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Sloan Bashinsky's avatar

“Vincent"

Don McLean

Starry, starry night

Paint your palette blue and gray

Look out on a summer's day

With eyes that know the darkness in my soul

Shadows on the hills

Sketch the trees and the daffodils

Catch the breeze and the winter chills

In colors on the snowy, linen land

Now, I understand what you tried to say to me

And how you suffered for your sanity

And how you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they did not know how

Perhaps they'll listen now

Starry, starry night

Flaming flowers that brightly blaze

Swirling clouds in violet haze

Reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue

Colors changing hue

Morning fields of amber grain

Weathered faces lined in pain

Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand

Now, I understand, what you tried to say to me

How you suffered for your sanity

How you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they did not know how

Perhaps they'll listen now

For they could not love you

But still your love was true

And when no hope was left inside

On that starry, starry night

You took your life as lovers often do

But I could have told you, Vincent

This world was never meant for one

As beautiful as you

Starry, starry night

Portraits hung in empty halls

Frameless heads on nameless walls

With eyes that watch the world and can't forget

Like the strangers that you've met

The ragged men in ragged clothes

The silver thorn of bloody rose

Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow

Now, I think I know what you tried to say to me

How you suffered for your sanity

How you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they're not listening still

Perhaps they never will

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Catherine Wallace's avatar

Thanks for sharing this song. I was hearing it in my head as I read along. :)

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sol s⊙therland 🔸's avatar

Why do you like this song, Catherine?

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Boris Petrov's avatar

I am confused - whose song is that song and when was it written?

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Enchanted Forest Art Press's avatar

It's don McLean of "American pie" song writing fame. It was from the 70s I think

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Barbara Sinclair's avatar

I've always loved this song. Thx for sharing it!

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Leon Brown, Jr.'s avatar

"What Am I" is deeply moving.

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Leon Brown, Jr.'s avatar

Poetry!

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Rod Bluhm's avatar

It's an incredibly sad song, but it seems to capture his life so well.

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Viola Weinhold's avatar

What a worthy goal. To be labeled strange, eccentric, but to make it your aim to let people know what you had in your heart. I love that. Thanks for sharing this.

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Judson Stacy Vereen's avatar

Thanks for posting the great Van Gogh. One of the great poet/painter combos the world has ever known. He also showed us, proved to us, that one can paint and make art entirely for oneself, with all the added struggles of being human. In doing so, by painting and writing for himself, he painted and wrote for all of us-for humanity- who, for Van Gogh, showed up much too late.

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rKf's avatar

There’s a part of human nature that wars against sensitivity.

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sol s⊙therland 🔸's avatar

Which part exactly?

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rKf's avatar

The part, for example, that sends beloved poets to the gulag.

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Dian Parker's avatar

His letters are amazing!

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Paul Clayton's avatar

Touching. Vincent Van Gogh was possibly a manic-depressive, or possibly schizophrenic. (A hint of this was his inability to stay away from the young woman he loved/lusted after. And his cutting off of a portion of his ear to show her how much he loved her. And Vincent was, of course, a wonderful, great artist. If he were lifted out of history and dropped in a big American city, maybe he'd be pushing a shopping cart filled with his canvases and paints, looking for whatever catches his eye. His mania would still drive him to paint. But if he was unlucky, the State would put him on some kind of Prozac-like zombie medication that would have taken away his compulsion to paint.

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Harley Claes's avatar

“There is a thin veil between madness and genius.”

A book by the title of “Touched With Fire” highlights a hefty number of creative visionaries who had manic-depressive disorder (bipolar) and how it impacted their art. I like that name, “Touched With Fire” it is very telling.

Those artists also, at times, gave credit to their manic episodes for some of their best work.

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Finding Grace's avatar

"This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you", Vincent ❤ A beautiful soul, who truly was able to find the " Sacred in the profane", as Fr. Richard Rohr teaches today. 🙏❤🌻

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Leon Brown, Jr.'s avatar

Just listened to the "Vincent" (Don McLean) on youtube, the version with many of Van Gogh's paintings. Sublime lyrics, truly masterful paintings. Brought tears to my eyes.

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Kate Hawkes's avatar

This is a message that all the 'outsiders' need to hear. Thank you.

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Barbara Sinclair's avatar

"Though I am often in the

depths of misery,

there is still calmness,

pure harmony

and music inside me."

This speaks volumes about the human Spirit, about creativity, about bringing our gifts into the world no matter how hard our life might seem.

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AstroMommy's avatar

"Though I am often in the

depths of misery,

there is still calmness,

pure harmony

and music inside me." Oh my goodness, how I feel this sentence. Thank you for sharing this...I have never read Van Gogh's letters, or anything, before.

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Sue Cauhape's avatar

That poem probably describes all writers and artists. We are misfits, but far more important in mirroring society than we believe. Maybe we are outliers because society doesn't like who they see in the mirror.

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Harley Claes's avatar

“Misfit creatives” as I like to call us. Oddballs who hold up a mirror to a society that often doesn’t wish to see its own reflection, thus leaving some of us unheard, exiled.

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Alja Zwierenberg's avatar

I live in a little village where his father was a reverent, I can see the top of the roof of his church from my window ... His aunt is buried at the end of the street where I life. The most impressive trees are standing outside and when I walk underneath them I wonder if he has seen them. If they where there when he was here ...

He was the first painter whose work enlightened me ... It's impossible to kill creativity, he taught me. It has to be followed whatever they say ... You know, because it makes one feel alive, feel part of the universe of this earth.

He sold one piece during his life, to Theo his brother. He taught me, create and you will live ... whatever they pay ... So I do, I create through poverty, through prejudices, through it all ... to stay grounded and have a mind of my own, loving life.

Thanks for sharing this wonderful piece of love Vincent was, whatever they said.

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Marc Mannheimer's avatar

I like how this was turned into a kind of poem....

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Gene Bray's avatar

they say Van Gogh didnt kill himself. It was some kids playing with a gun

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Cecil Touchon's avatar

That was lovely. Thank you to his sister in law upon whom it fell to make sure Vincent was remembered.

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