On the Threshold of Eternity

This post is gonna be a little different, more of an artsy post. One of my favorite bands, The Snake the Cross the Crown, sings a song called On the Treshold of Eternity. The song is so well done. Its lyrics are very well done and use powerful images, the melody is gorgeous and fits very well with the meaning of the song, the dymanics and emotion heard in the song makes you really feel it. I found out later that the title "On the Threshold of Eternity" is the name of a Van Gogh painting. He painted it the same year he killed himself. Many art critics believe that while it's not a physical self-portrait, it is an emotional and psycological self-portrait at that point in his life. The title itself indicate that the man is on the verge of self-destruction, on the verge of entering the eternities. And then I realized as I looked at the painting that the song is about that painting. They sing about the old man in the painting, then van Gogh himself. It's amazing. I made a little movie with the painting and song so you can see what they're singing about.

Here are the lyrics:

Eternity is pressed against my eyelids
By brittle fists that I cannot avoid
And though each finger's grip has been relentless
The moments they just keep on slipping by

And I am now aware that I
Am and always have been
At this moment I am sitting by the fire
In blue waiting for you
And though I've been expecting
I've never quite accepted

That the fire will suddenly go out
The hands will fall away
The paint will peel
The trees will sadly sway
'Cause I'm scared that there's no anwers
'Cause I'm scared that there is no truth
In this life of mine
There is only time
The illusion of which is gone

All my words are spread across the canvas
But noone seems to see the things I say
And though these eyes were once those of an artist
Failure has relieved me of a face

And I am now aware that I
Am only the brushstrokes
On the headstone of a man that never lived
And this, oh this is his
Life that I have failed
And I hope to be forgiven

When the fire will suddenly go out
The hands will fall away
The paint will peel
The trees will sadly sway
'Cause I'm scared that there's no answers
'Cause I'm scared that there is no truth
In this life of mine there is only time
The illusion of which is gone

So what is left?
Waiting to be
The man I painted myself to be
And just sadly sit
When your eyes are closed
And my hands have uselessly round my soul

We've got a lot to say
Oh we've got a lot to do
The boys are in the street
They just want to do what they want
And we don't care, oh we don't care anymore...

Gorgeous... both the painting and the song. So tragic, but very deep and meaningful. I've really come to appreciate art in all its forms much more in the last few of years. I no longer look at is as something pretty to look at, but it's something that inspires thoughts, feelings, emotions. We can feel how the artist may have felt, and the artist can connect with how we may be feeling. Pretty pictures can't do that...