The Hammock Papers: Gordon Lightfoot, "A Painter Passing Through"

23 September 2011

Gordon Lightfoot, "A Painter Passing Through"

Once upon a time, I was on my own
Once upon a time, like you've never known
Once upon a time, I would be impressed
Once upon a time, my life would be obsessed
Once upon a time, once upon a day when
I was in my prime, once along the way

If you want to know my secret
Don't come running after me
For I am just a painter
Passing through in history

Yesterday is gone, yesterday's allright
Yesterday belongs, in my dreams at night
Yesterday is swell, yesterday is great
Yesterday is strong, remembering can wait
Once upon a time, once upon a day when
I was in my prime, once along the way

If you want to know an answer I can't turn your life around
For I am just a painter passing through the underground

I was in my stride, always at my game
Here comes Mister Cool, along the walk of fame
I was in demand, always in control
The world was in my hands, my touch had turned to gold
Once upon a time, I was in a daze when
I was in my prime, once along the ways

If you want to know my secret don't come running after me
For I am just a painter passing through in history

Now that I am old, let me rest a spell
All that I am told, I can never tell
Never in my life, never will it pass
I am still alone, remembering at last
Once upon a time, once upon a day when
I was in my prime, once along the way

If you want to know an answer I can't turn your life around
For I am just a painter passing through the underground

If you want to know my secret don't come runnin' after me
For I am just a painter passing through in history

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WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL