Wednesday 13 February 2013

House with No Door (Van Der Graaf Generator, 1970)

Another selection from "H to He Who Am The Only One". This is the saddest and one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard. I simply can't describe the cry of sorrow Peter Hammill's voice suggests here more than elsewhere. The claustrophobic lyrics, of course, accomplish this frustrating, dark and heartbreaking picture. So, I wonder, am I just a masochist listening again and again to such a depressing track? Well no, because I don't feel bad after the ordeal... on the contrary I reach an ecstatic mood and I'm grateful to the man that wrote this song. I even happen to remember Chateaubriand writing that the human heart expresses itself better in sadness than in joy.

Another Paul Whitehead's cover!

This is also the first VDGG's song I liked, so that I'm convinced that human heart is also specially suitable in identifying grief and this is also a common way to know we're all brothers and we share the same destiny. Now, if a song learned so much to me, should I stop listening to it?

2 comments:

  1. I love VDGG. But we have to say a thing: Peter Hammill's voice is like a wonderful woman. She could dress with a burlap sack and she will remain a wonderful woman.

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  2. I completely agree. I could even say Hammil's not a voice, it's a state of mind.

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