entangled

it was around this very time thirty four years ago that i arrived at university.

i was almost entirely unprepared for the realities

of living away from home.

expectations of me as an independently functioning being were very reasonably placed.

they were just as reasonably ignored. perhaps overlooked would be the better word.

i had no precedent.

no idea.

i had a very strong sense of self

but no sense of how to make university with its social intensity,

its academic integrity,

its opportunities,

work for me.

so i deliquesced into an environment that rippled outwards from the late sixties and early seventies.

i'm grateful that i got to experience the goodness that was still very present from the people and energies

of that time.

a large part of that goodness was the place of music.

the recognition of music as a beautiful transformative quality of energy that comes from a place removed from the human experience and yet which informs it in the most benevolent and creative manner i can imagine.

~

it still astonishes me

that there was a time when music sounded like this

~

i remember the first time i heard this piece and so much else in 1976 at trent university sitting on a single bed in my room, hovering between where i had been and where i was going.

the real work of my life literally beginning to evolve

right before my unknowing eyes!

in retrospect, i was very much "the patient" of the song's telling.

this is one tiny piece of the soundtrack that connects to the (since that time) association i make between certain pieces of music and the soon to be arrival of autumn.

headphones on ladies and gentlemen!

if you wish to sing along, the lyrics are underneath!!

when you're asleep they may show you

aerial views of the ground,

freudian slumber empty of sound.

over the rooftops and houses,

lost as it tries to be seen,

fields of incentive covered with green.

mesmerised children are playing,

meant to be seen but not heard,

"stop me from dreaming!"

"don't be absurd!"

"well if we can help you we will,

you're looking tired and ill.

as i count backwards

your eyes become heavier still.

sleep, won't you allow yourself fall?

nothing can hurt you at all.

with your consent

i can experiment further still."

madrigal music is playing,

voices can faintly be heard,

"please leave this patient undisturbed."

sentenced to drift far away now,

nothing is quite what it seems,

sometimes entangled in your own dreams.

"well, if we can help you we will,

soon as you're tired and ill.

with your consent

we can experiment further still.

well, thanks to our kindness and skill

you'll have no trouble until

you catch your breath

and the nurse will present you the bill!"

words and music: tony banks, steve hackett