# The Drone as "religious" music



## millionrainbows

I see Gregorian Chant as being merely symptomatic of the "drone" and spirituality in music, which precedes any religious dogma or restrictions. So I see it as still alive and well, not as a specific form, but as a manifestation of the human spirit. I'm not interested in Chant except as it performs the function of all such spiritually-oriented music. This includes "On the Road Again" by Canned Heat, "The Mule" by Deep Purple, and many more examples. Got any?


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## Woodduck

If I were to hear music like that coming over the PA system at the shopping mall, the question in my mind would not be "Why are they playing spiritual music in this temple of materialism?" It would be "How quickly can I finish my shopping and get the hell out of here so that I can go home and refresh my spirit with Bach and Wagner?"


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## Merl

SAHB's 'Faith Healer classes as a drone. Alex Harvey and Hugh McKenna thought it would give the piece a hypnotic effect. It worked - its SAHB's most enduring song.


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## millionrainbows

Another Alex Harvey fan! I thought I was alone here.

The Beatles got tuned in to "the drone" as they matured from being pop stars. This was the first 'heavy drone' I had ever heard, at about 11 yrs. old.


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## Merl

And Death in June used it on 'All alone in her Nirvana'. I used to play this to clear people out after parties. If followed by Rick Wakeman's 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth' I could guarantee clearing any party. Personally I always liked Death in June but this one got under the skin of all my mates. My dad pleaded with me to turn it off, one day.


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## Strange Magic

Here's one for ya: Opal, _Supernova_


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> If I were to hear music like that coming over the PA system at the shopping mall, the question in my mind would not be "Why are they playing spiritual music in this temple of materialism?" It would be "How quickly can I finish my shopping and get the hell out of here so that I can go home and refresh my spirit with Bach and Wagner?"


Refresh your _what?_


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## Mandryka

millionrainbows said:


> I see Gregorian Chant as being merely symptomatic of the "drone" and spirituality in music, which precedes any religious dogma or restrictions. So I see it as still alive and well, not as a specific form, but as a manifestation of the human spirit. I'm not interested in Chant except as it performs the function of all such spiritually-oriented music. This includes "On the Road Again" by Canned Heat, "The Mule" by Deep Purple, and many more examples. Got any?


In Mahayana Buddhism, the chant - which can be a bit like a drone - can be an exercise in mindfulness as much as the repetition of a mantra, a incantation to help identify with a boddisatva. I know that is spiritual for the singer, but I've never heard a Buddhist say that listening to other people chant is spiritual. I don't know if the same is true for music in other religions.

Does anyone know anything about om?


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## Strange Magic

millionrainbows, this is aimed directly at you: Smashing Pumpkins, _The Sacred and Profane_ from The Machines of God


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## millionrainbows

Skip James was definitely tuned in to "the drone."


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## Merl

And another one. I saw these at London's ICA back in the 80s, in what i can only describe as the strangest gig I've ever been to. Another party clearer.


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## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> Refresh your _what?_


You heard me. :angel: ...........


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## millionrainbows

Nick Drake, shy, introverted, suffered from depression, and, yes, he was tuned in...


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> You heard me. :angel: ...........


How about an example of a Wagnerian drone? In this example, Wagner drones on for a full two minutes!


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## DeepR

If you like ambient drone music I suggest Mathias Grassow. Lots of ambient is of course droney, but this guy really specializes in loooong drones. And yes, I think he's good at what he does.

https://mathiasgrassow.bandcamp.com/

Here's a favorite piece of mine. Stick with it, it gets better. 

https://mathiasgrassow.bandcamp.com/track/epiphany-true-nature-of-all-things


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## millionrainbows

Of course, I must include Stochausen's Stimmung (Tuning) as a great example of the spiritual in drone...and the drone in spiritual.


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## millionrainbows

Mandryka said:


> In Mahayana Buddhism, the chant - which can be a bit like a drone - can be an exercise in mindfulness as much as the repetition of a mantra, a incantation to help identify with a boddisatva. I know that is spiritual for the singer, but I've never heard a Buddhist say that listening to other people chant is spiritual. I don't know if the same is true for music in other religions.


I do not doubt that the "act" of chanting or singing can "tune one in" spiritually, and I do not question that listening to chanting or drones is also effective at tuning one in. The act of chanting or singing probably has the edge, since it would slow down and even-out one's breathing.



Mandryka said:


> Does anyone know anything about om?


I'm reminded of the old song _Diddy Wah Diddy:_


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## millionrainbows

__
https://soundcloud.com/millionrainbows%2F11-drone-sunday-this-destroyed-you


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## DeepR

DeepR said:


> If you like ambient drone music I suggest Mathias Grassow. Lots of ambient is of course droney, but this guy really specializes in loooong drones. And yes, I think he's good at what he does.
> 
> https://mathiasgrassow.bandcamp.com/
> 
> Here's a favorite piece of mine. Stick with it, it gets better.
> 
> https://mathiasgrassow.bandcamp.com/track/epiphany-true-nature-of-all-things


Another beautiful piece of drone ambient, this time rather melancholic in nature.
Raison D'etre - Metamorphyses Part V
https://raisondetre.bandcamp.com/track/metamorphyses-phase-v-2


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## Merl

Penguin Cafe Orchestra used drones constantly in their music.


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## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> How about an example of a Wagnerian drone? In this example, Wagner drones on for a full two minutes!


I'd have thought you'd cite the prelude to _Rheingold_ (since there are no drones in _Parsifal_), but then that would have been a somewhat intelligent choice. Why continue revealing the limits of your "spirituality" in such an embarrassing fashion?


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## DeepR

Some of the examples posted so far appear to me as casual rock songs that are bit more monotonous than usual. Boring!
(or not boring enough? )
I don't consider that drone music myself.


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## Strange Magic

I'm shocked that there are differences of opinion on what is and is not drone in music :lol:.


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## Manxfeeder

If you mention drones, you have to start with Velvet Underground. I'll spare you their song titled Loop and instead offer this one. I don't know if this is "religious," but it is about an attempt to reach transcendence through a chemical substance (or maybe nihilism). (Heroin is not recommended or endorsed in any way by me, by the way.)


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## JAS

I know that songs like "Amazing Grace" have been adapted for bagpipes, and it can be very effective, but has there ever been a religious piece composed specifically for bagpipes?


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## Fredx2098

How about a real drone:






Rock music isn't drone. It can include drones, but that doesn't make it drone music. Playing the same note over and over is not a drone either.


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## Merl

Fredx2098 said:


> How about a real drone:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Rock music isn't drone. It can include drones, but that doesn't make it drone music. Playing the same note over and over is not a drone either.


Drone effects can be achieved through a sustained sound or through repetition of a single note. It most often establishes a tonality upon which the rest of the piece is built. I never said they were drone music. They just employ drones in some way. Not everything has to be harmonic 
to be classed as droning. It can be monophonic too.


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## tdc

Thinking of drone music this is what first came to mind for me. I caught the Melvins in concert last month, it was a very good show. Its kind of funny thinking of this as religious music.


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## Fredx2098

Merl said:


> Drone effects can be achieved through a sustained sound or through repetition of a single note. It most often establishes a tonality upon which the rest of the piece is built. I never said they were drone music. They just employ drones in some way. Not everything has to be harmonic
> to be classed as droning. It can be monophonic too.


I just mean that the rock songs in the OP, The Beatles, The Velvet Underground, etc. are not the next closest thing to Gregorian chant. "Music for a Found Harmonium" is a better example of drone. But when I hear the word "drone", bluesy jam rock isn't what comes to my mind. There are the actual genres of drone and ambient drone.


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## Fredx2098

tdc said:


> Thinking of drone music this is what first came to mind for me. I caught the Melvins in concert last month, it was a very good show. Its kind of funny thinking of this as religious music.


Don't forget Sunn O)))






and Earth!


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## Guest

Strange Magic said:


> I'm shocked that there are differences of opinion on what is and is not drone in music :lol:.


Leave it out Renault! 

Me, I love the use of the drone, doubtless because I'm pretty spiritual really. Though of course, no examples spring to mind immediately. Thanks to Merl for the Penguin Cafe Orchestra vids, though only the second seemed to me to be an obvious drone. (A sustained bass line in a rock song doesn't count, IMO - vide Rain)


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## Merl

Funnily enough I was just going to mention Drone Metal, Fredx. You must have read my mind! Yeah, I agree that some of these examples aren't 'drone', per se, but incorporate types of drone or repetition to create a drone effect. Drone metal is drone music (especially bands such as Sunn O).


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## Fredx2098

Here's one of my favorite bands, Natural Snow Buildings. They're like psychedelic lo-fi experimental noise drone folk. Real drones here!


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## Fredx2098

No rock n roll or drone metal or drone folk is convincing me that drones are religious though.....


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## Merl

What about bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor? A lot of their minimalist post-rock is considered 'droning' by critics (usually in a positive respect, I should add). Or is this merely 'noise-rock'?


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## Fredx2098

Merl said:


> What about bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor? A lot of their minimalist post-rock is considered 'droning' by critics (usually in a positive respect, I should add). Or is this merely 'noise-rock'?


That's definitely droney, along with some of their other stuff. I wouldn't even call that track post rock. When the focus is on a single note or chord that is sustained for a long time or the entire time, that's droney, but a repetitive rock n roll song isn't, especially not something that has a chord progression.


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## Merl

You're just droning on now, Fredx!


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## Fredx2098

That's just what I do! Especially about Morton Feldman. Which reminds me, I haven't even mentioned him in this thread yet.... Even though he's unrelated except for maybe a few slightly droney works.


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## Fredx2098

This piece is actually a bit droney. One of his final pieces.


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## Merl

As far as drone music being spiritual is concerned I just think the drone is a musical device used to create a hypnotic effect on the listener. I suspect that some religious music employs such a device to create a similar trance-like state of mind. Is it spiritual or is is hypnotic?


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## Fredx2098

Merl said:


> As far as drone music being spiritual is concerned I just think the drone is a musical device used to create a hypnotic effect on the listener. I suspect that some religious music employs such a device to create a similar trance-like state of mind. Is it spiritual or is is hypnotic?


There seems to be a possible correlation between religion and being hypnotized...


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## Strange Magic

The tanpura is specifically designed as a drone. From Wikipedia:

"The tanpura (तानपूरा; or tambura, tanpuri) is a long-necked plucked string instrument found in various forms in Indian music. It does not play melody but rather supports and sustains the melody of another instrument or singer by providing a continuous harmonic bourdon or drone. A tanpura is not played in rhythm with the soloist or percussionist: as the precise timing of plucking a cycle of four strings in a continuous loop is a determinant factor in the resultant sound, it is played unchangingly during the complete performance. The repeated cycle of plucking all strings creates the sonic canvas on which the melody of the raga is drawn."


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## millionrainbows

Manxfeeder said:


> If you mention drones, you have to start with Velvet Underground. I'll spare you their song titled Loop and instead offer this one. I don't know if this is "religious," but it is about an attempt to reach transcendence through a chemical substance (or maybe nihilism). (Heroin is not recommended or endorsed in any way by me, by the way.)


And also, Manxfeeder, the "drone" element in the VU's music can be traced to John Cale's participation in the Dream Syndicate, founded by La Monte Young, one of the kings of drone. BTW, La Monte Young specializes in playing and building tamburas.


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## millionrainbows

I'm tired of these complaints about rock groups.


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> I'd have thought you'd cite the prelude to _Rheingold_ (since there are no drones in _Parsifal_), but then that would have been a somewhat intelligent choice. Why continue revealing the limits of your "spirituality" in such an embarrassing fashion?


Here's the one I was looking for. It drones on for about 4 minutes!


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## millionrainbows

I'm not intelligent, my spirituality is limited, and I'm embarrassed!


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## Guest




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## philoctetes

Musettes, harmoniums, bagpipes, yeah. There's a few in those French Baroque suites, Rameau, Boismoitier, Couperin, etc. 

Spirit in the Sky! Does that work for everybody?


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## Larkenfield

Tanpura drones do not vary at all in their pitches: it is continuous from the first to the last note and the basis of much Indian music that improvises over it. I do not see an invariable connection with Indian spirituality or religious music but it can part of sacred hymns and performances considered sacred. Just listening to a tanpura drone by itself can be marvelous because there's a tremendous resonance to the sound that seems to penetrate that body and that can feel like an uplifting healing energy just by itself. There are tanpura drones to be found in every key and each one has a slightly different quality that one can choose from. Here's the first one in C as a starting point and the other keys can be easily found with a little initiative, all about 19 minutes long. Sometimes I like to hum over a drone! It wouldn't be considered to be a drone if its pitches ever varied in the slightest - it's continuous. It supposedly represents the continuous sound of the universe that has no beginning or end.


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## millionrainbows

Wow! You know that on these pages where there are more than one Youtube post, you can play more than one, all at once! Play the "Chant of the Templars" that Victor Redseal posted in #43 above, at the same time with Larkenfield's tamboura post, #49. Same key, and it's beautiful!


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## Guest

Holy shyte, I've just attained nirvana!


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## Reichstag aus LICHT

Manxfeeder said:


> If you mention drones, you have to start with Velvet Underground. I'll spare you their song titled Loop and instead offer this one. I don't know if this is "religious," but it is about an attempt to reach transcendence through a chemical substance (or maybe nihilism). (Heroin is not recommended or endorsed in any way by me, by the way.)


Quite - I was going to suggest _Venus In Furs_. I daresay that the inclusion of drones in the Velvet Underground's music was down to LaMonte Young's influence via John Cale.


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## DeepR

Could play this in a loop all day. The string instrument is the sarod.


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## DeepR

Klaus Schulze.

The first piece, Floating, remains one of my favorite pieces of non-classical music. It always delivers and tickles my brain in the right way. Just the right amount of repetition and transposition. And then those little melodic improvisations. So simple, so effective.
I suppose it has elements of drone music and minimalism, but in the end, I like it better than both.

Around 19:20 and onwards, oh yeah..... if you're not floating by then you're doing it wrong.


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## Guest

What's all this experimental drone music doing in the religious music thread?


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## millionrainbows

poco a poco said:


> What's all this experimental drone music doing in the religious music thread?


It's "religious," not religious. Existence is sacred, man. Being is sacred. Tune in to the drone.


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## eugeneonagain

A genuine example of the drone in religious music. Leonin was active in Notre Dame Cathedral in the 12th century. However, it isn't the drone which is important, but the melodic line. As early as Leonin (and before and after) you see the development of something beyond mere hypnotic chant... hence discernible melody, development of harmony.


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## aleazk

^^^ in that line, we have Beata Viscera, a piece by Perotin, Leonin's disciple. A drone sounds throughout the piece from beginning to end.


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## millionrainbows

Charles Ives associated the drone with the river...the drone here is not as explicit as most here, but it is there. You can hear the drone really kick in at about 1:42...


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## millionrainbows

eugeneonagain said:


> A genuine example of the drone in religious music. Leonin was active in Notre Dame Cathedral in the 12th century. However, it isn't the drone which is important, but the melodic line. As early as Leonin (and before and after) you see the development of something beyond mere hypnotic chant... hence discernible melody, development of harmony.


That's inspiring, eugene. Here's one of my favorite old-time drones, and I really enjoy the variations in the melody here. But it's hard to say how much I'd like it without the drone...the drone is essential, even if it's in your mind.


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## eugeneonagain

From the 50-minute mark: O Ignee Spiritus. I heard this performed in the cathedral here at a Christmas midnight mass about 10 years ago. Mesmeric.


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## Guest

How about this strangely trance like, drone music.


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## lextune

Merl said:


> What about bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor? A lot of their minimalist post-rock is considered 'droning' by critics (usually in a positive respect, I should add). Or is this merely 'noise-rock'?


Ha! I can't believe that Godspeed You! Black Emperor just got mentioned here. Awesome. I think this album might be a better example of them being droney....

*Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven*





....though I could be biased, since it was the first album I heard from them.


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## lextune

Surprised this hasn't been posted yet:


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## millionrainbows

lextune said:


> Surprised this hasn't been posted yet:


I'm not surprised that you missed it: post #45.


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## millionrainbows

eugeneonagain said:


> From the 50-minute mark: O Ignee Spiritus. I heard this performed in the cathedral here at a Christmas midnight mass about 10 years ago. Mesmeric.


Mesmeric? In other words, you went into a trance-like state...


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## isorhythm

The drone, called the ison, is also integral to Greek Orthodox chant:


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## millionrainbows

Fredx2098 said:


> I just mean that the rock songs in the OP, The Beatles, The Velvet Underground, etc. are not the next closest thing to Gregorian chant. "Music for a Found Harmonium" is a better example of drone. But when I hear the word "drone", bluesy jam rock isn't what comes to my mind. There are the actual genres of drone and ambient drone.


I must be older than you. I had to search for the drone where I could find it, before there was a 'genre' or before people defined everything. A drone is a drone, and I saw it emerge with The Beatles.


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## millionrainbows

tdc said:


> Thinking of drone music this is what first came to mind for me. I caught the Melvins in concert last month, it was a very good show. Its kind of funny thinking of this as religious music.


*Sunflower Sutra - Poem by Allen Ginsberg

*I walked on the banks of the tincan banana dock and sat down under the huge shade of a Southern Pacific locomotive to look for the sunset over the box house hills and cry.

Jack Kerouac sat beside me on a busted rusty iron pole, companion, we thought the same thoughts of the soul, bleak and blue and sad-eyed, surrounded by the gnarled steel roots of trees of machinery.

The only water on the river mirrored the red sky, sun sank on top of final Frisco peaks, no fish in that stream, no hermit in those mounts, just ourselves rheumy-eyed and hung-over like old bums on the riverbank, tired and wily.

Look at the Sunflower, he said, there was a dead gray shadow against the sky, big as a man, sitting dry on top of a pile of ancient sawdust--

--I rushed up enchanted--it was my first sunflower, memories of Blake--my visions--Harlem

and Hells of the Eastern rivers, bridges clanking Joes greasy Sandwiches, dead baby carriages, black treadless tires forgotten and unretreaded, the poem of the riverbank, condoms & pots, steel knives, nothing stainless, only the dank muck and the razor-sharp artifacts passing into the past--

and the gray Sunflower poised against the sunset, crackly bleak and dusty with the smut and smog and smoke of olden locomotives in its eye--

corolla of bleary spikes pushed down and broken like a battered crown, seeds fallen out of its face, soon-to-be-toothless mouth of sunny air, sunrays obliterated on its hairy head like a dried wire spiderweb,

leaves stuck out like arms out of the stem, gestures from the sawdust root, broke pieces of plaster fallen out of the black twigs, a dead fly in its ear,

Unholy battered old thing you were, my sunflower O my soul, I loved you then!

The grime was no man's grime but death and human locomotives,

all that dress of dust, that veil of darkened railroad skin, that smog of cheek, that eyelid of black mis'ry, that sooty hand or phallus or protuberance of artificial worse-than-dirt--industrial--modern--all that civilization spotting your crazy golden crown--

and those blear thoughts of death and dusty loveless eyes and ends and withered roots below, in the home-pile of sand and sawdust, rubber dollar bills, skin of machinery, the guts and innards of the weeping coughing car, the empty lonely tincans with their rusty tongues alack, what more could I name, the smoked ashes of some cock cigar, the ***** of wheelbarrows and the milky breasts of cars, wornout asses out of chairs & sphincters of dynamos--all these

entangled in your mummied roots--and you standing before me in the sunset, all your glory in your form!

A perfect beauty of a sunflower! a perfect excellent lovely sunflower existence! a sweet natural eye to the new hip moon, woke up alive and excited grasping in the sunset shadow sunrise golden monthly breeze!

How many flies buzzed round you innocent of your grime, while you cursed the heavens of your railroad and your flower soul?

Poor dead flower? when did you forget you were a flower? when did you look at your skin and decide you were an impotent dirty old locomotive? the ghost of a locomotive? the specter and shade of a once powerful mad American locomotive?

You were never no locomotive, Sunflower, you were a sunflower!

And you Locomotive, you are a locomotive, forget me not!

So I grabbed up the skeleton thick sunflower and stuck it at my side like a scepter,

and deliver my sermon to my soul, and Jack's soul too, and anyone who'll listen,

--We're not our skin of grime, we're not our dread bleak dusty imageless locomotive, we're all golden sunflowers inside, blessed by our own seed & hairy naked accomplishment-bodies growing into mad black formal sunflowers in the sunset, spied on by our eyes under the shadow of the mad locomotive riverbank sunset Frisco hilly tincan evening sitdown vision. 


Allen Ginsberg


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