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Re: OK, you analyzed it

Posted by Soundmind (A) on November 29, 2004 at 07:36:39

In Reply to: OK, you analyzed it posted by John Marks on November 29, 2004 at 06:07:23:

This was the first definition of "deconstruct" in dictionary.com

1. To break down into components; dismantle.

That's what I did.

Here's the second definition;

2. To write about or analyze (a literary text, for example), following the tenets of deconstruction.

I don't know if I did that or not. As I said, the whole thing sounded to me like an ode to heroin and metaphor for a life on heroin. I had no idea of Coltrane's background or history with the drug. Having had a year to reflect on what I thought and wrote at the time, I'll stick with my original view of it. I think it was the third movement that got me. I envisioned a junkie ambling along on a cold day in a bleak cityscape in a run down industrial area in a sort of half stupor, his mind so numb that he's content for the moment unaware that he's barely alive. All he's thinking about is how he's going to get his next fix. The last movement seemed like a dirge with the junkie lying helpless and alone dying. Each of those long notes a last gasp of breath waiting for the end to finally come. And it does very quietly and without warning.

Look at the names of the movements. Acknowledgement is the realization that he's addicted to the drug. Resolution is the decision to live the life of an addict. Pursuance is the perpetual hunt for more heroin. And Psalms, a eulogy to himself. If there is a more depressing piece of music, I haven't heard it. It seems to be ultimately about deliberately throwing your own life away by living in a perpetually semicomatose state for no reason at all or perhaps to escape the depression of just being alive without any hope of happiness. Maybe that's why I really hate it. It's about slow suicide by poisoning.

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