The first in a trilogy of neo-gospel songs centered around the
subject of finding your faith (and ultimately your soul) within
the context of this world. “Door I” is an allegory which likens
the struggle for faith to finding a way into your own home. Hell is often described as "other people", but if Lowell's
"George III" & Dylan's "If You See Her, Say Hello"
are any indication, Hell is just us all by our lonesomes, stuck in a
room with a thousand tapes of our most inglorious moments playing back
to us simultaneously, wearing & stretching
out of phase & focus but never quite snapping off the reel.
God preserve me from spending my eternity looking for keys in the dark.
Matthew Ulm - Bass Guitar / Eric "The Dark Prince Of Rock"
Butkus - Rhythm Guitars / Joel Hix - Drums
"The shapes arise!
Shapes of doors giving many exits and entrances,
The door passing the dissever'd friend flush'd and in haste,
The door that admits good news and bad news,
The door whence the son left home confident and puff'd up,
The door he enter'd again from a long and scandalous absence, diseas'd,
broken down, without innocence, without means."
- Walt Whitman, "Song of the Broad-Axe" (1876)
"Jesus once of humble birth
Now in glory comes to Earth
Once he suffered grief and pain
Now he comes on Earth to reign.
Once a meek and lowly lamb
Now The Lord, the great "I Am"
Once upon the cross He bowed
Now his chariot is the cloud.
Once He groaned in blood and tears
Now in glory He appears
Once rejected by his own
Now their King he shall be known."
- Parley Pratt, "Jesus Once of Humble Birth" (1843)
"A couple of days ago Delmore Schwartz died from a heat-attack . . .
just outside his room in a cheap New York hotel ----- alone, out of
touch, for a year, a shadow, a rumor seen here and there, gone underground,
after he vanished and hid from Syracuse University, angry that he hadn't
been given tenure. Maybe the heat killed him . . . but really his end
was in the cards for long, too much drinking, paranoia that cut him
off from jobs, and even friends . . . obsessed, a much better mind,
but one already chasing the dust ----- it was like living with a sluggish,
sometimes angry spider ----- no hurry, no motion, Delmore's voice, almost
inaudible, dead, intuitive, pointing somewhere, then the strings tightening,
the roar of rage ----- too much, too much for us! Nothing haunts me
more than breaking with friends. I used to think he was the only one
I broke with."
- Robert Lowell, "Letter to Elizabeth Bishop" (7/16/66) |
