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Prague's 200 days
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Pretty intense. I am glad the review brought this back for you, and TO us.
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The historically specific references elude me (and remind me that I'm not well rounded or grounded in any rigorous academia type stuff ... or just plain ol' world events I should know more about).In the more generalized parts of the poem, I was reminded of "The Knife" by Genesis, which is also a meditation on the evils of power. I'm always striving to connect literature to rock and roll. Because, is there a difference?
Mod
..."
I think you just missed this. In '68 the Ruskies piled into Prague with their tanks. Jan Palach burnt himself to death in protest. I was twelve and deeply shocked. I don't think I ever forgave them. "The Knife" strangely is the only album I ever bought by Genesis, and that would have been '72 or '73. I think I wrote this just before that. I was big into "Pictures at an Exhibition" at the time, alternating between the ELP and Ravel versions of Moussorgsky's original.
I was six years old. I simply should have been paying more attention. "The Knife" is on the album, if I'm recalling correctly, Trespass ... which may have been their second? And considering how their first never really got off the ground (upon initial release less than 800 copies sold) until it was reissued numerous times, Trespass might as well be their first.
Rarely do I dip back into my ELP when I'm in a prog mood. Greg Lake seems like an alright chap, but Keith Emerson always seemed to have a chip on his shoulder ... like he was channeling jock vitriol into his keyboard playing.
I think as an expatriate Brit (if I'm recalling correctly) you'd most relate to Genesis's "Selling England by the Pound."
This Czech tumult you mention. Would these events have been covered/part of/hinted at in Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being?
Mod
Did you know the original name for ELP was HELP, with Hendix as the H? Then he went and snuffed it. Or she snuffed him. It would have been the biggest of the supergroups, though Christ knows what they would have sounded like.
Emerson goes back to a band called The Nice. Dig out their "Five Bridges Suite" if you can. They had a crap singer but a raw agit-prop edge. E's still around, still gigging. Vitriol doesn't come into my image of him. Prick, perhaps, pretentious, certainly. But prog rock was nothing if not pretentious.
I know have read TULOB. It must have been extremely light because I don't remember anything about it. Oh, wait a minute, something's coming back to me. A guy wandering round with a bomb? This is embarrassing. Sometimes, I should be taken out and shot.
The Thoughts of Emerlist DavJack! I have that LP (by the Nice) and also Ars Longa Vita Brevis. Have not listened to them in awhile. Need to dig them out (digitally).Seems to me that there's an Atomic Rooster in the woodpile that predates even The Nice ... no?
(actually I couldn't resist doing a little research: Atomic Rooster emerged from the wreckage of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown! Carl Palmer was in both bands. So the P to the E and the L does have this provenance.)
And Philip: the world is always a case of to each his own, but I found TULoB to being anything but "light." A moving book. Not because of the Eastern Bloc political context, but because of the (dun dun duuuh) humanity of the characters.
Mod
dedication
dark is power
and long is the hour-beat
of hearts in death by fire
pain is their power
and the blinding pain
makes death come in fear
again and again
Jan Palach's living blood
is on fire
his mind is burning
screaming
power Russian T54
Jan D'arc
while earth's powers burn
and blind her eyes
is crying to see her lord
dying to see her lord
yes Oberleutnant
Warsaw's sweet smelling flesh
burning
is disgusting
and suffering everlasting
dedication
Philip Lee (1972)