4. Vincent – Starry Nights

And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear

You shout and no one seems to hear

And if the band you're in starts playing different tunes

I'll see you on the dark side of the moon.

                                                Roger Waters - Brain Damage

 

 

Starry, starry nights

Paint your palette blue and grey
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul
 

Shadows on the hills

Sketch the trees and the daffodils
Catch the breeze and the winter chills
In colors on the snowy linen land

Now I understand

What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they did not know how,
Perhaps they'll listen now

Starry, starry night

Flaming flowers that brightly blaze
Swirling clouds in violet haze
Reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue

Colors changing hue

Morning fields of amber grain
Weathered faces lined in pain
Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand

Now I understand

What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they did not know how,
Perhaps they'll listen now

For they could not love you

But still your love was true
And when no hope was left inside
On that starry, starry night
You took your life as lovers often do
But I could have told you, Vincent,
This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you

Starry, starry night

Portraits hung in empty halls
Frameless heads on nameless walls
With eyes that watch the world and can't forget
Like strangers that you've met
The ragged men in ragged clothes
The silver thorn, the bloody rose,
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow

Now, I think I know

What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they're not listening still
Perhaps they never will.

                                           Don McLean - Vincent

 

Vincent van Gogh produced more than 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings, despite the fact that he lived only 37 years. He suffered from a form of epilepsy and a manic tendency to write and paint. In January 1889 he was discharged from the hospital in Arles, where he had been hospitalized after the incident. The precise chain of events that led to the celebrated incident of van Gogh slicing off his ear is not known reliably in detail.

In just over a decade he produced more than 2,100 artworks, including 860 oil paintings and more than 1,300 watercolors, drawings, sketches and prints.

But the artist felt that he had not fully recovered: his mental health was not yet integrated. So, in May, he sought asylum at the psychiatric hospital near Saint Remy in France.

It was here that he painted some of his most famous works, such as "Starry Night".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Starry_Night

 

"Starry Night" is an oil painting on canvas (92x73 cm), made in 1889 and preserved in the Museum of Modern Art ( MoMA ) in New York.

 

The images shown below, indicate which constellations are supposedly depicted in the paintings and were taken from the online magazine Elapsus:

http://www.elapsus.it/home1/index.php/scienza/astronomia/63-tra-arte-e-astronomia-le-stelle-di-van-gogh

 

Starry Night

 

Starry Night Over the Rhone

Vincent (by Don McLean) is from the album American Pie recorded and released in 1971. It's also known as Starry Starry Night.

The words of the first stanza are a clear reference to the painting Starry Night.

It's possible to listen to the following YouTube link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxHnRfhDmrk

 

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mus%C3%A9e_d%27Orsay