here be friends…here be heroes…
here be sunshine…
here be grey…
here be life…
here love lies bleeding…
memories so hazy…
and dreams that drove me crazy
here be down…
here be paradise…
here be starbright…
here be pain…
here be smiles in eyes like rainbows…
my father and my mother…
my sisters and my brother –
pictured within
where there’re shadows ill met by moonlight…
there are dragons I have slain…
and here be bright eyes with hair so golden…
sunrise and sunset and running free…
and laughing at the rain
here be home…
here be travellin’…
here be thunder…
here be blue…
and Sometimes heaven and thoughts of wonder…
the Miracle of children…
a poet and a pilgrim
kith and kin – pictured within
lose and win – pictured within
Pictured Within, the title track from the 97/98 album. It’s poignant, sensitive and extremely meaningful. The entire album being an expression of grief at the composers loss of his mother in 1995. Today, it forms my own expression of unreasoning grief at the loss of that composer. Jonathon Douglas Lord.
I say unreasoning because I never met the man. I didn’t know him from a bar of the proverbial, nor he me, but I did know him from his music. I knew him from the impact his compositions had on my life, from time I first heard the crescendos of ‘Child In Time’ I was enraptured by his musical style. 1973 it was. From that point forward I had to listen to all that he’d written. I’m still listening & picking up new things today, but no more new things now.
I’ve always been drawn to rock, rhythm & blues, the harder & heavier, the better I like it. There has to be melody, there has to be a beat & riff and above all else, there has to be strength and power. Lord’s writing, together with those he worked alongside of, brings all of those elements to the fore. From Book of Taliesyn to Fireball to Burn & the seminal Concerto for Group and Orchestra, his carriage for the Deep Purple discography will stamp him as LEGEND among musicians. For me as well, it’s compositions like Pictured Within that carry stories and the artists sentimentality which leave the biggest marks upon me. This man was a thinker as well as a doer. That lifts him above the general run of rock musicians in my view. Not that most don’t have that artistic bent but very few seem capable or willing to put it into musical expression.
I’m incredibly sad too because the passing of these childhood icons is a marker on the road to my own ultimate destination. That same destination we’re all making our way towards. An end to this existence and all that it means. What comes after is anyone’s guess, perhaps a silent void with no more music, no art, talent, sentiment or expression. I don’t know, but strangely, I’m beginning to feel the end more with each passing of someone from my youth. This isn’t about me but about the losses we all incur as we move through life. I guess that as well is all a part of life’s lesson, whatever that lesson may be. I just hope that on the other side, there is music and that we can continue to rock.
Pictured Within, played before the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra 1999