From: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org (shindell-list-digest) To: shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: shindell-list-digest V8 #17 Reply-To: shindell-list@smoe.org Sender: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk shindell-list-digest Thursday, February 2 2006 Volume 08 : Number 017 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [RS] RE: FDL ["Miller, Grant" ] [RS] Cover cd? [Jason Stanley ] [RS] Re: shindell-list-digest V8 #16 [John McDonnell ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2006 08:56:01 -0500 From: "Miller, Grant" Subject: [RS] RE: FDL Some years ago, I saw Richard perform somewhere near Hartford. When he got around to FDL, his intro went something like this: "A lot of people have asked me what this song means. (pause) I just don't have a clue." Sometimes, great songs just happen. Let me suggest a new topic, since someone wrote recently that the list seems to be dying out: funny/endearing/otherwise memorable stage moments with Richard. I know I've got some good ones from shows going back to 1993. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 01 Feb 2006 08:26:03 -0600 From: Jason Stanley Subject: [RS] Cover cd? Does anyone have a good guess as to when RS will release the new cd? I can't stand the wait. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2006 17:01:42 -0500 From: John McDonnell Subject: [RS] Re: shindell-list-digest V8 #16 Hi All, About FDL, Norman wrote: >>I always thought the "one shot deal" referred to the creation. Dad (God) may have created everything, but what has he done for us lately<< At the risk of scaring some of you, or getting the hairy eyeball from RG (!), I find this interpretation fascinating, because it raises other issues the song touches on (intentionally or not), and which are fun to explore--at least to me. Bear with me: this notion of an absentee creator reninds me of the enlightenment/Cartesian notion of God as the divine clockmaker, who sets things in motion, but is largely absent. This kind of deism posited that that pure reason was the way to mediate between the mind and the body. Established religion reacted to this and posited that divine revelation, not rationality was the way to spiritual truth. Wordsworth, and other Romantic poets emerging from this conflict emphasize the power of imagination and the soul as a way of releasing us from the physical resatraints and the laws of nature ("Our souls have sight of that immortal sea"). Now, I don't know if RS is a fan of Romantic poetry, and I am not suggesting he is a modern Wordsworth, but the song's yearning to be free from the laws of nature is vaguely Romantic. The song also has a quality that fits Wordsworth's definition of poetry very well: "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility." That definition, to me, describes the song perfectly. Which is not to say that I can tell you what the song means or that I know what its about, I just find that it (as do many of his songs) lends itself to exploration in many directions which can be fun little side trips away from the visceral reaction. And, yes, I think it's just coincidence that Wordsworth's wife was named Mary! :-) John McD. ------------------------------ End of shindell-list-digest V8 #17 **********************************