Peter Hammill - "The Lie" - brilliant live and solo version (1978)

I'd embrace you if I only knew your name ...
Peter Hammill (audio only) plays the song "The Lie (Bernini's St Theresa)", from the unofficial live and solo album "Skeletons of Songs", accompanied by my own video compilation. Recorded live at the All Souls Unitarian Church in Kansas City (USA) in February 1978. Live and solo is by far my favourite way of listening to Peter Hammill, and this album is amongst my top ten all-time favourite albums without question. I have uploaded some of my other favourite tracks from this album.

I compiled the video myself utilising footage mostly downloaded from YouTube, with some of my own added effects and filters.

Please check out my other videos.
Comments are most welcome.
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The Lie (Bernini's St. Theresa)
-----------------------------------------
Genuflection, erection in church.
Sacristy cloth, moth-eaten shroud.
Secret silence, sacred secrets
accumulate dust, aggravate the eye.

Incautious laughter after confession.
Benediction, fictional fear.
Hidden faces...Grace is a name,
like Chastity, like Lucifer, like mine.

You took me through the window-stain,
drowned in image, incense,
choir-refrain and slow ecstasy.
I'd embrace you if I only knew your name.

The silent corner haunts my shadow prayers.
ice-cold statue, rapture divine,
unconscious eyes, the open mouth,
the wound of love,
the Lie.

You took me, gave me reasons for
saints and missals, vigils,
all the more holy martyrs.
I'd embrace you and walk through
the one-way door.
I'd embrace you, but it would be
just another lie.
===================================

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Peter
• Hammill
• Van
• der
• Graaf
• Generator
• Skeletons
• Songs
• The
• Lie
• Bernini's
• St
• Theresa
• 1978
• kansas
• usa
• souls
• unitarian

[Jimysalad]

Makes me want to forget making pancakes and play the piano...

[professoricon]

@Jimysalad

Music is forever.

Pancakes don't last so long.

[professoricon]

Peter Hammill has now released his new solo album titled "Thin Air" on 8th June (2009).

[kipptumor]

What? VDGG is on tour NOW?!

[professoricon]

They are in Japan at the end of May and North America June/July. Currently they perform as a three-piece with PH, Guy Evans and Hugh Banton. David Jackson left in 2007. They released a new album in 2005 (Real Time) as a four-piece with DJ, and a new album in 2008 (Trisector) as a three-piece.

[professoricon]

Check out the PH website at sofasound-dot-com

[hammoul56]

Merci, tout simplement sublime.

[hiperboreowp]

Ausgezeichnet...Gruss Gott

[professoricon]

To book tour tickets at Ticketmaster you may need the password "Trisector".

[professoricon]

From the PH Website: The VdGG N. American 2009 tour currently looks like: 19-June Nearfest, Bethlehem, PA 21: Nokia Theatre NYC, NY 24: Falls Church, VA (DC) State Theatre 25: Cleveland, OH Beachland Ballroom 26: Chicago, IL The Abbey 27: Milwaukee, WI Shank Hall 29: Buffalo, NY The Tralf Music Hall 30: Pittsburgh, PA Rex Theatre 1st July Annapolis, MD Ram's Head On Stage 4th TBC 8th Ottawa, Blues Fest 9th TBC 10th TBC

[professoricon]

I first saw him live just a few weeks after the release of Silent Corner, and got my album autographed. I saw the VDGG reunion tour at the Royal Festival Hall (06-May-2005), then again in Leicester two months later (09-July-2005), then again in Manchester on 13-Nov-2005 (see my live video footage on YouTube).

[kipptumor]

Nothing tops the way he sings the line "after confession" on the original version from the silent corner - I always thought of this album as my own secret discovery. It is so odd to log onto youtube and see so many people who were just as taken by Hammill's work. i discovered him in 82 I think, and I remember listening to this song often in my dorm room at the Kansas City Art Institute in 83-84. I couldn't believe that Van der Graff had a reunion tour in 2005 - I would have gone. Amazing!