{"id":801,"date":"2010-05-01T13:20:14","date_gmt":"2010-05-01T19:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/?p=801"},"modified":"2010-05-02T17:13:51","modified_gmt":"2010-05-02T23:13:51","slug":"song-of-the-day-one-for-the-vine-by-genesis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/?p=801","title":{"rendered":"Song of the Day – “One for the Vine” by Genesis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Don’t ask me what this song<\/a> is about.\u00a0 Because if you did, I’d probably say something silly like it’s about a guy who thinks he’s the messiah and ends up leading his followers to a battle in which they are slaughtered.\u00a0 Oh, and he sees Jesus right around then.<\/p>\n

I don’t know if I’m right.\u00a0 So here are the lyrics:<\/p>\n

Fifty thousand men were sent to do the will of one.
\nHis claim was phrased quite simply, though he never voiced it loud,
\nI am he, the chosen one.<\/em><\/p>\n

In his name they could slaughter, for his name they could die.
\nThough many there were believed in him, still more were sure he lied,
\nBut they’ll fight the battle on.<\/em><\/p>\n

Then one whose faith had died
\nFled back up the mountainside,
\nBut before the top was made,
\nA misplaced footfall made him stray
\nFrom the path prepared for him.
\nOff of the mountain,
\nOn to a wilderness of ice.<\/em><\/p>\n

This unexpected vision made him stand and shake with fear,
\nBut nothing was his fright compared with those who saw him appear.
\nTerror filled their minds with awe.<\/em><\/p>\n

Simple were the folk who lived
\nUpon this frozen wave.
\nSo not surprising was their thought,
\nThis is he, God’s chosen one,
\nWho’s come to save us from
\nAll our oppressors.
\nWe shall be kings on this world.<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow me!
\nI’ll play the game you want me,
\nUntil I find a way back home.<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow me!
\nI give you strength inside you,
\nCourage to win your battles –<\/em><\/p>\n

No, no, no, this can’t go on,
\nThis will be all that I fled from.
\nLet me rest for a while.<\/em><\/p>\n

He walked into a valley,
\nAll alone.
\nThere he talked with water, and then with the vine.<\/em><\/p>\n

They leave me no choice.
\nI must lead them to glory or most likely to death.<\/em><\/p>\n

They traveled cross the plateau of ice, up to its edge.
\nThen they crossed a mountain range and saw the final plain.
\nStill he urged the people on.<\/em><\/p>\n

Then, on a distant slope,
\nHe observed one without hope
\nFlee back up the mountainside.
\nHe thought he recognised him by his walk,
\nAnd by the way he fell,
\nAnd by the way he
\nStood up, and vanished into air.<\/em><\/p>\n

All I do know is that this is one of Genesis’s best songs.\u00a0 It was from their last “progressive” album, 1976’s “Wind and Wuthering”.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nAnd it’s an album that took me a very long time to appreciate.\u00a0 Where I fell instantly in love with “A Trick of the Tail”, which was released only a few months prior to this, “Wind and Wuthering” took many many MANY listenings for me to appreciate what a great album it is.<\/p>\n

So, not instantly catchy.<\/p>\n

And the original album has some very muddy and flat production.\u00a0 I cheat by removing noise and EQing sound to my tastes, so my version sounds better, but the original doesn’t exactly come to life when it leaves the speakers.<\/p>\n

Which is a shame, because it is one of their best.\u00a0 Certainly better than all that followed.\u00a0 And it was after this album that the guitarist Steve Hackett left to do is own thing.\u00a0 And then there were three.\u00a0 And then they wanted to write pop songs.<\/p>\n

Oh well.<\/p>\n

Back to the song.\u00a0 I don’t actually have a lot so say about the song.\u00a0 No surprise there!\u00a0 I do have some more complaining to do about my fucking illness.\u00a0 Over a week of the flu now.\u00a0 Come on!\u00a0 I have other shit to do besides coughing, sneezing, aching, fevering and sleeping.\u00a0 And wishing it didn’t hurt to breathe air.\u00a0 I’m going to go drink some more cough medicine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don’t ask me what this song is about.\u00a0 Because if you did, I’d probably say something silly like it’s about a guy who thinks he’s the messiah and ends up leading his followers to a battle in which they are slaughtered.\u00a0 Oh, and he sees Jesus right around then. I don’t know if I’m right.\u00a0 […]<\/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":[44,277],"class_list":["post-801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-song-of-the-day","tag-genesis","tag-the-flu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801","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=801"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":804,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801\/revisions\/804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}