STARRY NIGHT

“It becomes increasingly easy, as you get older, to drown in nostalgia.” - Ted Koppel

A song from my youth, today sung by Don McLean. I remember listening to this while I was discovering myself, discovering art, discovering life and death. A great song about a great artist by a great artist. Here is “Vincent” from 1971.



Vincent

Starry, starry night
Paint your palette blue and grey.

Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the
Darkness in my soul.
Shadows on the hills
Sketch the trees and the daffodils,
Catch the breeze and the winter chills
In colors on the snowy linen land.

And now I understand what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen
They did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now.

Starry, starry night
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze
Swirling clouds in violet haze reflect in
Vincent's eyes of China blue.
Colors changing hue
Morning fields of amber grain
Weathered faces lined in pain
Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand.

And now I understand what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity
How you tried to set them free.
perhaps they'll listen now.

For they could not love you
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left in sight on that
Starry, starry night.

You took your life
As lovers often do;
But I could have told you, Vincent,
This world was never
Meant for one
As beautiful as you.

Starry, starry night
Portraits hung in empty halls
Frameless heads on nameless walls
with eyes that watch the world and can't forget.
Like the stranger that you've met
The ragged men in ragged clothes
The silver thorn of bloody rose
Lie crushed and broken
On the virgin snow.

And now I think I know what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen
They're not listening still
Perhaps they never will.