For Good Friday: "Eden"

[rj_anderson]

It's entirely possible that nobody who reads this post is going to love this song the way I do, or even love it at all -- but nevertheless, it's one of my favorite songs of all time. It moved me to tears the first time I heard it, and it still affects me a thousand listenings later. And it strikes me as eminently suitable for a Good Friday post, so I share it with you here.

For those who wish to listen, the song starts at the 1:40 mark and ends at 6:33.

EDEN

Summer bled of Eden
Easter's heir uncrowns
Another destiny lies leechèd upon the ground

A gilded wreath on reason
The flower crushed conceives
A child of fragrance so much clearer in legacy

Everybody needs someone to live by
Rage on omnipotent

- From the album "Spirit of Eden" (1988), by Talk Talk
Lyrics by Mark Hollis

Amen.

Comments

elves singing

[https://me.yahoo.com/a/InlW_IUJzfUFos2GfMpx3O295YD7#85bbe (from livejournal.com)]

I'm not sure I entirely understand but it kind of makes me think of elves praising God. The dissonance It sweeps you up in a garden of wild unprotected existence. There are actions and consequences and feelings and here they are, listen. A very real difficult, single, human act.
The dissonance makes me think of those hours not in terms of a myth, but something awfully real that happened to myself or a friend.

I sorta get an impression of that dissonant reality when I see Knife on the cover of the book.

[newport2newport.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this video--I'd not heard it before, but I think I understand why it's one of your favorites.

At first listen, Eden speaks (at least to me) of despair and hope, of loss and redemption. I suspect that its beauty and meanings are layered, however, so I'll certainly come back to it again.

Good Friday and Happy Easter to you and yours.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Melodye. I hope you had a blessed Easter yourself.

[my_daroga]

I have to say, this album gets played in my house nearly every week, at least. Along with "The Colour of Spring." I don't really differentiate between songs on it, because for me it's just a complete experience. And I don't mean to belittle it when I say that I listen to it while working or writing, not because it's just background but because it is something I can listen that's more inspiring than distracting--unless I turn it way up, of course. And I like having a few cds I can write to.

We only discovered them because we were in a studio one day a few years ago and the engineer mentioned them. All I knew was "It's My Life" and while that's a great pop song, it didn't recommend the band for a complete exploration. He was telling us about their record deal after that was a hit and how they just went in this bizarre direction, and I am so glad he did.

One night I showed The General (Buster Keaton) to my film "club" and as is my usual, put on alternate music. I chose these two albums, and it made the movie weirdly poignant.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

I don't really differentiate between songs on it, because for me it's just a complete experience. And I don't mean to belittle it when I say that I listen to it while working or writing, not because it's just background but because it is something I can listen that's more inspiring than distracting

YES. All of this, exactly. I love the "Eden" part of Spirit of Eden especially, but that's like being especially fond of a particular scene or chapter out of a book you re-read on a regular basis, as opposed to saying, "I like this song but not this one or this one, and I usually skip this one..." as I'd do with other albums.

I love their last album Laughing Stock too -- not quite as much perhaps, but it also works brilliantly as background music for me when writing (and very little else does). And then there's Mark Hollis's solo album, which is incredibly delicate and uses a lot of silence, but also in much the same spirit.

[my_daroga]

Oh, I know what you mean.

I haven't really gotten "into" Laughing Stock yet, for whatever reason; I will listen to it, then yearn for the others. And I only recently got the solo album, so I'm still tuning in to that. But there's really nothing else like them, which is too bad but also, obviously, special.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

It took me probably more listenings to appreciate Laughing Stock than any of the others. But I fell in love with "New Grass" and that opened up the rest of the album for me.

Another artist that I find has the same sort of layered soundscape effect, though his albums aren't quite as much of a blended whole as Talk Talk's (some of them are, though) is David Sylvian. Some amazing stuff on albums like Secrets of the Beehive, Dead Bees on a Cake and Everything and Nothing; some I find inaccessible, some is astonishingly catchy, some is in between, but it's never easy or predictable. And I can write to Sylvian too, especially with albums like Gone to Earth that I've been listening to since 1986 or so.

[my_daroga]

I will definitely check him, out, then.

One that is not nearly as good, but I use in a similar way (though I have to have it turned down) is The Doves' Lost Souls.