I hope this is a video where I sing the song thru to the end rather than messing up in the middle & stopping, but I can’t bring myself to watch it and find out. The worst part of music (beside the technology) is having to think about, look at, and listen to yourself. I can’t really deal with that, so as much as possible, I don’t. I hate having to consider the impression I make on others & have a hard time doing it anyway, since I don’t know how others think.
Some people enjoy sculpting their self-image. For many musicians this seems to be a big part of their job. I think that is why I avoided music for so long, because I didn’t want to have to think about or promote myself anymore. But now I don’t, so its cool. I can stay in my own world.
The way the media portrays it, the essence of femininity is an obsession with one’s own image, but- for the average women- I think this is far from true. If anything, women have a diminished sense of self and increased sensitivity to things around them. Their focus on appearance is mostly a shield against the negative judgments of their value which they have been trained to fear since birth. And I don’t think these judgments come from men but are really a media creation.
I feel like a dork talking about the media, but at the same time I don’t know if you can overstate the influence Hollywood & its sister industries have had on our collective mind. They have truly seized control of the collective imagination- how we see life, what we think it is about. This is tragic, because the spell they cast is a dark one which seems consistently designed to make people devalue themselves & life.
And they are the one part of our society which is consistently misogynistic as though they are led by people who specifically have it in for women. They objectify women and see women in their natural role as worthless. The only way women can redeem themselves is either by 1. being a perfect object that many men want to have sex with (in real life being a perfect object & having a lot of opportunities for sex are probably not very related, but the media links these together so females will see being hit on as a sign of validation) or 2. being able to do masculine things as well or better than men. Both of which, for most women, are going to be unfulfilling.
I don’t think people realize the impact this has. When women complain about being objectified, men don’t seem to understand where they are coming from or exactly how deep the wound can be. They see it as an attack on men. “Hey, I’m a man, I like to look! Sue me! (Snort snort).” They see women focusing on their appearance and then asking not to be objectified and the whole thing seems quite hypocritical. In reality, men objectifying women isn’t the problem. Perhaps they aren’t even doing this. We’ll never know. The real problem is women objectifying themselves.
The problem with women believing that their value and power comes from their appearance is, of course, that it cuts them off from their true source of power and has them searching for water in a place where no water is to be found. In a natural state women retain the connection to those forces which created us and the memory of what we were before birth. Without female energy in the world, we become disconnected from our source and start a desperate search for something to replace it. We forget that we are immortal & the world is full of magic. Life becomes flat and dry. So many of the psychological problems in the modern world are related to the degradation of women. Women are the essence of depth but we have turned them into the essence of shallowness.
What is my point? I don’t know. I don’t mean to sound all goddessy- I don’t even like that stuff. But I see that people suffer mentally from the fact that our collective imagination is ruled by a heartless masculine cartel. As I’ve expressed many times, there is nothing I love more than masculine warriors, but ruling the collective imagination is not their proper place.
Mostly I just wanted to say sorry if the video is messed up.
Lyrics….
It was nearly close to sunset
And the air it was swimming with flies
They were swatted without regret
As I laughed by his side
Dancing in the palm of his hand- fire
Dripping through the blood in his veins
I need to keep walking I can’t get tired
Falling back again and again
Gonna see the river
Gonna see the river
Gonna see the river
Gonna see the river
First his shadow fell upon me
Then he held my little hand in the fire
So I tried to lift my eyes up
But I was tired
Dancing on the back of my eyes now
People always said he was gay
But I saw him slip into the White Palm
That was a good day.
Gonna see the river
Gonna see the river
Gonna see the river
Gonna see the river
Suddenly the trees begin to smile
Twirl me on the pavement for a while
You couldl give him one more chance
After that I’m on my own.
Sink your fingers deep into the red
Ringing in the air around my head
You couldl give me one more chance
After that I’m on my own.
Gonna see the river
Gonna see the river
Gonna see the river
Gonna see the river
Not much time until the sunset
Just keep moving for a little more while
Though he killed you without regret
Still he always had the heart of a child
Dance into the river of regret
Dance into the river of pain
Dance into the aquador where we met
That was a good day.
Gonna see the river
Gonna see the river
Gonna see the river
Gonna see the river
