SR XXXII: Ascension

The Sleepwalker wrote: James wrote: The Sleepwalker wrote: Also, In Camera is underrated. It's pretty much on par with Pawn Hearts, Still Life and Godbluff to me.  I'd said In Camera and The Silent Corner were up there.  Plus Over. Haven't heard Over yet.  I don't like Silent Corner as much as Chameleon and In Camera though, even though it's still a great record.

Oh wait, I forgot Chameleon.  D'oh.

The one with A Louse is not a Home on is awesome (I always forget which tracks are on which albums) and (in the) Black Room/The Tower and of course (No More) the Sub-Mariner.

Mmmm.

I just looked and they're spread over all three of those albums.

So Easy to Slip Away is fantastic too.

But it's even better live on Veracious.  Mmm.

UndercoverBoy wrote: James wrote: UndercoverBoy wrote: James wrote: UndercoverBoy wrote: Still Life, while 3/4 of it is incredible, sort of suffers because "Child-like Faith in Childhood's End" comes off as incredibly pretentious and over-the-top nowadays.  I also think it uses the organ way too much, as beautiful as it is. Lies. After Pilgrims, Still Life and My Room, that's the next best track on the album. I use to love it, but the lyrics are just too ridiculous for me to take seriously, which is a shame because it's on the same album as "Still Life."  Now those lyrics... wow. Still Life = best Hammill lyrics on any VdGG tune Still Life the album is the best because the lyrics are as silly and pretentious as much of their earlier stuff. Yes, but most of Hammill's lyrics still have meaning under all the pomp and pretentiousness.  On the contrary, some of the lines in "Child-like Faith" just seem like he's just picking out words that sound big and important and putting them together.  I'll admit that the little instrumental section near the end is pretty orgasmic.

No, you're referring to Killer.

Childlike Faith has a meaning.

Existence is a stage on which we pass,
a sleepwalk trick for mind and heart;
it's hopeless, I know, but onward I must go
and try to make a start
at seeing something more 
than day to day survival, chased by final death.
if I believed this the sum of the life to which we've come,
I wouldn't waste my breath.
Somehow, there must be more.
         
There was a time when more was felt than known
but now, entrenched inside my sett,
in light more mundane, thought rattles round my brain:
we live, we die...and yet?
         
In the beginning there was order and destiny
but now that path has reached the border 
and on our knees is no way to face the future, whatever it be.
Though the forces which hold us in place
last through eons in unruffled grace
we, too, wear the face of creation.
         
As anti-matter sucks and pulses periodically
the bud unfolds, the bloom is dead, all space is living history.
It seems as though time must betray us yet we're alive
and though I see no God to save us, still we survive
through the centuries of progress
which don't get us very far.
All illusion! All is bogus...
we don't yet know what we are.
         
Laughing, hoping, praying, joking, Son of Man,
with lowered eyes but lifting hearts, we're grains of sand
and though, in time, the sea may claim us for its own
we are the rocks which root the future - on us it grows!
We might not be there to share it
if eternity's a jest but I think that I can bear it
if the next life is the best.
Even if there is a heaven when we die,
endless bliss would be as meaningless as the lie
that always comes as answer to the question
"Why do we see through the eyes of creation?"
         
Adrift without a course,
it's very lonely here,
our only conjecture
what lies behind the dark.
Still, I find I can cling to a lifeline,
think of a lifetime which means more than my own one,
dreams of a grander thing than we are.
Time and Space hang heavy on my shoulders...
when all life is over who can say
no mutated force shall remain?
         
Though the towers of the city are denied to we men of clay
still we know we shall scale the heights some day.
Frightened in the silence, frightened, but thinking very hard,
let us make computations of the stars.
         
Older, wiser, sadder, blinder, watch us run:
faster, longer, harder, stronger, now it comes...
colour blisters, image splinters gravitate
towards the centre, in final splendour disintegrate.
The universe now beckons
and Man, too, must take His place;
just a few last fleeting seconds
to wander in the waste,
and the children who were ourselves move on,
reincarnation stills its now perfected song,
and at last we are free of the bonds of creation.
         
All the jokers and gaolers, all the junkies and slavers too,
all the throng who have danced a merry tune...
human we can all be, but Humanity we must rise above,
in the name of all faith and hope and love.
There's a time for all pilgrims, and a time for the fakers too,
there's a time when we all will stand alone and nude,
naked to the galaxies...naked, but clothed in the overview:
as we reach Childhood's End we must start anew.
         
And though dark is the highway,
and the peak's distance breaks my heart,
for I never shall see it, still I play my part,
believing that what waits for us
is the cosmos compared to the dust of the past.
         
In the death of mere Humans Life shall start!

It does.

It makes perfect sense to me.

It's an existentialist masterpiece.

James wrote: It makes perfect sense to me. It's an existentialist masterpiece.

I love existentialist lyrics (a philosophy that I've been increasingly interested in), but the constant references to space and the cosmos just kind of irk me.  I also think it's too epic that it feels out-of-place with the rest of the album, which is probably the most personal and introspective VDGG album.

The Truth wrote: Over and Nadir's Big Chance are both incredibly underappreciated in my book.

Both awesome, especially Over.

Also my show is on now. Just saying. There will be VdGG.

The Sleepwalker wrote: The Truth wrote: Over and Nadir's Big Chance are both incredibly underappreciated in my book. I like Nadir's Big Chance, but there's definitely better proto-punk out there.

I'll admit, that one was a bit of a disappointment for me.  Over, on the other hand, is one of his best.

The Sleepwalker wrote: The Truth wrote: Over and Nadir's Big Chance are both incredibly underappreciated in my book. I like Nadir's Big Chance, but there's definitely better proto-punk out there.

 

The Truth wrote: The Sleepwalker wrote: The Truth wrote: Over and Nadir's Big Chance are both incredibly underappreciated in my book. I like Nadir's Big Chance, but there's definitely better proto-punk out there.    I don't listen to it for the proto-punk, I listen to it for the Hammill in good form.   The Velvet Underground is proto-punk right?

Yes.  Have you listened to the Stooges yet?

Nadir is a tad disappointing, yes.

UndercoverBoy wrote: The Truth wrote: The Sleepwalker wrote: The Truth wrote: Over and Nadir's Big Chance are both incredibly underappreciated in my book. I like Nadir's Big Chance, but there's definitely better proto-punk out there.    I don't listen to it for the proto-punk, I listen to it for the Hammill in good form.   The Velvet Underground is proto-punk right? Yes.  Have you listened to the Stooges yet?