Unexpectedly, as most good things in life, recently (i always refer to things that happened recently...), i felt i was travelling back to the 60es, a time i never lived, but from which i've loved music for many years (Beatles, Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, french singers from the 60es...usw.). First came songs by VASHTI BUNYAN, especially "Love song" (1966), which by now i've listened to i-don't-know-how-many-times, over and over. A simply beautiful song, with a wo
nderful melody and precious lyrics, simple and rich at the same time. Then i came across a quite well-known Polish musician (well, famous in Poland and in the former East-Germany), CZESŁAW NIEMEN.... Again i was stuck in 1966 by his song "dziwny jest ten świat" (the translation i found is "strange is this world"), the same name as the album that includes it, but the album is from 1967...What did i find in his songs? a good mixture-combination of psychedelic rock (reminiscences of Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, Procol Harum...), jazz, a bit of folk. All in one. And, despite not being able to understand the lyrics but some words in Polish, my intuition and what i read about Niemen's music, tell me that the lyrics were as good as the melodies or even better. Niemen was indeed an interesting person, musically but also visually, with his colourful clothes, and later with his hat and round dark glasses, half between hippy and folk singers.
nderful melody and precious lyrics, simple and rich at the same time. Then i came across a quite well-known Polish musician (well, famous in Poland and in the former East-Germany), CZESŁAW NIEMEN.... Again i was stuck in 1966 by his song "dziwny jest ten świat" (the translation i found is "strange is this world"), the same name as the album that includes it, but the album is from 1967...What did i find in his songs? a good mixture-combination of psychedelic rock (reminiscences of Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, Procol Harum...), jazz, a bit of folk. All in one. And, despite not being able to understand the lyrics but some words in Polish, my intuition and what i read about Niemen's music, tell me that the lyrics were as good as the melodies or even better. Niemen was indeed an interesting person, musically but also visually, with his colourful clothes, and later with his hat and round dark glasses, half between hippy and folk singers.And yesterday, my friend Tomek (oder Thomas, Tomasz...wie du willst), sent me a beautiful poem by a Brazilian poetess (we usually exchange poems in portuguese, especially from Brazil), Cecília Meireles. The poem is "Os dias felizes" (Meireles, C., Obra poética, Rio de Janeiro, 1967). Poems from the mid of the 20th century have a different taste...like some poems by Tomaž Šalamun (Slovenian), Jaroslav Seifert or by Jacobo Fijman....Different things said in a different time and sometimes Same things said in a different time, and thus having a different meaning. Happy days aren't the same in poems from Romanticism or from the early 20th century...as in the mid 60es or nowadays. It's just like the sound of the music by The Raveonettes (Denmark)...60es sound (not in all their songs, though) made in the 21st century.
Os dias felizes estão entre árvores como
os pássaros: viajam nas nuvens,
correm nas águas,
desmancham-se na areia.
[...]
Cecília Meireles
And besides, having a look at an old book on Physics (García Santesmases, J., Física General, Madrid, 1968), i found 4 old stamps of 50 céntimos each (Peseta times!!!!!!!!!!!!), with an image of a writer, Concha Espina. What a thing to find!...Those stamps had been there for over 3 decades...inside an old book i rescued some summers ago from dust and oblivion (the book belonged to my father and somebody had placed most old books in old suitcases made of cardboard and wooden boxes, piled up together with boxes cointaining old tools and other old stuff). The stamps were close to chapter 38, about Optical instruments (it even talks about the human eye...hehe). The reason why i was having a look at a Physics book...well, the book was staring at me insistently, wanting me to pick him from the shelf. A book of Chemistry, dwelling next to the Physics one, sometimes does the same thing to me. Mysteries. I can't help feeling their presence.
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