Van Der Graaf Generator - A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers || Jana's First Listen and Song REVIEW
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- čas přidán 29. 10. 2022
- Welcome to ‘Prog Song Sunday’, where we listen to a Progressive Rock song together and then discuss our thoughts about that particular piece of music. In each episode, you get two different perspectives- the seasoned Prog fan who has 20 years of experience listening to the genre (Nathan), and the fresh new listener who is only now discovering the world of Progressive Rock (Jana).
In this episode, we are featuring "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" by Van Der Graaf Generator! Please listen along with us, and continue on to our discussion to see how Jana feels about her first dedicated listen to this prog rock gem and Nathan’s background and history with this particular piece of music!
#progrock #vandergraafgenerator #janareacts #firstlisten #aplagueoflighthousekeepers #pawnhearts #progressiverock #nathanonshuffle #janafirstlisten #reactionvideos #reaction
Disclaimer: We try our best to let the song play and be heard before we give our commentary, but we may briefly give comments during the song based on our impressions and reactions in the moment. We don’t intend to be annoying or “sacrilegious” to the integrity of the song, we are just being our pure, unfiltered selves as we listen. If you want a pure, uninterrupted listen, we encourage you to please seek out the song on your platform of choice (link to my Spotify playlist that features all the songs we cover in this series is below)!
Follow me on Social Media:
Twitter: @NathanOnShuffle
Instagram: @NathanOnShuffle
Email: nathanonshuffle@gmail.com
And check out my podcast, where you can listen to audio versions of many of the shows from this CZcams channel: anchor.fm/nathan-on-shuffle
And...Follow my Spotify playlist "Jana Reacts!" featuring music from this series:
open.spotify.com/playlist/1vT...
No copyright infringement intended. We do not own the music in this video. Our use of this music constitutes Fair Use.
Album Spotlight:
Title: Pattern-Seeking Animals - Only Passing Through REVIEW || New Album Spotlight!
In this video, I put the spotlight on the new Prog album from Pattern-Seeking Animals, “Only Passing Through”! This is the awesome third album from this band that features members of Spock’s Beard. This is the album where they really come into their own as a band and comes highly recommended to all Prog Fans!
#patternseekinganimals #onlypassingthrough #progrock #albumreviews #progressiverock #nathanonshuffle
Follow me on Social Media:
Twitter: @NathanOnShuffle
Instagram: @NathanOnShuffle
Email: nathanonshuffle@gmail.com
And check out my podcast, where you can listen to audio versions of many of the shows from this CZcams channel: anchor.fm/nathan-on-shuffle
Also...Follow my Spotify playlist "New Music Shuffle" featuring music from this and other recent videos on this channel:
open.spotify.com/playlist/2co... - Hudba
Best song ever made! ❤
I wouldn't say the best but definitively one of them !!
Amen to that. Best ever. Full stop. :)
this is the first prog song i really fell in love with!
Considering that it is a very difficult peice of the prog repertoire, I appreciate and agree with your comments.
That ' s prog rock at the very end and most unique style of the prog genre . Great band .
An amazing piece of music that I never would've heard, had it not been for CZcams
That’s one helluva song. It’s stuck with me since the seventies. I always related to it which probably says more about me than the song. Great reaction. Thanks
Hi Jana and Nathan. This is certainly a bit of a challenge on a first listen , but as a life-long VDGG fan , like your reaction and honesty to it. It's music to ingest subconsciously I found whilst doing something else , and every album after a dozen or so listens definitely reaps rewards. Still hearing differences in the music years later. Hammill's vocal styling unlike any other in the prog world - inspired Johnny Rotten ( Sex Pistols , PIL ) , and Fish ( Marillion ). One of the most important prog bands for me VDGG. The Sleepwalkers from the album Godbluff is a great first listen as a gateway into the band. But love your reaction to this. 😍 Thanks Nathan and Jana.
Thank you! I have always been a bit hesitant to get into this band because I've heard from various sources that they are a bit of an acquired taste- but what I've heard so far is very interesting and makes me want to dive deeper...
@@NathanOnShuffle Once you are catched you will experience so many emotions. And Hammill's lyrics are really mind blowing. This band really changed my life. In the way this music helped through dark moments of my life.
Analyzing The Plague quite important is to consider that it was mother of all great prog epics (was released in 1971) and many of them (like Supper's ready) seem to be influenced by it. Music is great illustration for lyrics and even strange, weird sections have essential sence. Real masterpiece. One of the most important bands and tracks of prog history. 11/10 for me. You should try Man-Erg from same album - is one of the best songs in music history. Whole album, "Pawn hearts" is simply perfect and every single note in there is perfect.
Almost 52 year old but still sounding as otherworldly than it did than, classic stuff
Pawn Hearts is maybe a pun on Horn Parts which the band has a few of. This hss beautiful music in parts, but also vocals can be menacing as are the horn parts.there have been stories of Lighthouse Keepers going mad as a result of loneliness and attacking their co workers. i like disonance in music It makes demands of me.
A ride. One must get up on it several times :) Great reaction
It's interesting watching your face constantly shifting between "Yeah, I'm going along with this" and "Oh, what the hell am I exposing my poor wife to?". 😁
But no kidding: an effingly brilliant song. Though perhaps a bit tough for a beginner's course.
From the cover, Pawn Hearts means the hearts of pawns - IE, that even the lowliest have feelings; but, yes, it is also a pun, or spoonerism - Jackson saying it was time to get the pawn hearts recorded.
a beautiful analysis guys
Probably not a song I'd recommend until you're very well acquainted with VDGG's work, but props to you for taking the plunge!
I have a couple of VDGG albums but I'm more of a PH solo fan. I have his albums up to Sitting Targets on vinyl .
His solo is as equally as challenging but more in an avant garde singer songwriter way.
Certainly an iconic figure in the prog genre whether one likes him or not.
Ditto, but my fave is A Black Box!
I love all VDGG albums in a lot of Hammill's solo stuff, and Sitting Target is one of my favorites too (with PH7 and the Future Now)
The chaos and noise is very structured and for example, is a boat at sea fighting to stay afloat in a storm and eventually sinking. The lighthouse keeper sees it but is helpless to do anything.
It's an open-ended song about a man going mad and, depending on your view, finds peace in suicide or overcoming it.
That's the shortest description I could come up with.
Peter Hammill learned singing in a Jesuit choir.
The Jimi Hendrix of vocals, someone - Robert Fripp? - said. Mark E Smith liked VdGG for the noise.
Oh, poor Jana. I would NEVER play this for my wife, who already gives me the side eye any time I play even safe prog in her presence! But it's pretty much a fact that Peter Gabriel would not have been as awesome as he became, and there would not have been a Fish for Marillion without Peter Hammill lighting the way. But Jana's reaction is very similar to most who are new to VdGG. The thing that turns off a lot of people to VdGG is that there's sax as a lead instrument instead of guitar (not to mention the organ player is covering the bass parts.) But in many ways Hammill's voice is the group's lead instrument, so your enjoyment of their music sort of depends on embracing his singing and poetry. Also if you can get into Peter's thing, Banton, Evans and Jackson are a great trio backing him up.
Guitar is here by Robert Fripp !
Quietly at the back.
You threw your wife in at the deep end with this song. My wife wouldn't have lasted one minute.
I bought Pawn Hearts in 1972 because I liked the cover. I was 13 or 14, and I'd just got a record player. When I got home and played it, it had a huge effect on me. It opened my eyes (and ears) to what was possible in music. It was a big contrast to the stuff that was on the radio and in the charts.
Try listening to Scott Walker's SDSS14+13B (Zercon, A Flagpole Sitter). I think you'll like it.
Devil Doll is another good Halloween prog choice, but their album long pieces need to be listen to in their full length.
So far I have listened to this track three times all the way through, each time with three different CZcams reactors. I am 💯% with Jana on this, despite my multiple listens.
I definitely appreciate the musicianship, and I can see where the comments say Peter Hammill inspired Gabriel and Fish. There is nothing here that pushes me away the way heavy music and growling lyrics do, but it just doesn't draw me in to where I would seek it out nor do additional listening on my own.
There's something perverse to me about the way internet Van Der Graaf Generator fans are constantly recommending this particular song to new listeners. It's like if Beatles fans were always telling people to put on "Revolution #9".
It isn't a song most people will feel a strong connection to. At its core this song is a manifestation of a psychosis the lead vocalist experienced as he worked to globally heal humanity through his music as the Vietnam War continued to wage out of control. It's told metaphorically as a lighthouse keeper going insane after helplessly witnessing two ships crash, but in Hammill's own life this was an expression of the helpless insanity and despair he felt in 1971 as he watched the appetite for war and genocide continue to grow around him.
In my personal opinion this is one of VdGG's weakest songs on a spiritual level and it was more of a technical experiment than an entirely cohesive idea. I'd recommend maybe The Sleepwalkers, Pilgrims, Refugees, Arrow, House With No Door, or The Undercover Man. Usually one of those songs will connect with new listeners but honestly VdGG caries a heavy undercurrent of severe male/patriarchal trauma in nearly every single song that just does not connect to every perspective or experience.
@@Nick-zr7vl I fear you have the wrong man. Pete Hamill wrote the book listed below
Peter Hammill VdGG singer / writer.
Vietnam: The Real War
Pete Hamill
Associated Press
To cover the Vietnam War, the Associated Press gathered an extraordinary group of superb photojournalists in its Saigon bureau, creating one of the great photographic legacies of the 20th century. Collected here are images that tell the story of the war that left a deep and lasting impression on American life. These are pictures that both recorded and made history, taken by unbelievably courageous photojournalists. In a moving essay, writer Pete Hamill, who reported from Vietnam in 1965, celebrates their achievement.
As we begin to look back from the vantage point of half a century, this is the book that will serve as a photographic record of the drama and tragedy of the Vietnam War.
I don't think Peter Hammill ever wrote specifically about the Vietnam war (I may be wrong) , but I like your take on the meaning of APOLHK - quite original and really shows how Peters lyrics at times are non specific and very much open to interpretation.
One of my absolute favorite prog epics. Peter Hammill is the favorite singer of my wife Jeanine and me, Friederike (same-sex marriage). I actually had a long walk and talk with him (about 3 hours) before one of his solo concerts some 30 years back. We talked about a lot of interesting topics - literature, music (but not his music), art, math, sciences, even zen-buddhism. I was around 20 then, he was around 40 (he is 20 years older than me).
If you want to express things like fear, anger, despair or madness in music you can't sound beautiful all the time; these are negative feelings, and they have to be brought across like this; if not you just sound ridiculous. Van der Graaf Generator deal a lot with feelings like these, and they are not afraid of putting them into music.
"Pawn Hearts" is a very experimental album; the other two songs on the album, "Lemmings" and "Man-Erg", also change between beautiful sections and weirdness a lot. So it wasn't a very successful album. Except in Italy, where the album was on the number one position in the album charts for 12 weeks. The Italy tour they did after the release of this album was a triumph for them. What I write now is not an exaggeration. Thousands of enthusiastic fans greeted them at the Rome airport. They were driven through the streets in an Alfa Berlina (the Italian equivalent of a Rolls-Royce); the streets were lined with more thousands of fans who cheered them on.
The foghorn section at the beginning has two different foghorns, so I gather there are two different ships in the fog. The intervals between the foghorns sounding get shorter, which makes sense since they approach each other and the sound needs less time to travel between them. At the end they sound at the same time, and then the drums come in - collision! As the two ships sink the organ rises.
There is the line "I can see the lemmings coming, but I know I'm just a man" in this song; this is a reference two the other two tracks on the album (obviously so with "Lemmings"; "Man-Erg" has the line "I'm just a man", so this is where the reference lies). So maybe there is some kind of concept for this album.
Robert Fripp, the guitar player and mastermind of King Crimson, said in his autobiography: "What Jimi Hendrix did for the guitar Peter Hammill did for the vocals".
We loved the reaction of Jana. She didn't like all of it, but she realized this is a great piece of art. That's exactly the mindset you need to have when reacting to music!
Thank you so much for this detailed comment, this gives a lot of great background! It really is an amazing piece of music and I was pretty pleased with Jana’s response as well!
God rest her soul im commenting before i watch video 😅 if she likes this you got wife for life. If not well you got keeper nohows. Most wifes would not do what she does.
Cherish it Nate Cherish it.
World Record and maybe H to He are much easier albums to get into, more cohesive on first listens, but they’re all pretty good. I find with a lot of prog, there is a certain hidden genius to it, but I’m not sure if it’s intentional or if the nature of the complexity of it allows for different interpretations. Theres a certain way of structuring the motifs together in my head, a certain flow, but I have to be in the right mood and be focused on certain aspects of the song. It’s hard to explain why VDGG is so amazing, especially with a song like this, but you just have to stay open-minded and really open your heart to tbe song, really try to connect to it, even if you’re not sure whether your interpretation is “correct”. It might not be about the “correct” interpretation, theres something more primal about it.
Jana did make a classic Schoolgirl error though, I didn't hear her say "How long is it?"
VDGG music:😃😎💢💯
VDGG vocals:🧐🤔...Peter Hammill is definitely an acquired taste, as VDGG progressed, Hammill's vocals gradually get better/match the lyrical tone more.
VDGG isn't the only artist with singers that aren't for everybody:
Yes
Rush
Dire Straits
Supertramp
Metal in general...
Ha, that is a pretty fair summary!
For me Anderson from Yes is extremely boring. His voice is great, but every time the same. Pavlov's Dog and Pendragon are another samples.
Too much for her. Try Blondie.