{"id":459,"date":"2010-03-01T19:51:43","date_gmt":"2010-03-02T02:51:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/?p=459"},"modified":"2010-03-01T19:52:10","modified_gmt":"2010-03-02T02:52:10","slug":"song-of-the-day-starless-by-king-crimson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/?p=459","title":{"rendered":"Song of the Day – “Starless” by King Crimson"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Starless” (part 1)<\/a>
\n“Starless” (part 2)<\/a><\/p>\n

My favorite song.\u00a0 No, actually my second favorite song, right after “Paranoid Android” by Radiohead.\u00a0 I think.\u00a0 That’s variable.\u00a0 One of my faves for sure.<\/p>\n

This song is fucking amazing.\u00a0 I know I’ve described songs as awesome and amazing before, but lets just do something here for a bit.<\/p>\n

Amazing
\n1.\u00a0 To affect with great wonder; astonish.<\/em><\/p>\n

Awesome
\n1.\u00a0 Inspiring awe: an awesome thunderstorm.<\/em><\/p>\n

Okay, those definitions don’t really explain what I’m talking about.\u00a0 But this is the kind of song that you listen to and then say “what the fuck just happened to me?”<\/p>\n

This isn’t really difficult music to play, except maybe for the speedy 7\/8 section near the end.\u00a0 But the song as a whole is like a force of nature.\u00a0 I first got into King Crimson thanks to some great reviews done my a man who had a website called “CapnMarvel’s Rock Album Review Bonanza”.\u00a0 Sadly, the site is now down.<\/p>\n

But he had an ecxellent review of the album “Red” from 1974, from which “Starless” comes.\u00a0 To quote:<\/p>\n

“Music like this simply does not come around every day”<\/em><\/p>\n

He also described this song as a nervous breakdown performed as music.<\/p>\n

That’s pretty damn accurate.\u00a0 It starts out with pure despair – unrelenting sorrow.\u00a0 Then it makes a short outburst and settles into nervous tension.\u00a0 Pure fucking nervous tension.\u00a0 Fingernails digging into the arm of your chair tension.\u00a0 That tension builds, and then….<\/p>\n

and then…<\/p>\n

In what is almost impossible to convey musically, that tension SNAPS.<\/p>\n

It snaps and becomes manically enraged and insane.\u00a0 It screams and shrieks with frightening control.\u00a0 That goes on and on, screaming like that with little breaks of crying.\u00a0 It goes on until that despairing sorrow bursts back, soaring like a flaming phoenix over everything, burning everything else to ashes as it does.\u00a0 Everything is set alight and everything burns as the music comes to a close like the hands of a clock completing a circle.<\/p>\n

How’s that for a description?<\/p>\n

Listen to the song and tell me if you agree.\u00a0 Seriously, if you haven’t already, put aside 12:19 of your day and listen to this song.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nHoly shit.\u00a0 What have I done?\u00a0 Have I really just described the actual “Song of the Day”?\u00a0 Have I spent all the sentences and paragraphs of this post in the act of telling you what to expect when you hear this masterpiece of a song?<\/p>\n

No, not quite:<\/p>\n

poop.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Starless” (part 1) “Starless” (part 2) My favorite song.\u00a0 No, actually my second favorite song, right after “Paranoid Android” by Radiohead.\u00a0 I think.\u00a0 That’s variable.\u00a0 One of my faves for sure. This song is fucking amazing.\u00a0 I know I’ve described songs as awesome and amazing before, but lets just do something here for a bit. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[101,105,213,57],"class_list":["post-459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-song-of-the-day","tag-70s","tag-king-crimson","tag-nervous-breakdown","tag-progressive-rock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=459"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":464,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions\/464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}