A Musical Dictatorship
- Trills on a Tuesday
- 6 days ago
- 4 min read
Eamonn took us through Vincent and has agreed that the natural timing and rhythm is good.
Vincent van Gogh is often remembered as the archetypal “tortured artist,” but the reality is more nuanced. He did struggle with mental illness, loneliness, and financial hardship — including the famous 1888 ear incident — yet his brilliance was not simply born of suffering. His letters, especially to his brother Theo, show a disciplined, thoughtful painter who carefully studied color and light. In just over a decade, he produced about 2,100 artworks despite little recognition in his lifetime.
Don McLean’s song Vincent (“Starry, Starry Night”) captures this complexity. Rather than repeating the “mad genius” cliché, it portrays Van Gogh as a deeply sensitive artist whose vision others failed to understand. Lines like “they would not listen, they did not know how” echo his real isolation, reinforcing the modern view of Van Gogh as not just troubled, but profoundly perceptive.
“Starry, starry night” — the night is short, as is “hills” in “shadows on the hills.” Eamonn will show you the “shut up” sign with his hands so you know when to stop.Keep the ‘Ahs’ a wide sound
Sops – your ‘oohs’ should be a pleasure to hear like angels, and not as if you’re in pain!
Float above the high notes rather than try to reach up to them from below.
Don’t slow down too much at the end and finish ‘will’ on smile.
Next Eamonn asked us if we had listened to Here Comes the Flood and if we liked it. There were mixed opinions, but he said he asks us as if we’re a democracy, but it is really a Musical Dictatorship as he always has the last say!
Here Comes the Flood is a song by British rock musician Peter Gabriel from 1977
He wrote it soon after his departure from Genesis in 1975. He recalled that the song was written during a warm summer evening while on the hillside above his cottage. As an experiment, Gabriel made a habit of running down the hillside one hundred paces with his eyes closed. During one of those excursions, Gabriel recalled that he felt "an energy point on the hillside and after a burst of meditation stormed down the hill to write."
The song centred around a fictional character conceived by Gabriel known as Mozo, an individual loosely based on Moses and the alchemical treatise Aurora consurgens.
Gabriel’s interest in shortwave radio served as a catalyst for the creation of Here Comes the Flood. He observed that radio signals were stronger as daylight faded and believed that this correlated with an increase in psychic energy at night. During one of his dreams, Gabriel envisioned a scenario where the psychic barriers that safeguard one's thoughts would erode and thus manifest in a collective consciousness.
In an interview with Sounds magazine, he said that the lyrics pertained to the concept of a mental flood where the collective thoughts of other individuals would be made publicly available and accessible through telepathy. He posited that extroverted people would tolerate the situation but believed that those who wished to conceal their thoughts would be unable to adapt. He told The Bristol Recorder in 1981 that he viewed the lyrics as relating to a collective consciousness, which Gabriel felt would represent "a psychological breakthrough" and an "evolutionary leap".
This song seemed to be mainly unknown to In Flagrante, so we were all starting from the same point. The rhythms are important with a gentle lilt and mysterious music underneath.
Sing through the whole phrases with no breathing!
‘We cannot choose a side’ - ‘choose’ is long and place the ‘z’ sound on to the next word ‘choo…za side’
Make sure you put a clear ‘d’ sound on ‘Lord’, ‘flood’ and ‘blood’
‘Drink up’ has a short ‘up’
Eamonn was impressed at how quickly we learned this song. It seems that we have no preconceptions as we don’t know it unlike other songs that are well known to us and we have our own versions we want to sing, as in The House of the Rising Sun.
This is an American traditional folk song. It tells of a person's life gone wrong in the city of New Orleans. Many versions also urge a sibling or parents and children to avoid the same fate. The most successful commercial version, recorded in 1964 by the English rock band The Animals
An interview with Eric Burdon revealed that he first heard the song in a club in Newcastle, England, where it was sung by the Northumbrian folk singer Johnny Handle. The Animals were on tour with Chuck Berry and chose it because they wanted something distinctive to sing.
The Animals had begun featuring their arrangement of The House of the Rising Sun during a joint concert tour with Chuck Berry, using it as their closing number to differentiate themselves from acts that always closed with straight rockers.
It elicited a tremendous reaction from the audience, convincing initially reluctant producer Mickie Most that it had hit potential, and between tour stops the group went to a small recording studio to capture it.
‘There is a house’ has a short ‘house’ where you are allowed to take a very quick breath before singing ‘In New Orleans….’
‘Now the only thing a gambler needs…’ ‘on’ of ‘only’ is long
Pull back on ‘sin and misery’ using your chest voice.
Please get the suitcase right for Eamonn, ‘a suitcase and a trunk…’ ‘case’ is long as in ‘suit caaaase and a trunk’
Talking of suitcases.
In Evita, “Another Suitcase in Another Hall” is sung by Perón’s discarded mistress just after Eva moves into his life. The number offers a poignant contrast to Eva’s ambition, showing the human cost of the climb to power and giving the audience a moment of quiet, emotional realism amid the political drama.
Eamonn will be away for two weeks, but we have Tim Jasper who has played for us in a concert, so he knows us and how well we can sing, so let’s impress him!
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