The Seasons (1969)
26 November 2020 12:31![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
haptalaonwww.youtube.com/watch
The early 70s was a moment when people had not quite yet got their head around childhood; children's media often has a haunted, psychedelic quality, both more whimsical and playful than post-modern cynicism, but also more violent, erotic and disturbing as well. And always, a sort of brownness at the edges of the day, the September-back-to-school of the soul.
If you are a certain age in England, you probably did Movement and Music classes as a small child: the teacher would put on a track, and you would dance and move to perform a tree losing its leaves, or a storm cloud. This, along with the vogue for country dancing, accounted for another trend of the era - pagan seepage into everyday life.
Spoken words over radiophonic noises, the poetry of the Seasons is astonishing - vivid and bizzare. October is a woman like a furled up umbrella with a zip-fastener for a mouth; in February "the gaunt elms shudder within the groin of grief; and old men discover their life is a dream they can't remember". Comforting and unsettling all at once, its images something like a spoken tarot deck.
I am reminded of it today because of the frost brings to mind its description of November: the day strung up like a fallow deer and bled, and the light is devoured, the mountains, tortured images of a tranquil star, stand sentinel and keep cruel dreams confined to the white loins of sleep.
~*~
Listening to the Seasons, you will - at once, I think - understand why I go back so often to this era for spiritual inspiration. These words are perfect for ritual or prayer, or put the album on and meditate to its images. You might want to introduce your children to it - but it says something, I think, about how childhood has changed (and how the 1970s childhood has this unique quality), that you will not think that is a good idea. And you know what? It's also unironically perfect for interpretive dance. I sometimes sway to it and swirl around my room, and its lovely to get lost in.
The early 70s was a moment when people had not quite yet got their head around childhood; children's media often has a haunted, psychedelic quality, both more whimsical and playful than post-modern cynicism, but also more violent, erotic and disturbing as well. And always, a sort of brownness at the edges of the day, the September-back-to-school of the soul.
If you are a certain age in England, you probably did Movement and Music classes as a small child: the teacher would put on a track, and you would dance and move to perform a tree losing its leaves, or a storm cloud. This, along with the vogue for country dancing, accounted for another trend of the era - pagan seepage into everyday life.
Spoken words over radiophonic noises, the poetry of the Seasons is astonishing - vivid and bizzare. October is a woman like a furled up umbrella with a zip-fastener for a mouth; in February "the gaunt elms shudder within the groin of grief; and old men discover their life is a dream they can't remember". Comforting and unsettling all at once, its images something like a spoken tarot deck.
I am reminded of it today because of the frost brings to mind its description of November: the day strung up like a fallow deer and bled, and the light is devoured, the mountains, tortured images of a tranquil star, stand sentinel and keep cruel dreams confined to the white loins of sleep.
~*~
Listening to the Seasons, you will - at once, I think - understand why I go back so often to this era for spiritual inspiration. These words are perfect for ritual or prayer, or put the album on and meditate to its images. You might want to introduce your children to it - but it says something, I think, about how childhood has changed (and how the 1970s childhood has this unique quality), that you will not think that is a good idea. And you know what? It's also unironically perfect for interpretive dance. I sometimes sway to it and swirl around my room, and its lovely to get lost in.
