Discovering music is one of my favourite pastimes. And I love playing paleontologist most of all - Resurrecting long forgotten music while browsing through the dusty, long untouched shelves of tapes and Cds that belong to my parents - The preoccupation of choice for many a lazy afternoon. For the most part my parents taste is mainstream- for their own time , I mean. But every now and then , looking through their stuff , I'm caught unawares by something delightfully different.
Recently, however ,as I was sifting through some old CDs,I found it was'nt even the music that held my attention.
I happened to find this CD by a chap called Leonard Cohen. Now I have heard of him but never listened to his music so I sat myself down to soak in a different sound. (I'd heard it described as "Different".) And true to reputation it was (or atleast , so I found) . His music... Well, it is weird. I shall reserve further comments on it and say only that I think it's different. Anyway, the point of this post is about what I found as I was looking at the jacket.
On the inside of it were the following words printed in a scrawl :
Transfiguration . That's what occurred the night of 13th December. Since then I am not just a human being. I am inhabited by god & love bleeds and burns within me, but what caused the transfiguration was the mad mystic hammering of your body upon my body.Your soul entered mine then and some union took place that almost killed me with its INTENSITY. I cannot justify my outrageous claims I can only relate what happened before. The fire burns me but ...
The notes break off, followed by "This writing is from the work of Daphne Richardson (1939-1972)".
For some reason , I love these lines and they have struck such a chord in me. Subsequent to reading this , after much much mulling on the perfectness and beauty of even the sound of these words spoken aloud ,I found my attention shifting to it's author. I was bubbling over with curiosity as to who this Daphne Richardson was. A Google search later I found extracts from an interview with Cohen...
Q: Who was she?
A: "A girl I met in London who, for various reasons, found it difficult to
survive at any level, and who finally killed herself by leaping from the
BBC tower . She had a considerable poetic talent and I hope to publish some of her writings."
Somehow , this does'nt satisfy me one bit. I read the extract out to several of my friends. But no one seemed to find it as fascinating as I did. Bah... Even in appreciation , it's tiresome to be alone...
Anyway, I found this so soulful and intense for some inexplicable reason. Perhaps the thought is'nt exactly particularly profound or novel. But for some reason , I love everything about the sentiment and the way it's expressed. For days after reading this , it kept playing in my head. And I wish I could find the rest of this piece of writing. Unfortunately, that is precisely what I have been unable to manage.
On a completely different( and quite obvious )note... My writing is still facing several road blocks , I must confess. Infact , I seem incapable of mentally digesting anything except music offlate. So that would explain the long absence. It is a reflection of my state of affairs - this indifference. And although that in itself is a subject with much scope for holding forth... It has become quite old on this blog. And so I shall refrain from writing until I do actually have something, that I think , is worth writing about.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
I Chanced Upon A Transfiguration...
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9 comments:
hey, welcome back to the world of blogging.. (good thing I use a feed aggregator.)
powerful lines indeed, daphne's.. first reading leaves you saying i know exactly how i feel but.. there's something missing and i read it the second time and i realise.. its the 'but' and 'just' that are bothering me.. we are not 'just' human beings after such a transfiguration, we are human beings 'only' after passing through such a force and finding ourselves. and god is always inside considering 'i AM god'.. but yeah love does require some such intensity to come to life.
http://www.webheights.net/speakingcohen/zigzag.htm
Hey potato,Thanks a ton.. Very kind of you. It proved to be a very interesting read..
oh, dear.....finally after 23 years I found here someone who is as much fascinated with these words of daphne as I was at the age of 20. I read them then and I was completely stroken by their...force and power. For many years afterwards I had them written on the wall everywhere I lived - and it was great to read today my own thought: Even in appreciation it's so tiresome to be alone....
best wishes for you from Poland:)
Another person here who was taken by the back cover art and words of Daphne Richardson. I was a fan of the "folkies" in high school; Baez, Mitchell, Collins, Buckley, and so on to Cohen. I have the LP vinyl version of "Live Songs" and have been drawn to DR's words since I first laid eyes on it. I could never, *never* find out *anything* about who she was nor did anyone I talked to know anything. A few years ago, I discovered the wonders of the web and found the interview with Cohen where he identifies her and shares some of therir story.I was deeply touched by her tragic end and the pain LC must have felt at coming to her too late.
Robert.
as two people before me (i guess), i was looking for Daphne Richardson in google and found your blog. I bought the lp today and, you're right, the note is impressive, written in such a casual 1970s manner and that weird drawing. Also, the number three in a circle looks creepy.
I became aware of Daphne Richardson's words and artwork in 1973 when I purchased Leonard Cohen's Live Songs (vinyl of course)I felt it to be truly profound and continued to fascinate and haunt me to this day.I could not help seeing a correlation and continuing thread to Mr. Cohen's composition from 1969= Seems so Long Ago,Nancy.However,it is the subject of TRANSFIGURATION that caused me to stumble upon this blog prompt me to post this comment.I just finished reading an interview with Bob Dylan in which he says,among other things,he personally experienced a TRANSFIGURATION event in the early 60's.It seems a certain San Bernadino Hell's Angel was killed in a horrific and tragic motorcycle accident.Oddly enough this Angel's name was Bobby Zimmerman.In his usual vague and mysterious M.O. he proceeded to explain what he conceded could not be explained.Best as I could ascertain some sort of strange and mystic SOUL intermingling or transference occured.Mr.Dylan stated that Bobby Zimmerman's motorcycle accident and subsequent demise occured in 1964.This appears to be deliberately(I believe) misleading.Basic research clearly reveals that Hell's Angel Bobby Zimmerman death was in fact 1961.Which in itself does not seem significant. However,consider this:the 1961 date of the accident corresponds with a rave review of a relatively unknown Greenwich Village folksinger by the name of Bob Dylan,who until very recently,was one Robert Zimmerman.This review appeared in the New York Times no less.A very large and influential publication which for the most did not take not take notice,much less spotlight the likes of unwashed Village troubadours.The result of this article was to essentialy shoot Mr. Dylan out of a proverbial cannon into a landscape of media attention and public acclaim that arguably is as intense and relative today as it was some 50 years ago. I have no idea what all of this means.Mr. Dylan seems totally convinced and that is good enough for me.For now.I would highly suggest anyone to check this out.I'm sure I did not adequately articulate this complex subject matter.Please read the Bob Dylan interview.ROLLING STONE issue 1166 Sept.27 2012.
Hi everybody... It is amazing not to be alone in apprecciation anymore! I read those words in that CD case just an hour ago and just cannot get over it, been googling it ever since... And what's the most amazing thing, I feel those exact feelings at this moment, could not have written them down any better (duh)... But as I understand nobody has found the missing parts of it?
Cheers..
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