This song completely encapsulates all the best of VDGG and Hammill. And it is perhaps the best example of Hammill's existential angst balanced with his high, high vision for humanity. This is perhaps their most inspirational song, but one must take the hard road there, through the dark, and to the light. Blessings.
Love this song, but there really are so many great ones. Man - Erg is a true monolith of prog majesty both musically and lyrically, again full of angst and yet ending on a hopeful note (depending on how you interpret the lyric). How blessed we are to have VdGG and Peter in our lives.
... in social media you often find the words "This / That changed my / will change your mind / (forever)". VdGG really changed mine when I first heard them end of the 70s, 17 -20 years old, esp. this song had a huge impact on me & my way to look at life . PH is a great philosopher, poet, and musician as well. TY JP ...
they changed my life too my friend. Listening to pawn hearts, godbluff, he who am the obly one, still life... were indescribable experiences. I was born in 2004 and I'm lament not having lived through the golden age of progressive rock - I arrived late but in time to see the beautiful departure of the train.
Pawn Hearts is the album of my life. Since I started to listen to it, though not in the beginning, for I took me years to understand it. But, now, more than twenty years later, I still believe it will keep being the album of my life.
"For I never shall see it / still I play my part" - this leads us back to Pilgrims, and this ending is more alive and powerful, as that first track. And the cycle begins again. (this is what happens when we loved what he have just heard. And we play it again, Justin)
I love VdGG (look at my nick ! ), but Genesis is my #1 music ever, with distance to the rest. Right VdGG is weirder, but Genesis is more tasteful. Both of them are superstrong and supersmooth at times.
The two bands, aside from sharing a label, we're pretty close in the early days. I feel like their I fluency on each other can be felt all the way to Foxtrot. Genesis kinda lost it's macabre elements after that ( although they did resurface on TLLDOB in spurts).
@Hammillian7 They became a bit too tasteful maybe. I say that as a huge fan of Trick, but I really miss the subtle murkiness of Foxtrot and before. To this day none of their records get my blood going like Nursery Cryme.
So beautifully reviewed with a true respect or reverence for the piece. It was wonderful to see you comment on the life-affirming nature of this piece and dig into the lyrical content. It’s truly magnificent. One of my absolute faves from VDGG. Thank you!
You know you have found your soul mate when you start softly singing this while having a quiet stroll with your girlfriend and she tells you: "I like it when you sing".
I do so adore this LP. Quite a few of my buds never understood my insistence in my playing it so much. My thought was (and still is) life is to short to subject myself to less than interesting sounds. So glad to have proof I ain't alone. Not that I ever let it bother me.
Existence is a stage on which we pass, a sleepwalk trick for mind and heart; it's hopeless, I know, but onward I must go and try to make a start at seeing something more than day to day survival, chased by final death. if I believed this the sum of the life to which we've come, I wouldn't waste my breath. Somehow, there must be more.
There was a time when more was felt than known but now, entrenched inside my sett, in light more mundane, thought rattles round my brain: we live, we die...and yet?
In the beginning there was order and destiny but now that path has reached the border and on our knees is no way to face the future, whatever it be. Though the forces which hold us in place last through eons in unruffled grace we, too, wear the face of creation.
As anti-matter sucks and pulses periodically the bud unfolds, the bloom is dead, all space is living history. It seems as though time must betray us yet we're alive and though I see no God to save us, still we survive through the centuries of progress which don't get us very far. All illusion! All is bogus... we don't yet know what we are.
Laughing, hoping, praying, joking, Son of Man, with lowered eyes but lifting hearts, we're grains of sand and though, in time, the sea may claim us for its own we are the rocks which root the future - on us it grows! We might not be there to share it if eternity's a jest but I think that I can bear it if the next life is the best. Even if there is a heaven when we die, endless bliss would be as meaningless as the lie that always comes as answer to the question "Why do we see through the eyes of creation?"
Adrift without a course, it's very lonely here, our only conjecture what lies behind the dark. Still, I find I can cling to a lifeline, think of a lifetime which means more than my own one, dreams of a grander thing than we are. Time and Space hang heavy on my shoulders... when all life is over who can say no mutated force shall remain?
Though the towers of the city are denied to we men of clay still we know we shall scale the heights some day. Frightened in the silence, frightened, but thinking very hard, let us make computations of the stars.
Older, wiser, sadder, blinder, watch us run: faster, longer, harder, stronger, now it comes... colour blisters, image splinters gravitate towards the centre, in final splendour disintegrate. The universe now beckons and Man, too, must take His place; just a few last fleeting seconds to wander in the waste, and the children who were ourselves move on, reincarnation stills its now perfected song, and at last we are free of the bonds of creation.
All the jokers and gaolers, all the junkies and slavers too, all the throng who have danced a merry tune... human we can all be, but Humanity we must rise above, in the name of all faith and hope and love. There's a time for all pilgrims, and a time for the fakers too, there's a time when we all will stand alone and nude, naked to the galaxies...naked, but clothed in the overview: as we reach Childhood's End we must start anew.
And though dark is the highway, and the peak's distance breaks my heart, for I never shall see it, still I play my part, believing that what waits for us is the cosmos compared to the dust of the past.
In the death of mere Humans Life shall start! Glad you finally got around to The MOST profound song ever written in the prog genre... :)...It gave me a perspective on life I hadn't considered...Of course that was decades ago...:)...Hammill is so far ahead of his time...This is Hammill's GROWLING album...La rossa, Still Life and this song...6:54 is moving to me...Hammill's web site; www.sofasound.com/
Thus ends my absolute favourite album. Arthur C Clarke's 1953 novel is responsible for this song's existence; it's as mindblowing a read as this is a mindblowing listen. Hammill has wrote better lyrics but the band arrangement is magnificent and helps the occasionally brilliant couplets shine. Thank you Justin for your infectious enthusiasm.
There are probably some minor references in the lyrics to the novel Childhood's End, but I cannot find any. The novel itself covers the arrival of The Overlords, and Mankind's degradation on Earth - told in story line and dialog, for the most part with none of the sweeping poetic statements in the song. So it's fair to conclude that the song's lyrics appear to be written by VDGG (or some other source), and not Arthur C. Clarke. But I'm glad one of my favorite SF authors got some recognition.
''Watcher of the Skies'' by Genesis was also inspired by Childhoods End so Gabriel said. Two great songs by two young bands that toured on the same bill. Coincidence ?
JP, you absolutley nailed the review and did justice to this uplifting song, which has the kind of genuinely inspirational climax that has only ever been reached by a tiny handful of bands on a small number of their songs, but which VDGG has managed to achieve time and time again. And yet this particular song surpasses even those. It's the crowning moment of a deeply thoughtful, musical and lyrical essay that is nothing short of perfect.
Incredible video JP. This song was very interesting, and I want to say thank you for your positivity again on this video. Keep up the great work. If you are scrolling the comments, You Are Awesome. Have a great day everyone!
I just wanted to check in and thank you for the insightful and eclectic reviews and even stepping it up more the last couple of weeks and 'Childlike Faith' happens to pop up. As with most great music it just gets better the more you listen to it. More than a few of us are in love with Peter Hammill's writing! So many quotables in this song and in this review for that matter. Thanks Justin, you are the best. No one else is even close!
I was waiting impatiently for that one. I can't wait to watch. Let's go !!! This song gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it. I'm glad you appreciate the lyrics. They follow me since 40 years. For me one of the most important lyrics whatever song.
This wasn't my favourite track initially (in the 70s) but boy, is it a grower and live, it is magnificent. The organ is the star player here though, as usual, the vocals are immense and the drums/sax back-up work twice as hard as any comparable band (though there are few, very few comparable bands) Next up would be World Record which is, alas, half a step down but is well worth 50 minutes of anyone's time.
thanks for reacting to VDGG... they don't get much attention on TH-cam, and it's a real shame. i'm glad you enjoy :) and don't worry if you start to run out of VDGG albums... there is also Hammill's solo stuff XD
I have seen the vandergraff generator trio three times. First at Nearfest and then me and my friends decided to skip the Sunday band (PFM) to see the band again in NYC and the opening act was the acoustic strawbs. The last time I saw the band as a trio was a year later again in NYC.
This song, this album, it always want me to quote a line. But I cannot. There are too many words. Too many good and strong sentences. Choosing would be impossible. Is this the best VdGG album? Well, lyrically it definitely is. There are only very few albums I can think of that come close to Still Life lyrically. Very few indeed. Thank you, JP! For giving this band the love they deserves!
A few come close, but Hammill is always involved. ''Pawn Hearts'' is lyrically astounding. ''Man Erg'' covers the duality of the human psyche, APOLHK covers solitude, guilt, alienation, madness and redemption and ''Lemmings'' covers the human race stumbling blindly to oblivion before pulling back from the precipice of destruction to secure it's future ???? Just your usual everyday Hammill subjects, Don't you just love him and VdGG. Also '' Silent Corner of the Empty Stage'' is an incredible album lyrically and the two of them are my favourite Peter Solo and Peter VdGG albums of all (but there are so many others I love too)
Thank you so much for reviewing this masterpiece. Was looking forward to ist since you started reacting to this album. Hammill's lyrics are accompanying me since the early 80's and they mean and meant a lot to me. VdGG more or less are (at least part of) the soundtrack of my life. Thank you so much, carry on.
Beautiful to see this reaction to my favourite album by my favourite band, which was the soundtrack of my teenage years. You really should move on to Hammill's solo work at this time, which is only an extension of the band's output, and they made no distinction between the two in their live performances. Go to "Forsaken Gardens" next, from "The Silent Corner and The Empty Stage". Then do "In Camera" as a full album.
Couldn't agree more. Don't overlook ''The Lie'' and ''Man-Erg'' - two of the best from Peter and VdGG. and positively two of his most impassioned and tortured vocals. Pure genius.
Godbluff has always been my no. 1 desert island disc but Still Life has to be no. 2. Lyrically and musically challenging, scary and uplifting.. Justin there was a book available in 70s by Peter Hammill called Killers, Angels and Refugees about his lyrics. Not sure if its still available anywhere
There are two books that Hammill published that were primarily just his song lyrics. The first one Killers Angels Refugees - which was rereleased with a different cover when his second book was released - Mirrors Dreams And Miracles.
The exploration into the meaning and lyrics of this song was spot on and important. I appreciate your insights and discussions. Top content always. I mean you played Comis for heavens sake.
I really like this track in which however Peter Hammill's voice is still as rough as usual but it works really well in this context. Somehow I compare "Childlike Faith In Childhood's End" to "Wondering" (closing track on the next album, World Record), the latter much more airy and less epic but in which the narrator still questions himself again about life and death, all set to majestic and solemn music. I'm sure you'll love this one too Justin !
Except that the lyrics say very little in Jon's typical flowery stream of consciousness way. Don't get me wrong, I love early Yes and can recite the complete CTTE lyrics to prove it! Problem is they don't really say too much whereas Peter overload your brain with information, questions, theories and genuine feelings.
Mind over matter? Never mind, it won't matter, the Overmind is over those matters. Childhood ends, irrelevance scattered. The Song's of Distant Earth just pitter-patter. Peace.
My favourite VdgG album. You can loose yourself in the musicality of the lyrics regardless of the meaning! But great analysis and breakdown of the song... 👍
"Still Life" and "Childlike Faith" to me are like bookends viewing the value of life from two opposing sides of the same dichotomy - 1 we could be able to live forever and it would be awful. 2 we could be heading for doom and destruction but in the end it may be for the best !
@@JustJP Just as I like your balanced appraisals. Fans can get very obsessive about VdGG and Hammill, I know I do ! but you treat the songs with the same reverence and your insight is amazing. I feel from your APOLHK and Man -Erg posts that you truly love the music for all it's absurdity and English eccentricity. Liked your GG stuff as well as many others.
Apart from you discovering firth of fifth , this appreciation of VDGG must rank as a highlight of just jp’s modus operandi . I have very little knowledge of wot i just wrote but then again i knew very little about Hammill when i was a kid. So i now know The Sound of VDGG is colossal So what new appreciative sounds can be offered? The Sound (1980 onward?)are of the same status as VDGG for me in that I missed out on them at the time of their existence. So The Sound. Another page to turn? This? Your sense of wonder said it all. Van Morrison says hi too! Diolch Happy Friday Justin n co!
This song maybe the best one in prog history if you take into account the quality of the music and of the lyrics. No fairy tales here. Very deep adult lyrics.
Inspired - I've always assumed - by Arthur C Clarke's novel "Childhood End;" and it is mentioned as reading material in the sleeve notes of one of the albums, either this or "The Least We Can Do." The book might have inspired Oh, You Pretty Things as well (from Wiki's synopsis: " ...the children cease to be the individuals which their parents knew and become something else, completely alien to the "old type of human"). (I must admit to never having got through the book; I find Clark's prose difficult to enjoy.)
This album, especially the title track and this final track, influenced my views as a teenager on life, death and how our purpose is to make something better for the future. But beyond leaving the world a better place, this song's message for me is still that all of the other beliefs we have about death are only childlike faith; in the end we're just four pails of water and a bagfull of salts.
I think you should complete this. "Godbluff" and Still Life" is I think two parts of a trilogy. You should also listen to the third, "World Record" At least to "Meurglys III". And David Jacksons genuis.
You just mentioned why VDGG is the band I keep listening to while all other bands of that time (except Gentle Giant) are more or less in the fog.... their music is so meaningful....
Gabriel Genesis ELP Yes Tull Crimson Waters era Floyd are all in the fog? Camel? Really? Renaissance? I'm not sure that's what you meant...just checking
@@josdurkstraful ok what is the criteria for being in the fog? what does that even mean? musically? lyrically? both? Just trying to discern where you're coming from on that No hostility on my part curious With ya on Gentle Giant too
@@snowdog87 It means that it doesn't do the same for me as when I heard it all in earlier years. Not to dismiss any of the music though. But VDGG somehow always keeps touching the right buttons on me.
@@josdurkstraful OK i get it now Guess all those aforementioned bands do that for me more often than not but not everything they do I could add more to that list like Rush and Marillion Steven Wilson and Riverside Generally a prog nut...lol Appreciate your responses I get you now
…and now for something completely different, please. Rough album for me but, now I know. For those whom love this work, more power to you. Enjoy. I can hear why this is loved as a great album, it does flow. I’m glad to hear it but, I won’t again probably. Maybe I’ll stop gritting my teeth now, maybe. I think I’ll listen to some Bitches Brew to calm me down. Btw, I’ve grown to like BB, took decades, so maybe… The cat’s looking for packaging to play with. Peace and Meatloaf Music
Haha:-) Was just checking in and I wasn't expecting this so soon after the VdGG video. This isn't a song to listen to you right before you are supposed to go to sleep. Oh well, very worth it! Hope all is well with you. VdGG fans Christmas morning.
I believe that our host is used to listening to an assorted palette of genres on a daily basis and uses the channel to recognize a particular era and genre. But I follow several other aspects of music here. Have a little more patience with JP!
Fan for over 40 years. FNG. Bit of a Johnny come lately but parts of this album are sublime. Other parts fall a little flat. I wish they tinkered with this one a bit more. The problem with all the shifting dynamics is it can sound clunky. Every song on Stiil Life is a bit hung up on the fate of humanity. Still it’s Hammill. Who am I to bitch
This band, like Meat Loaf, is one of those that I understand why other people enjoy them, they just don't work for me. I know that is a good piece of music but it just doesn't work for me. I'll survive. edited to add that a famous science fiction novel, at the time, by Arthur C. Clarke was named Childhood's End. It was the book that inspired 2001: A Space Odyssey, a book about the transformation of humanity.
Left me a little cold this one. Another that's all about the narrative, which'd be fine if i could understand him. it'd be nice if, just now and then, he sang a bit more, and cut out the guttural shrieks, and cries etc. Musically, I found it, largely, nondescript. Definitely the first 7 and a half mins. Then it got interesting, for around a min and a half, and then it died away again. The sax was good though.
Can you please react to 👉the lady of heaven trailer? The movie was shown in AMC Theaters in the US and it had a very long and successful run there. The next move most likely is for it to be shown in other countries and soon after that it will have a worldwide release via movie streaming platforms ❤️❤️
I think this album might be the most commercial VdGG album of the ones I've heard (haven't heard some parts of Godbluff yet), while Pawn Hearts is the most creative. I do favour Pawn Hearts over this, but honestly VdGG just isn't my cup of tea. I never really feel the need to put on any of their music, guess it's just one of those things... 🤷
Oh, it isn't only satisfying. It is VICTORIOUS.
Triumphal!
This song completely encapsulates all the best of VDGG and Hammill. And it is perhaps the best example of Hammill's existential angst balanced with his high, high vision for humanity.
This is perhaps their most inspirational song, but one must take the hard road there, through the dark, and to the light.
Blessings.
Love this song, but there really are so many great ones.
Man - Erg is a true monolith of prog majesty both musically and lyrically, again full of angst and yet ending on a hopeful note (depending on how you interpret the lyric).
How blessed we are to have VdGG and Peter in our lives.
... in social media you often find the words "This / That changed my / will change your mind / (forever)". VdGG really changed mine when I first heard them end of the 70s, 17 -20 years old, esp. this song had a huge impact on me & my way to look at life . PH is a great philosopher, poet, and musician as well.
TY JP
...
they changed my life too my friend. Listening to pawn hearts, godbluff, he who am the obly one, still life... were indescribable experiences. I was born in 2004 and I'm lament not having lived through the golden age of progressive rock - I arrived late but in time to see the beautiful departure of the train.
Pawn Hearts is the album of my life. Since I started to listen to it, though not in the beginning, for I took me years to understand it. But, now, more than twenty years later, I still believe it will keep being the album of my life.
Finally! Years waiting for a reaction for this song hahaha. It was worth it!! "IN THE DEATH OF MERE HUMANS LIFE SHALL START!"
That's THE sentence !
"For I never shall see it / still I play my part" - this leads us back to Pilgrims, and this ending is more alive and powerful, as that first track. And the cycle begins again.
(this is what happens when we loved what he have just heard. And we play it again, Justin)
Omg this is so freaking good. JP you’ve been playing some amazing music.
Genesis: We thought we were the weirdest band in England
Van der Graaf Generator: Hold our caftan
lol! :D
I love VdGG (look at my nick ! ), but Genesis is my #1 music ever, with distance to the rest.
Right VdGG is weirder, but Genesis is more tasteful. Both of them are superstrong and supersmooth at times.
Lol, VDGG maybe is even weireder, but Genesis musically is another planet
The two bands, aside from sharing a label, we're pretty close in the early days. I feel like their I fluency on each other can be felt all the way to Foxtrot. Genesis kinda lost it's macabre elements after that ( although they did resurface on TLLDOB in spurts).
@Hammillian7 They became a bit too tasteful maybe. I say that as a huge fan of Trick, but I really miss the subtle murkiness of Foxtrot and before. To this day none of their records get my blood going like Nursery Cryme.
Best Prog band ever ! Thanks for doing this - more people should know how amazing they are
Seeing VdGG perform this live in NYC back in 2009 might be my favorite concert memory. It was something of a religious experience.
I can only imagine how transcendent it was!
@@JustJP here's a clip from that if you'd care to see
th-cam.com/video/ECG-u0RirvM/w-d-xo.html
They are touring Europe in 2022. Sorry USA but they are in their 70s now!
So beautifully reviewed with a true respect or reverence for the piece. It was wonderful to see you comment on the life-affirming nature of this piece and dig into the lyrical content. It’s truly magnificent. One of my absolute faves from VDGG. Thank you!
You know you have found your soul mate when you start softly singing this while having a quiet stroll with your girlfriend and she tells you: "I like it when you sing".
Boy oh boy, what a song
This is one of my favorite songs of all time.
I do so adore this LP. Quite a few of my buds never understood my insistence in my playing it so much. My thought was (and still is) life is to short to subject myself to less than interesting sounds. So glad to have proof I ain't alone. Not that I ever let it bother me.
Peter Hammill is really one of a kind when it comes to put his soul into the music and the lyrics! His solo works are just as good as the VDG albums!
The Silent Corner and The Empty Stage is a good place to start?
Existence is a stage on which we pass,
a sleepwalk trick for mind and heart;
it's hopeless, I know, but onward I must go
and try to make a start
at seeing something more
than day to day survival, chased by final death.
if I believed this the sum of the life to which we've come,
I wouldn't waste my breath.
Somehow, there must be more.
There was a time when more was felt than known
but now, entrenched inside my sett,
in light more mundane, thought rattles round my brain:
we live, we die...and yet?
In the beginning there was order and destiny
but now that path has reached the border
and on our knees is no way to face the future, whatever it be.
Though the forces which hold us in place
last through eons in unruffled grace
we, too, wear the face of creation.
As anti-matter sucks and pulses periodically
the bud unfolds, the bloom is dead, all space is living history.
It seems as though time must betray us yet we're alive
and though I see no God to save us, still we survive
through the centuries of progress
which don't get us very far.
All illusion! All is bogus...
we don't yet know what we are.
Laughing, hoping, praying, joking, Son of Man,
with lowered eyes but lifting hearts, we're grains of sand
and though, in time, the sea may claim us for its own
we are the rocks which root the future - on us it grows!
We might not be there to share it
if eternity's a jest but I think that I can bear it
if the next life is the best.
Even if there is a heaven when we die,
endless bliss would be as meaningless as the lie
that always comes as answer to the question
"Why do we see through the eyes of creation?"
Adrift without a course,
it's very lonely here,
our only conjecture
what lies behind the dark.
Still, I find I can cling to a lifeline,
think of a lifetime which means more than my own one,
dreams of a grander thing than we are.
Time and Space hang heavy on my shoulders...
when all life is over who can say
no mutated force shall remain?
Though the towers of the city are denied to we men of clay
still we know we shall scale the heights some day.
Frightened in the silence, frightened, but thinking very hard,
let us make computations of the stars.
Older, wiser, sadder, blinder, watch us run:
faster, longer, harder, stronger, now it comes...
colour blisters, image splinters gravitate
towards the centre, in final splendour disintegrate.
The universe now beckons
and Man, too, must take His place;
just a few last fleeting seconds
to wander in the waste,
and the children who were ourselves move on,
reincarnation stills its now perfected song,
and at last we are free of the bonds of creation.
All the jokers and gaolers, all the junkies and slavers too,
all the throng who have danced a merry tune...
human we can all be, but Humanity we must rise above,
in the name of all faith and hope and love.
There's a time for all pilgrims, and a time for the fakers too,
there's a time when we all will stand alone and nude,
naked to the galaxies...naked, but clothed in the overview:
as we reach Childhood's End we must start anew.
And though dark is the highway,
and the peak's distance breaks my heart,
for I never shall see it, still I play my part,
believing that what waits for us
is the cosmos compared to the dust of the past.
In the death of mere Humans Life shall start!
Glad you finally got around to The MOST profound song ever written in the prog genre... :)...It gave me a perspective on life I hadn't considered...Of course that was decades ago...:)...Hammill is so far ahead of his time...This is Hammill's GROWLING album...La rossa, Still Life and this song...6:54 is moving to me...Hammill's web site; www.sofasound.com/
Great ending to a great album, I enjoyed the review too!
Thus ends my absolute favourite album. Arthur C Clarke's 1953 novel is responsible for this song's existence; it's as mindblowing a read as this is a mindblowing listen. Hammill has wrote better lyrics but the band arrangement is magnificent and helps the occasionally brilliant couplets shine. Thank you Justin for your infectious enthusiasm.
There are probably some minor references in the lyrics to the novel Childhood's End, but I cannot find any. The novel itself covers the arrival of The Overlords, and Mankind's degradation on Earth - told in story line and dialog, for the most part with none of the sweeping poetic statements in the song. So it's fair to conclude that the song's lyrics appear to be written by VDGG (or some other source), and not Arthur C. Clarke. But I'm glad one of my favorite SF authors got some recognition.
''Watcher of the Skies'' by Genesis was also inspired by Childhoods End so Gabriel said. Two great songs by two young bands that toured on the same bill. Coincidence ?
JP, you absolutley nailed the review and did justice to this uplifting song, which has the kind of genuinely inspirational climax that has only ever been reached by a tiny handful of bands on a small number of their songs, but which VDGG has managed to achieve time and time again. And yet this particular song surpasses even those. It's the crowning moment of a deeply thoughtful, musical and lyrical essay that is nothing short of perfect.
Ty so much Multi! There's a lot of depth with Hammill and VdGG!
Incredible video JP. This song was very interesting, and I want to say thank you for your positivity again on this video. Keep up the great work. If you are scrolling the comments, You Are Awesome. Have a great day everyone!
I just wanted to check in and thank you for the insightful and eclectic reviews and even stepping it up more the last couple of weeks and 'Childlike Faith' happens to pop up. As with most great music it just gets better the more you listen to it. More than a few of us are in love with Peter Hammill's writing! So many quotables in this song and in this review for that matter.
Thanks Justin, you are the best. No one else is even close!
Thank you Mark :)
How you know prog has taken up residency in your bloodstream: "This track is 12 minutes long, not even that long."
😂so true!
I was waiting impatiently for that one. I can't wait to watch. Let's go !!! This song gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it. I'm glad you appreciate the lyrics. They follow me since 40 years. For me one of the most important lyrics whatever song.
This wasn't my favourite track initially (in the 70s) but boy, is it a grower and live, it is magnificent. The organ is the star player here though, as usual, the vocals are immense and the drums/sax back-up work twice as hard as any comparable band (though there are few, very few comparable bands) Next up would be World Record which is, alas, half a step down but is well worth 50 minutes of anyone's time.
Adrift without a cause section ! WOw
This track especially has a strong resonance of a hymn, with organ and lyrics
thanks for reacting to VDGG... they don't get much attention on TH-cam, and it's a real shame.
i'm glad you enjoy :)
and don't worry if you start to run out of VDGG albums... there is also Hammill's solo stuff XD
Thanks Jstock!
Thanks JP, great to see you loving this too! You're right, there is nothing else like VDGG.
I have seen the vandergraff generator trio three times. First at Nearfest and then me and my friends decided to skip the Sunday band (PFM) to see the band again in NYC and the opening act was the acoustic strawbs. The last time I saw the band as a trio was a year later again in NYC.
I'm seeing them in May in Bath, England.
@@lemming9984 You are seeing them in PH's hometown? Great deal, have fun!
@@markmaxwell1013 👍 I'm in Bristol, so very close!
A huge song in the, for me, best VdGG album, with no one mean song in it.
This song, this album, it always want me to quote a line. But I cannot. There are too many words. Too many good and strong sentences. Choosing would be impossible.
Is this the best VdGG album? Well, lyrically it definitely is. There are only very few albums I can think of that come close to Still Life lyrically. Very few indeed.
Thank you, JP! For giving this band the love they deserves!
I c
ompletely agree !
Lyrical and organ wise I find it to be my favourite Van Der graaf generator album, very underrated in an incredible canon of material
I have a line for you: "In the death of mere humans, life shall start."
A few come close, but Hammill is always involved.
''Pawn Hearts'' is lyrically astounding. ''Man Erg'' covers the duality of the human psyche, APOLHK covers solitude, guilt, alienation, madness and redemption and ''Lemmings'' covers the human race stumbling blindly to oblivion before pulling back from the precipice of destruction to secure it's future ????
Just your usual everyday Hammill subjects, Don't you just love him and VdGG.
Also '' Silent Corner of the Empty Stage'' is an incredible album lyrically and the two of them are my favourite Peter Solo and Peter VdGG albums of all (but there are so many others I love too)
@@multi-purposebiped7419Chilling and yet uplifting at the same time. Quite a trick to pull off.
Gotta love VdGG & Hammill!
Thank you so much for reviewing this masterpiece. Was looking forward to ist since you started reacting to this album. Hammill's lyrics are accompanying me since the early 80's and they mean and meant a lot to me. VdGG more or less are (at least part of) the soundtrack of my life. Thank you so much, carry on.
Ty Robby :)
BTW, your reaction throughout the song doesn't lie. How could you not love this?
What an experience!
I saw the latest incarnation of VdGG perform this song last Thursday at The London Palladium. Indescribably brilliant. Standing ovation.
Beautiful to see this reaction to my favourite album by my favourite band, which was the soundtrack of my teenage years. You really should move on to Hammill's solo work at this time, which is only an extension of the band's output, and they made no distinction between the two in their live performances. Go to "Forsaken Gardens" next, from "The Silent Corner and The Empty Stage". Then do "In Camera" as a full album.
Couldn't agree more. Don't overlook ''The Lie'' and ''Man-Erg'' - two of the best from Peter and VdGG. and positively two of his most impassioned and tortured vocals. Pure genius.
Just incredible
Godbluff has always been my no. 1 desert island disc but Still Life has to be no. 2. Lyrically and musically challenging, scary and uplifting.. Justin there was a book available in 70s by Peter Hammill called Killers, Angels and Refugees about his lyrics. Not sure if its still available anywhere
Never heard about that book until now. That's very interesting. Looked into it and it's available for a 100ish usd in used condition.
There are two books that Hammill published that were primarily just his song lyrics. The first one Killers Angels Refugees - which was rereleased with a different cover when his second book was released - Mirrors Dreams And Miracles.
Somehow you always make me smile...
That makes me really happy to hear actually :D
The exploration into the meaning and lyrics of this song was spot on and important. I appreciate your insights and discussions. Top content always. I mean you played Comis for heavens sake.
Haha ty HT!
Awesome Song, awesome analysis !:)
Signature genius here for the quartet. Banton is such a monster on this. Live, it was RIDICULOUS (Howard Theater Wash DC 2012).
Is this the most original and quality consistent rock band of the 70'? Might be.
I really like this track in which however Peter Hammill's voice is still as rough as usual but it works really well in this context. Somehow I compare "Childlike Faith In Childhood's End" to "Wondering" (closing track on the next album, World Record), the latter much more airy and less epic but in which the narrator still questions himself again about life and death, all set to majestic and solemn music. I'm sure you'll love this one too Justin !
Since I've heard it first days after World Record was released, "Wondering" is my personal anthem ;-) ...
@@andreasberten764 Good choice for an anthem ! I always thought it sounded like a hymn to existential angst.
Somehow i think still life is more mature than their other albums, musically and lirically
One of my favorite songs.
Classy! This is Van Der Graaf's Awaken.
Sorry to nitpick David, but "Awaken" is Yes' "Childlike Faith In Childhood's End."
@@vdggmouse9512 Ha! Indeed.
Except that the lyrics say very little in Jon's typical flowery stream of consciousness way.
Don't get me wrong, I love early Yes and can recite the complete CTTE lyrics to prove it! Problem is they don't really say too much whereas Peter overload your brain with information, questions, theories and genuine feelings.
Mind over matter? Never mind, it won't matter, the Overmind is over those matters. Childhood ends, irrelevance scattered. The Song's of Distant Earth just pitter-patter. Peace.
I have a pin saying; It's mind over matter. I don't mind because you don't matter.
That always makes me smile. 😊
Just purchased the 20 disc box set of VDGG 😂❤ and what a wondrous thing it is .
The Cherisma Years , just beautiful 😂
Nice Norman! Happy listening :D
My favourite VdgG album. You can loose yourself in the musicality of the lyrics regardless of the meaning! But great analysis and breakdown of the song... 👍
"Still Life" and "Childlike Faith" to me are like bookends viewing the value of life from two opposing sides of the same dichotomy -
1 we could be able to live forever and it would be awful.
2 we could be heading for doom and destruction but in the end it may be for the best !
Thats a great interpretation Neil- I like it!
@@JustJP Just as I like your balanced appraisals. Fans can get very obsessive about VdGG and Hammill, I know I do ! but you treat the songs with the same reverence and your insight is amazing. I feel from your APOLHK and Man -Erg posts that you truly love the music for all it's absurdity and English eccentricity.
Liked your GG stuff as well as many others.
Apart from you discovering firth of fifth , this appreciation of VDGG must rank as a highlight of just jp’s modus operandi . I have very little knowledge of wot i just wrote but then again i knew very little about Hammill when i was a kid. So i now know
The Sound of VDGG is colossal
So what new appreciative sounds can be offered?
The Sound (1980 onward?)are of the same status as VDGG for me in that
I missed out on them at the time of their existence.
So The Sound. Another page to turn?
This? Your sense of wonder said it all.
Van Morrison says hi too!
Diolch
Happy Friday Justin n co!
This song maybe the best one in prog history if you take into account the quality of the music and of the lyrics. No fairy tales here. Very deep adult lyrics.
Good as good gets
Phenomenal
Inspired - I've always assumed - by Arthur C Clarke's novel "Childhood End;" and it is mentioned as reading material in the sleeve notes of one of the albums, either this or "The Least We Can Do." The book might have inspired Oh, You Pretty Things as well (from Wiki's synopsis: " ...the children cease to be the individuals which their parents knew and become something else, completely alien to the "old type of human").
(I must admit to never having got through the book; I find Clark's prose difficult to enjoy.)
This album, especially the title track and this final track, influenced my views as a teenager on life, death and how our purpose is to make something better for the future. But beyond leaving the world a better place, this song's message for me is still that all of the other beliefs we have about death are only childlike faith; in the end we're just four pails of water and a bagfull of salts.
I think you should complete this. "Godbluff" and Still Life" is I think two parts of a trilogy. You should also listen to the third, "World Record" At least to "Meurglys III". And David Jacksons genuis.
The BESTEST song ever recorded!
You just mentioned why VDGG is the band I keep listening to while all other bands of that time (except Gentle Giant) are more or less in the fog.... their music is so meaningful....
Gabriel Genesis ELP Yes Tull Crimson Waters era Floyd are all in the fog? Camel? Really? Renaissance? I'm not sure that's what you meant...just checking
@@snowdog87 Well, Camel not really, the others, more or less.
@@josdurkstraful ok what is the criteria for being in the fog? what does that even mean? musically? lyrically? both? Just trying to discern where you're coming from on that No hostility on my part curious With ya on Gentle Giant too
@@snowdog87 It means that it doesn't do the same for me as when I heard it all in earlier years. Not to dismiss any of the music though. But VDGG somehow always keeps touching the right buttons on me.
@@josdurkstraful OK i get it now Guess all those aforementioned bands do that for me more often than not but not everything they do I could add more to that list like Rush and Marillion Steven Wilson and Riverside Generally a prog nut...lol Appreciate your responses I get you now
…and now for something completely different, please.
Rough album for me but, now I know. For those whom love this work, more power to you. Enjoy. I can hear why this is loved as a great album, it does flow. I’m glad to hear it but, I won’t again probably.
Maybe I’ll stop gritting my teeth now, maybe.
I think I’ll listen to some Bitches Brew to calm me down. Btw, I’ve grown to like BB, took decades, so maybe…
The cat’s looking for packaging to play with.
Peace and Meatloaf Music
Good morning, Mark!
Haha:-) Was just checking in and I wasn't expecting this so soon after the VdGG video. This isn't a song to listen to you right before you are supposed to go to sleep. Oh well, very worth it! Hope all is well with you. VdGG fans Christmas morning.
Get a room you two! 😎
As epic listening now as when I first heard it when it was released. How does one even refer to a piece like this? Calling it a 'song' doesn't cut it.
My desert Island album
My favorite VdGG album :D
This VDGG albun is great. I'm hope you give Klaatu - Hope (the entire work) a chance
I believe that our host is used to listening to an assorted palette of genres on a daily basis and uses the channel to recognize a particular era and genre. But I follow several other aspects of music here. Have a little more patience with JP!
nice!!
This is my favorite lp van der graaf... The easiest.
Oh my God, Mr Hammil's off on one because someone didn't hand their homework in on time.
😂Lol!
You must listen to Bat Out of Hell now the big guy has sadly passed this morning :(
Very sad. Will play something soon for his remembrance. Hard to forget a guy like him.
Olly was my nickname mainly during my baseball days…
@@-davidolivares As long as it wasn't meatloaf.
@@Pstephen
More like meatball.
"Bat Out of Hell" is probably Meatloaf's best song - definitely worth a listen, appropriately not long after JP's review of "Paradise".
Fan for over 40 years. FNG. Bit of a Johnny come lately but parts of this album are sublime. Other parts fall a little flat. I wish they tinkered with this one a bit more. The problem with all the shifting dynamics is it can sound clunky. Every song on Stiil Life is a bit hung up on the fate of humanity. Still it’s Hammill. Who am I to bitch
This band, like Meat Loaf, is one of those that I understand why other people enjoy them, they just don't work for me. I know that is a good piece of music but it just doesn't work for me. I'll survive.
edited to add that a famous science fiction novel, at the time, by Arthur C. Clarke was named Childhood's End. It was the book that inspired 2001: A Space Odyssey, a book about the transformation of humanity.
Left me a little cold this one. Another that's all about the narrative, which'd be fine if i could understand him. it'd be nice if, just now and then, he sang a bit more, and cut out the guttural shrieks, and cries etc. Musically, I found it, largely, nondescript. Definitely the first 7 and a half mins. Then it got interesting, for around a min and a half, and then it died away again. The sax was good though.
The sax is the most redeeming factor in VdGG for me personally.
@@progqueen6219 🙂
Can you please react to 👉the lady of heaven trailer? The movie was shown in AMC Theaters in the US and it had a very long and successful run there. The next move most likely is for it to be shown in other countries and soon after that it will have a worldwide release via movie streaming platforms ❤️❤️
I think this album might be the most commercial VdGG album of the ones I've heard (haven't heard some parts of Godbluff yet), while Pawn Hearts is the most creative. I do favour Pawn Hearts over this, but honestly VdGG just isn't my cup of tea. I never really feel the need to put on any of their music, guess it's just one of those things... 🤷
I think this is an anti-religious song, just like "Four Pails".
This is "react"
Are you making money from sitting in a chair and listening to someone create something?
He sounds like Bowie. I can appreciate these guys, but the melody, if you can call it that, just doesn't do anything for me. I need to hear more.
Bowie, that is funny.
It's not an easy band, but once you're into them you will be obsessed. And I can't see the Bowie reference anywhere, sorry lol
@@silentgnome It isn't a Bowie reference. I think the lead singer sounds like Bowie.
VDGG has one of the best lyrics of all the 70's