Van Der Graaf Generator - Darkness

Van Der Graaf Generator - Darkness.
From album THE LEAST WE CAN DO IS WAVE TO EACH OTHER (1969)
Record: Leverkusen - 2005.
Peter Hammill-David Jackson-Hugh Banton-Guy Evans.

DARKNESS - THE LEAST WE CAN DO IS WAVE TO EACH OTHER (1969).

A song of numbers: although I am no numerologist, the circumstances of writing this highly instinctual song dictated its form and direction.
It was composed on the night of 11th November, 1968, Remembrance Day, by chance. Some years before I wrote a novel which purported (with devastating failure) to be an Icelandic saga; on re-reading it, some time after finishing these lyrics, I was struck by the opening sentence: 'It was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.' November is, of course, the month of Scorpio, under which sign I was born, and my life number is 11.
It was, I suppose, inevitable that a song about fate should be wrought amid these conjunctions.
To this day I do not know how Hereward the Wake came to be involved.


Day dawns dark, it now numbers infinity...
Life crawls from the past, watching in wonder
I trace its patterns in me....
Tomorrow's tomorrow is birth again/
Boats burn the bridge in the fens/
The time of the past returns to my life
and uses it.
Don't blame me for the letters that may form in the sand;
don't look in my eyes, you may see all the numbers
that stretch in my sky and colour my hand...
Don't say that I'm wrong in imagining
that the voice of my life cannot sing!
Fate enters and talks in old words:
They amuse it.
Hands shine darkly and white: only in dark do they appear.
Bless the baby born today,
flying in pitch, flying on fear!
(Wicked little Scorpio, doomed to die a thousand times
before he lives!)
They shine in my eyes and touch my face
where I have seen them placed before...
don't blame me, please, for the fate that falls:
I did not choose it.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Van
• Der
• Graaf
• Generator
• Darkness
• Leverkusen
• 2005
• Peter
• Hammill
• David
• Jackson
• Hugh
• Banton
• Guy
• Evans

[vtripaldi]

do we have this without the shaking?

[vtripaldi]

whats shaking?

[psyclonought22]

sorry jackson a classically trained musician flautist not organist

[psyclonought22]

banton was a vclassically trained organist as was david jackson the combination was amazing banton worked for the bbc sound studios cant you tell

[MrHammill86]

Fantastico... non c'è altro da dire!

[schizoidman25]

Ich war da... mit freundin... super concert...erstes vdgg concert, mein vater war schon mal vorgruppe von ihnen ;)

[jeanphilippe0912]

l'univers Hamillien,

je confirme 2 saxos en même temps

va falloir que je ressote mes 33 tours

merci

[jeanlucchapelon]

What a good energy!!!!!! Despite of their age!!!

[willy1957]

@ajtafft There is no official DVD, but I hope someday it will come, as this is an exellent document that should remain for further generations

[ajtafft]

What DVD is this from?