I heard an old George Michael song on the radio this morning & as I mentioned him in my last article, I lent my ears to his spellyrics.
Because of them I was reminded of something I've wondered about for a while.
The song was Father Figure
and it ends on these lines
"I won’t let you go my baby
I will be your father figure
Put your tiny hand in mine
I will be your preacher teacher
Anything you have in mind
I will be your father figure
I have had enough of crime
I will be the one who loves you
‘Til the end of time
I will be your father
I will be your preacher
I will be your father
I will be the one who loves you
‘Til the end of time"
That song & those lyrics made me question better, stronger & faster than I've done before - well it is the six million dollar question we're pondering here.
What other notion is there in this world that keeps us eternally hanging on & hanging round.
It must be...
well yes it is madness, but the correct answer is LOVE.
I think there is a general feeling amongst ...errr questioners, that if something has been launched into the mass-mind by a precisely aimed-media barrage, that it may have alternative ...ummm connotations.
Quite some years ago, when my son was about eight, he came to me & sounding slightly shocked, announced that all the songs on the radio were about love, either being in love or having lost it. I, who knew this well, but was so used to it, was forced to take a more conscious note.
There seems to be a general feeling that 'Love' (well our modern version of it), arrived on a flower powered bus in the 60's.
Actually I arrived then too, though not in such a psychedelic way & not on a bus.
From then until now, there seems (to me) to have been this highly intoxicating suggestion that 'all you need is love'. This love thing has entwined it's way into our lives in an extraordinarily virulent way.
Although I'm no expert on the 60's, my historical senses insist on tying the birth of love to the birth of song (as I currently know it)
An inquisitorial discussion (not of the Spanish kind you understand) took place with my West African friend a few weeks ago. Ideas were toyed with & past memories elicited. The sum of this equation equalled the suggestion that music is used to 'invoke' certain energies. When I asked my friend what he felt was invoked with Rock Music (using the Rolling Stones as a touchstone), he felt that an angry, aggressive or youth-filled energy was being called up. His feeling about the Beatles interested me mightily for he felt that their music would be used as an invocation of fertility.
At the time I was impressed for it seemed to me that, in the scheme of things modernly musical, the Beatles were most certainly of seminal import. The '60s were certainly a time of mighty change.
In 1969 a huge contingent of two legged earthlings swallowed the idea that a man conquered the moon with a giant step.
Two years before this big day out, four fabulous footsteps led the world down another mind altering path
In a ritual invocation, the Beatles fertilised Our World with their love in the summer of 1967.
No. no. not our world, I mean Our World.
"Our World was the first live, international, satellite television production."
"With seemingly unstoppable momentum during the summer of 1967 ... The Beatles signed a contract to represent the BBC, and Britain, on Our World, the world's first live television satellite link-up to be seen by approximately 400 million people across five continents... John Lennon wrote the song [All You Need is Love] especially for the occasion, to the brief given by the BBC: it had to be simple so that viewers around the world would understand it.
The satellite link-up was devised by the BBC ... Personalities, including Maria Callas and Pablo Picasso, from 19 nations performed in separate items from their respective countries. The event, which lasted two-and-a-half hours, had the largest television audience to date... For the first time ever, linking five continents and bringing man face to face with mankind, in places as far apart as Canberra and Cape Kennedy, Moscow and Montreal, Samarkand and Söderfors, Takamatsu and Tunis... The Beatles then performed All You Need Is Love... surrounded by various friends including Mick Jagger, Keith Richard, Marianne Faithfull, Keith Moon, Eric Clapton... All were dressed in colourful clothes, and were surrounded by flowers, balloons and placards... After the broadcast ended and the studio guests had left, The Beatles finished off recording the song ahead of its release as a single... All You Need Is Love was mixed the following day, and rush-released on 7 July 1967."
The day that the world stood loved occurred exactly 42 years prior to the death of Michael Jackson this year on 25th June.
The date that recorded Love was released into the world is the now infamous date of the London's 2005 bombings - 7th July.
I didn't start out with any intention of writing about the Beatles, they just came out of the woodwork (as beetles do) whilst I dabbled a little sleuthily on the Internet.
As I was driving home from work tonight & pondering on love, a number of car licence plates seemed to seek out my attention. A Volkswagen called 'Bug', made me think of love bug & ponder on the almost virus like characteristics of modern Love, while another car sporting an XP seemed to suggest to me that perhaps it is through that very word, that we have been conquered.
You see for a while now my somewhat distrusting mind has wondered if the spell that the word love casts is of a destructive nature. I have wondered if it's vibration or frequency could convey a very different message to the one played out to our conscious ears. What if it vibrates to a different tune?
One of the reasons I wonder this is because of the frequency with which this word is used - which is incessantly.
Is it just a word that the marketers of all things material have swooped on or does it invoke something more? Is some energy 'raised' each time the word is used? Remember it is a word that is very much tied to emotion - the vital component of all invocation.
And should this sound too weird, I remind you that there is a rebellious Celt who is firmly convinced that the universal symbol of 'love', the heart, is in fact a symbolic depiction of the vagina. Bearing in mind the power of all things sexual to attract & hold human attention & keep it in the programme it's accustomed to, this should not really be too surprising or unexpected.
If that symbol is a cheat, then what of the word itself?
Perhaps the best thing to do might be to look at the experience of love. If the word was a loaded gun, might we not expect to see evidence of injury amongst 'users' of such a weapon?
I know these refer to the programme of 'romantic love', yet they are eloquent all the same.
If we had eyes to see, might we see that this 'spelling' of love invokes an energy that comes with barbs to wound & hooks that bind too tightly - for these seem to be among the greatest harvests that are reaped when this word is in progress.
As the western world continues it's insatiable conquest of all things living, that emotion-feeling-energy, purported be love, is supremely noticeable by it's absence. We are entombed in a civilisation that spouts love, but enforces artificial isolation.
I feel a great tiredness of late amongst those who have shone brightest & it worries me. We did not come here to put our lights out. I do believe that there is a vast trickiness at work within this world. Therefore let's leave no stone or word unturned. I'm simply offering a suggestion that there could be more than one level to this word 'Love' & it might pay to wonder what energy may be being created, magnified, or harnessed with each emotional repetition.
"I won’t let you go my baby
I will be your father figure
Put your tiny hand in mine
I will be your preacher teacher
Anything you have in mind
I will be your father figure
I have had enough of crime
I will be the one who loves you
‘Til the end of time
I will be your father
I will be your preacher
I will be your father
I will be the one who loves you
‘Til the end of time"
