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Tuesday, October 27, 2009

The Carpet Crawlers - Genesis and split personality - We've got to get in to get out



I felt like sharing this amazing song by Genesis although I know that someone taking a glimpse to one blog has no time or is in another mood to listen to this.
Soulful and ethereal are some of the words that comes to my mind whenever I hear it:

The crawlers cover the floor in the red ocher corridor.
For my second sight of people, they've more lifeblood than before.
They're moving in time to a heavy wooden door,
Where the needles eye is winking, closing in on the poor.
The carpet crawlers heed their callers:
We've got to get in to get out
We've got to get in to get out
We've got to get in to get out.


Theres only one direction in the faces that I see;
And Its upward to the ceiling, where the chambers said to be.
Like the forest fight for sunlight, that takes root in every tree.
They are pulled up by the magnet, believing they're free.
The carpet crawlers heed their callers:
We've got to get in to get out
We've got to get in to get out

We've got to get in to get out.

Mild mannered supermen are held in kryptonite,
And the wise and foolish virgins giggle with their bodies glowing
Bright.
Through a door a harvest feast is lit by candlelight;
Its the bottom of a staircase that spirals out of sight.
The carpet crawlers heed their callers:
We've got to get in to get out
We've got to get in to get out
We've got to get in to get out.

The porcelain manikin with shattered skin fears attack.
And the eager pack lift up their pitchers - they carry all they lack.
The liquid has congealed, which has seeped out through the crack,
And the tickler takes his stickleback.
The carpet crawlers heed their callers:
We've got to get in to get out
We've got to get in to get out
We've got to get in to get out.


This song is from the album ""The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway"

"The album tells the surreal story of a half-Puerto Rican juvenile delinquent named Rael living in New York City, who is swept underground to face bizarre creatures and nightmarish dangers in order to rescue his brother John. Several of the story's occurrences and places were derived from Peter Gabriel's dreams, and the protagonist's name is a play on his surname. In an interview Phil Collins remarked, "It's about a "split personality". In this context, Rael would believe he is looking for John but is actually looking for a missing part of himself. The individual songs also make satirical allusions to everything from mythology to the sexual revolution to advertising and consumerism."

13 comments:

Magaly Guerrero said...

How absolutely interesting. I'll pass the word...

Ana said...

Awwww!
So glad you got it!
:)

Radagast said...

This reminds me of the young wizard, Sparrowhawk, in The Wizard of Earthsea... Through a careless piece of magic beyond his capability, Sparrowhawk unleashes a demon on the world, which only he can confront and defeat. It turns out to be him. Except it's not. Except it is!

Anyway, it's years since I listened to this. I seem to remember that on one of the last tracks of the album (can't remember which), Rael finds John, but when John turns to face him, Rael is confronted not by John, but by himself. It's a brilliant device, but only works when, like here (and A Wizard of Earthsea), one is wrapped up in the story and isn't expecting it.

Matt

Ana said...

Matt,
I love you!
lol

Radagast said...

;) I love you, too!

Matt

Radagast said...

Incidentally, this same device (more or less), is used in the Micky Rourke/Robert deNiro movie, Angel Heart.

Matt

Ana said...

I have to see it!
Micky Rourke/Robert de Niro?
Lethal combination!

:)

Radagast said...

Yeah - it's a bit "dark," but it's a classy movie, nevertheless - part filme noir, part private dic. De Niro plays Louis Cyphre (Lou Cyphre - Lucifer), and he's calling in the debt owed by Rourke's character, Harry Angel, a PI. I don't want to reveal too much, if you're going to watch it...

I suppose it's the darker side of the concept... The idea that, unlike Rael and Sparrowhawk, who have the opportunity to put things right (and do so, to the best of their abilities), Angel discovers that his nemesis is the part of him that's controlling his life, but when he realizes what's been happening (his "good" side finally has total recall of events), there is no way out. I suppose, in psychiatric terms, Angel might be referred to as a genuine "split personality," where the one side doesn't know what the other's doing. As viewers (voyeurs?), of course, we know that de Niro's involved! Angel's been running from his past, which a lot of people do, of course. The difference being that most people's fears have no basis in fact.

There's a whole bunch of other stuff going on, too. For example, Lisa Bonet's character is called "Epiphany," and seeing as she is key to the "revelation" of who Angel really is, the name is supposedly no coincidence. And there are plenty of cryptic clues as to Cyphre's true identity.

Matt

Ana said...

I want to see it NOW!
:)
I'm just not sure if in split personality the other part really is not aware.
It's something I have difficulty to accept.
I'm a mere neurotic.
I don't know. I just talked to people who are diagnosed bipolar and schizo, not a compliment for the psychiatric kingdom, and in a way I can feel that they know their other part.
Confused right now.
Tired too.
Going to sleep and think about it tomorrow.
I just remembered that I've read Merleau-Ponty and he talked about a person who claimed that there was powder on her bed.
They put "real" powder and she said: "No! It's not the powder."
They have also put a manikin in a place where another person said there was someone and it was not recognized as "the one" by the person who was hallucinating
I'm almost sure that when hallucinating you are aware you are.

Ana said...

I would like to ask someone who hear voices if sh/she knows...
Never could do it.
It seems so invasive.

I'll research it tomorrow.

Oh!
One funny stuff:
"You are jealous because it's only me who is hearing the voices."
:)

Radagast said...

Well, I don't know about the phenomenon of "hearing" voices. I did meet one guy, a schizophrenic, who heard voices, but he seemed quite clear that they weren't "real". On the other hand, can you "hear" your favourite song playing in your head, at will (I can)? Is that real, or not? Does it make a difference that the voices that one "hears" say something original (unlike the song, which clearly has something to do with recollection), and does it matter if they are malevolent in nature, or benign (my friend said that his voices said nice things!)? So many questions that are likely to go unanswered!

I talked with a guy online who was "haunted" by these things that he called "shades". Indistinct, ghost-like spirits, they were, which he could only see at the periphery of his vision, as I recall. They would pursue him into his deepest fears with some really unpleasant stuff that they would whisper, when he wasn't looking, he said. I've no idea if he imagined them (as with my schizo friend, I think he was satisfied that they weren't really there).

Personally, the abstract landscape of thought is a place I'm pretty familiar with, and I understand very well how to lead people out of their stuff, which generally works best by demonstrating that their stuff isn't really there, or at least, not in the way that they'd interpreted it. I think the "professionals" who are too scared to entertain their patient's fears *as if* they were real are doing themselves a grave disservice... The mentally ill and the very young are, by and large, the only ones with any imagination left, I've come to the conclusion! Everybody else has been indoctrinated into a single way of thinking that they don't really understand (as if there could ever be a single way of thinking).

Matt

Ana said...

Matt,
Still waking up.
I will do a post about hearing voices and I want to put this comment you did.
I know you don't mind.
:)

Radagast said...

Yeah, no problem.

Matt