No matter how strong
I’m gonna take you down
With one little stone
I’m gonna break you down
And see what you’re worth
What you’re really worth to me
There was a musical accompaniment to go along with the ‘shades of gray’ project from 2004 – and as we re-explore that written work, I offer the following playlist as recommended listening for when you go through these vignettes. It’s largely contemplative instrumentals, but there are some traditional pop songs as well. The latter selections are lyrical wonders, echoing the spare power of carefully-chosen words. All serve to evoke an air of
Dinner at eight was okay
Before the toast full of gleams
It was great until those old magazines
Got us started up again
Actually it was probably me again
Why is it so that I’ve always been the one who must go
That I’ve always been the one told to flee
When it fact you were the one long ago
Actually in the drifting white snow
You left me
A centerpiece would have to be ‘Dinner at Eight’ by Rufus Wainwright, which features an exquisite piano treatise on love, family, and the eventual need to find acceptance and move on; as evidenced by the lyrics running throughout this post, it’s as poignant and powerful as it is sorrowful and resigned – a gorgeous mess of emotion set to glorious song. The following songs follow suit – give them a listen as you revisit this project from two long decades ago…
‘The Goldberg Variations’ – Glenn Gould
‘Any Other Name’ – Thomas Newman
‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ – Annie Lennox
‘The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1: Prelude No. 1 in C Major – Glenn Gould
‘For Reasons Unexplained’ – Casey Stratton
‘9 Little Preludes: No. 3 in D Minor’ – Glenn Gould
‘Dinner at Eight’ – Rufus Wainwright
‘Clair de Lune’ – Johann Debussy
We’re a little over halfway through presenting ‘shades of gray’ already, so there is some more to come, and just around the Thanksgiving holiday – the way that life’s little fuck-overs often come at the worst possible time. We don’t choose these things – they choose us, or something like that. I’m out of banal platitudes and all the rest of it.
So put up your fists and I’ll put up mine
No running away from the scene of the crime
God’s chosen a place
Somewhere near the end of the world
Somewhere near the end of our lives
