thread that Jon (Milewalker) and I were going off topic. Having made the suggestion to Dave but before giving given him a chance to answer, I've decided to start a new thread as I am in creative mood and will endeavour to do the right linking so as to avoid initial duplication. Hopefully (as Dave later intimated) all will be found okay by the Mods.
I think of Stephen Foster as one who was entirely lacking in mercenary zeal (or mercenary ability if you prefer), although having found he could write songs perhaps pushed it as a means of staving off poverty but how comes from destitution such heart-wrenching music? Perhaps it is just one of the mysteries of life? From anguish and pain comes beauty?
'The Mountains of Mourne' is one of his best known and perhaps last songs which came to him by a waitress answering his question as to where some place was. She gave him that answer and he wrote the song. That leads me to oh, I'll have to check the author. The tall chap... Longfellow
As the birds come in the Spring,
We know not from where;
As the stars come at evening
From depths of the air;
As the rain comes from the cloud,
And the brook from the ground;
As suddenly, low or loud,
Out of silence a sound;
As the grape comes to the vine,
The fruit to the tree;
As the wind comes to the pine,
And the tide to the sea;
As come the white sails of ships
O'er the ocean's verge;
As comes the smile to the lips,
The foam to the surge;
So come to the Poet his songs,
All hitherward blown
From the misty realm, that belongs
To the vast Unknown.
His, and not his, are the lays
He sings; and their fame
Is his, and not his; and the praise
And the pride of a name.
For voices pursue him by day,
And haunt him by night,
And he listens, and needs must obey,
When the Angel says: "Write!"
I think again of O'Shaugnessy.
We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.
We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
So, perhaps what we should be debating is the nature and source of creativity?
Look again at that opening verse of O'Shaugnessy. Doesn't it fit Hayley on the CD cover of the UK Odyssey? And the mystic, wistful look to the proscenium arch when she is waiting the completion of a musical phrase before continuing singing?
Peter S.
