Still, perhaps we should distinguish between different media of expression. In an interview a person may say one thing (and on the whole, LC was fairly consistent in his many interviews, although you can never be sure whether he was quoted accurately in print and what did the interviewer choose to h...

Joe, Thanks for identifying “Professor Bob”. I reread the interview parts in the New Yorker article once again, and I was struck by the impression that what LC says towards the end is not in tune with the way we interpreted the Darker album; he seems more confident, less doubting, while our impressi...

Great effort, Joe, thanks. It is indeed a very griping poem and a great tribute to LC.

Steven, Joe, Vicki, I appreciate all your comments very much. There’s still a lot to think about; perhaps we should go back to the beginning… Adam, Yes, March 28 is the new moon, the first day of Nisan, the month of spring; in ancient times it used to be the first day of the year, which makes a lot ...

Diane, What a great effort on your side, and very interesting and illuminating. Alas, I find myself in the awkward position of not finding an appropriate rejoinder. I’ll need more time to consider the wider picture, so I’m only offering one or two slight points. One of the problems with the New Test...

Death in the songs is not exclusively related with ageing, because there are also various other incidents of death or hints to it, for example, “Joan Of Arc”, “A Bunch Of Lonesome Heroes”, “Seems So Long Ago, Nancy” etc. So the subject is more wide and deep.

I’ve been away from this thread for a while because I was absorbed in writing my review on Teresa Quayle’s book on LC’s lyrics which Jarkko has now posted on Analysis page of the Files , but I enjoyed reading everybody’s recent contributions. vickiwoodyard’s quote reminded me of the long exchanges o...

Teresa, I appreciate the difficulty in finding a publisher by a first-time author, but I thought that with the mounting popularity of LC in recent years it might not prove impossible to find a publisher interested in a study of his work. I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you. As for the other matters...

Thanks, Jarkko, for posting my review on the Files . The bottom line: I found Teresa Quayle’s book to be valuable and interesting in some respect, but I also could not help criticizing various aspects of it. This is a somewhat strange case when a reviewer (this one, at least) can’t give a simple ans...

Diane, Thanks for your thoughts and for the quote from Eliot. Your quoting of it in the context of “Steer Your Way” is very inspired and it brings on many thoughts. However, it also took me in a different direction. Reading the last line of the poem it occurred to me that in my analysis of “The Wind...

Mat, Thank you for this meditation on “light”, mostly as the contrast to “darkness”, but I would like to add something about “lightness” in “Traveling Light”, although in this song both meanings of the noun occur, as discussed on p. 11 above. The first meaning occurs often in LC’s songs, but the sec...

mat james wrote:

Wow! Where have I been?

I was wondering the same thing... Welcome back, Mat.

Violet, Thank you very much for all your effort. The association to Gauguin’s painting is very compelling. Another association for the “yellow sign” at the end of the poem is to the one Jews were forced to ware by the Nazis (and in some places in Europe already in Medieval times); allusions to the H...

508.jpg I came upon this photo of LC during the 1973 Yom Kippur War which I don't remember seeing before. Here he is playing with Israeli musician Matti Caspi (who is seen with him also in some of the photos already posted above), against the background of some military vehicles, probably in the Si...

Violet, Thanks for the impressive image. To your question, I believe that the first mention of Jesus in LC’s work is in the major poem, which also contains the title of the book in which it appeared, “For Wilf And His House”, in Let Us Compare Mythologies (it’s the second poem in the book, p. 16). I...