Welcome to the “Bless” page!!
Guiding Statement:
“The greatest joy that society can offer is a collaborative hymn.
This is the America that I refuse to leave behind.” –Van Dyke Parks
Check it out full-bore vocal render at this link: “Bless: America’s Greatest Hits Vol 1 Dickinson and Whitman.”
the Global Dandy Factor designed selections from Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson and rendered them vocally, with musical accompaniment by George Bradfute, the Tone Chaperone.
The design sought an almost call and response format for the two ur-voices of American poetry: the national soul uttered forth as benchmark, as touchstone.
The lyrics move from eros to thanatos and everywhere between, uttering the quotidian symphonic that ushers forth our legacy as a nation, symbolized in the musical narrative provided by the Tone Chaperone, who takes us from fiddle to banjo, to field stomp holler to country vein of mercury, to swing to bebop mentalities, morphing into mid 20th century rockabilly breakdown into prog rock flash glam trance.
And then he takes you all the way back to banjo, fiddle. and then nothing but the crickets and sweet silence of gentle echoes. Sweet dreams, dear America. Awaken in the morning with much done on our behalf while we rested. The universe loves our short-haired joy, our roughness. Let us all love it again.
Mother Dickinson wrote with a laser. Father Whitman wrote with a ocean of a notion. Our legacy, our lineage. The Aristocracy of Self: Pursuit of happiness as white whale. Call me Ishmael 3 (ish3).
5.31.09: 50th birthday present. Self to self: half-way behind, half-way ahead.
secular alchemy sacred spirit, blessed be.
yer pal,
the global dandy factor
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