Vincent – Starry Starry Night (Music Video of the Week)
Music Video of the Week, 27 Mar 2017
Don McLean – TRANSCEND Media Service
Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch post-Impressionist painter who had syphilis and was believed to have mental problems; he was born on 30 Mar 1853 [read his biography] and committed suicide on 29 Jul 1890.
The video depicts a slide-show of van Gogh’s work set to the song. It is part of an art and creative writing lesson plan for the patients of the Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield. It was compiled by artist Anthony DiFatta who also suffers from mental illness and teaches art to other adults on the same condition. (September 2006)
With this beautiful song, Don McLean pays a tribute to the marvel and wonder Vincent left behind, notable for its rough beauty, emotional honesty and bold color – a contradiction to his troubled existence.
[Watch also by Don McLean – American Pie-The Day the Music Died
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dipFMJckZOM
(LYRICS)
Starry, starry night.
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,
How you suffered for your sanity,
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 field 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,
How you suffered for your sanity,
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 in sight
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 head on nameless walls,
With eyes that watch the world and can’t forget.
Like the strangers that you’ve met,
The ragged men in the ragged clothes,
The silver thorn of bloody rose,
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow.
Now I think I know what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they’re not listening still.
Perhaps they never will…
Songwriters: Don Mclean, Enrico Nascimbeni, Roberto Vecchioni.
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 27 Mar 2017.
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2 Responses to “Vincent – Starry Starry Night (Music Video of the Week)”
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[…] Vincent – Starry Starry Night […]
A wonderful inspirational tribute to the internal human spirit and the universal need to express and share it ~ regardless of the risks or the external need for outer validation.