The Alan Parsons Project
Eye in the Sky

THE REVIEW

This album should be reviewing me rather than the other way around...

So I will try not so much to write a review, but more to tell, more than I usually try to, an emotion... the emotion that fills me when I put on the record and lose myself in the melodies of the Alan Parsons Project.

Every time I listen to it, I embark on a journey from which I never want to return.

However, this journey is more like a story, a story that begins with an imperial, majestic opening theme, "Sirius".

"Sirius" introduces us to the main setting, a deserted island, lost in the void, on which I find myself living under mysterious circumstances.

"Eye in the Sky" presents this island to us, illustrating the landscape, the valleys, the hills, and its splendid and warm summer days. It tells us about the unspoiled landscape and the beauty of its lakes and rivers, the clouds that occasionally cover the highest peaks, and the beaches that host me in the evening to gaze at the equally untouched August starry sky.

When the chorus starts, I'm there, lying on the sand, naked, looking at the stars under the relaxing rustle of the wind and the waves lapping the shore.

I find myself thinking how wonderful it would be to be an eye in the sky... to fully know the beauty of nature and the secrets of every remote corner of the earth; but it also makes me think how wonderful it would be to be a dot among the stars, unreachable but surprisingly close.

What fascinates me the most is that feeling of anguish, nostalgia, melancholy, and happiness that this song and this image evoke in me, as if I were dreaming of both, as if I felt the need for them and the consequent absence when they're not there, it's like crying with a smile on my face (something that's happened before).

I think there's no doubt that it's a masterpiece, but there's no need for me, the newcomer, to say so...

The daily life on the island doesn't have a precise space-time connotation; it's a confusing mix of information I don't give much importance to. I remain particularly focused on the starry sky, thinking that, in the end, I am a dot on a tiny planet immersed in the infinity of space... so the stars will always be unreachable.

I sleep with this thought, lulled by the notes of "Gemini," or rather, dreaming of having my soulmate beside me on this dull island.

I see its shadow, I look, I turn, I listen, I hope, I identify it in a thousand words, but I always find myself alone.

Until "Silence and I" arrives... the Dawn.

Dawn is as both physical and spiritual.

Still lying on the cold sand, I open my eyes and am overwhelmed by the first light of the day, feeling the very first delicate rays of the sun gently caress my skin, welcoming me into this new revealing day. My chest opens and emits a new light while I levitate towards the now vanished stars. My head falls backward, and I rise parallel to the ground, unconscious, only immersed in a blur of light beams until... I fall back to the ground, awake, and decide to escape from this deserted island.

So, at the third minute of "Silence and I," I frantically try to build a raft to escape, to reach that impressive orange sphere standing on the horizon line, and I search for branches, beams, ropes, to create the hope of my coming days.

A rebirth in the silence of dawn.

(Beyond the images and emotions, how beautiful is the guitar in this track, second only to Jimmy Page)

Thus with "You're Gonna Get Your Finger Burned," the journey towards the orange horizon begins, continuing until "Mammagamma".

I didn't live those years, but I imagine "Mammagamma" as an '80s disco hit; I think if they played it today, I might enjoy going to clubs.

In any case, I experience this track as a storm that endangers my journey towards the horizon.

After a day of sailing, clouds cover the sky, lightning starts to fall, and thunder rumbles; the waves destroy my raft in a confusing mix of light and darkness in succession.

This frantic alternation of light, darkness, wind, and water, fortunately, lasts only 3.33 minutes, enough, however, to disturb my tranquility and tragically interrupt the journey towards the orange horizon.

The sea then calms, becoming flat with a few gentle, cautious waves, careful not to hurt me.

"Old and Wise" has arrived.

Now it's night, the journey has stopped, I'm lying in tears on what's left of my raft, howling at the moon, asking why I suffer so much while being lulled by the gentle waves trying to put me to sleep like an innocent child in his mother's arms, who wants to protect him from the cruelty of this world.

So I remain still, with torn clothes, to look once again at the stars, with big tears on my cheeks blending with the salty water of hope. Still. Howling softly at the Moon, cradled by the gentle waves.

What melancholy.