Deep Purple: Chasing Shadows

Chasing shadows, over my walls
with myself hardly sleeping
Dwarfs and giants, twenty feet tall
fill the room with their creeping

Sounds of breathing sharpen my ears
then they fade into nothing
Someone's laughter out in the street
fills the night with their loving

I feel the ice in my head
Running its hands through my bed
Not even dreaming I seem to be dead
Colours of yellow and colours of red

All I'm asking some secret voice
is to lead me to darkness
I'm so tired, dawn never comes
I just hide in the shadows

References

Uploaded by Timaeus1 on Sep 23, 2011

Wikipedia: Chasing Shadows
The album opener not only opens the album, but also starts the pattern Deep Purple would follow from nearly every studio album released afterwards, with the first song being a experimental, uptight, psychedelic rock piece. "Chasing Shadows" is one of the songs in the band's catalogue that to the largest degree showcases Ian Paice's skills as a drummer. The song starts off abruptly, with a theme of African drum rhythms and cowbells. At the song's end, there is also a long drum section, that ends just as abruptly as it started and leads into the next song on the album; "Blind".

Wikipedia: Deep Purple (album)
Deep Purple, also referred to as Deep Purple III, is the third studio album by English rock band Deep Purple, released in 1969 on Harvest Records in the UK and on Tetragrammaton in the US.

Album Cover
Tetragrammaton issued the album in a stark gatefold sleeve, wrapped around with a segmented illustration from Hieronymus Bosch's painting "The Garden of Earthly Delights. The label ran into difficulty over the use of the Museo del Prado-owned painting, which was incorrectly perceived as being anti-religious; featuring "immoral scenes", in the US and thus rejected or poorly stocked by many record shops. The original painting is in colour although it appeared on the LP in monochrome due to a printing error for the original layout and the band opted to keep it that way.

allmusic: Deep Purple (album)
This is a record that even those who aren't Deep Purple fans can listen to two or three times in one sitting -- but then, this wasn't much like any other album that the group ever issued. Actually, Deep Purple was highly prized for many years by fans of progressive rock, and for good reason.

Wikipedia: Deep Purple
Deep Purple are an English rock band formed in Hertford in 1968. They are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal and modern hard rock, although some band members claimed that their music cannot be categorised as belonging to any one genre. They were once listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as "the globe's loudest band", and have sold over 100 million albums worldwide, including 7.5 million certified units in the US. Deep Purple were ranked number 22 on VH1's Greatest Artists of Hard Rock programme.

Wikipedia: The Garden of Earthly Delights
The Garden of Earthly Delights is the modern title given to a triptych painted by the Early Netherlandish master Hieronymus Bosch. It has been housed in the Museo del Prado in Madrid since 1939. Dating from between 1490 and 1510, when Bosch was about 40 or 50 years old, it is his best-known and most ambitious, complete work. It reveals the artist at the height of his powers; in no other painting does he achieve such complexity of meaning or such vivid imagery. The triptych is painted in oil on oak and is formed from a square middle panel flanked by two other oak rectangular wings that close over the center as shutters. The outer wings, when folded, show a grisaille painting of the earth during the biblical narrative of Creation. The three scenes of the inner triptych are probably (but not necessarily) intended to be read chronologically from left to right. The left panel depicts God presenting Eve to Adam, the central panel is a broad panorama of sexually engaged nude figures, fantastical animals, oversized fruit and hybrid stone formations. The right panel is a hellscape and portrays the torments of damnation.

Some personal notes
1969, the height of the hippie era. The cover of the album blew me away. (click here for the triptych in colour) Holy freak-out, was the artist high on acid or what? Ha ha. Of course listening to the lyrics and thinking about 1969 I'm not surprised the boys picked this painting for the cover. It rather fits, don't you think?

2012-08-20

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