I was going to introduce this music video by saying "I was today years old when I learned..." but I've recently realized that idiom is not understood or well received by readers here, so instead I'll just say...
Today in 2026 I learned that the lyrics of this old (1971) song refer to the life and works of Vincent Van Gogh. How did I go 50+ years without knowing this?? I can only surmise that it's because by 1970 I had stopped buying records and albums and instead started copying from broadcast sources, so I never had the opportunity to browse an album cover/sleeve or (later) even a commercial CD insert. Perhaps that's why so many of my 365 posts in the video-music category have background and explanatory material harvested from Wikipedia. The joy of finding out.
Anyway, here it is. Found it while searching for something else, was stunned by the Van Gogh paintings. and then saw the true title of the piece was "Vincent." So, I learn something today; maybe a couple readers here will as well.
Plus, now for the first time (for me) some of the odd lyrics start to make sense.
I also found this cover by the MonaLisa Twins:
My personal bias is that most solo music can be improved by two voices in harmony.
I recently read: Vincent by Barbara Stok, a comic/graphic novel biography of Vincent van Gogh.
ReplyDeletehttps://bookishbeck.com/2016/07/12/vincent-van-goghs-life-as-a-graphic-novel/
And even when her drawing style is not Vincent's, she gets the point across.
Check your local library.
"they're not listening still."
ReplyDeleteDid you never listen to the lyrics? I was 13 when the song came out, and I knew what it was about, just from listening.
ReplyDeleteI was ninth grade when the album came out. All us youngsters pretty much knew the song was about Vincent because we had the album, and as you say, its the name of the song.
ReplyDeleteBesides the title track and Vincent, my favorite was “Everybody Loves Me Baby”, which I would sing at the top of my lungs in the bus on the way to school, down a bumpy country road with my girlfriend bouncing in my lap.
Good times!
This is my second favorite Don McLean song, and my first is not the obvious (American pie). My absolute favorite Don McLean song is "On the Amazon".
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/mbhM1sghUSI?is=U8fMYiVVOLSWgI2B
"I was today years old" when I found out that you were tiptoeing around this phrase. There may some too-cool-for-school types that are dismissive about it, but to most of us, it is a verbal/written signal that something really cool is about to be presented.
ReplyDeleteI did know the Van Gogh association of the song, but what a delight you must have felt to also come to know the truth.
Please keep right on using "I was today years old."
You can't go wrong with The MonaLisa Twins
ReplyDeleteYou might also check out the Doctor Who episode "Vincent". It's well worth a watch. It made me reconsider Van Gogh.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the "Vincent" fan club. It is one of the songs that I almost always listen to all the way through whenever it is played (or I play it myself). Both of the versions you posted got that treatment.
ReplyDeleteIt may be out of place to say, but when Chelsea Manning was going through some of the terrible things America did to her, "Vincent" seemed to apply to her. It still does.
Thanks for the post.