The Incredible String Band
The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter

But among the dry leaves there is a spark that will never happen again.

Or in a box of matches, or under the bark of a silent elm, or who knows where out there. Lift a stone and see if you want.

Tell me instead, harmonious dulcymere, where do the days intertwine and where do they go to drown in nights tinged with pitch and dreams?

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Place the record on the turntable and wait, be patient:

~ ~ frrrr ~ ~

and all of a sudden, a village fair a little band a merry-go-round a joyful tinkling. The children wear humble yet colorful garments, and they turn and turn and turn.

«Plant a nursery rhyme in the land of elsewhere —one whispered to me— and there trees of a thousand colors will grow. Just a little patience is needed.»

And meanwhile the river flows impetuously, leaving that indefinable melancholy around. While the blind shepherd, who knows nothing of this melancholy, whistles a little melody.

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1966, Edinburgh, Scotland.

Instruments with bizarre geometries. The cover photo of “The Incredible String Band” captures three Scottish minstrels, young enough to draw out naif graces and virtuous enough to deserve the title of Incredibles.

After the record ends, the trio immediately falls apart. It seems almost like the beginning of a fairy tale:

«And so the first left with a hippie caravan on a long journey; the second went to Morocco, returning a few months later with a few more fleas and a guembri eaten by moths; the third stayed at home.»

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The year of grace 1968.

Borrowing from the world a constellation of acoustic instruments, pulling out from a star-bordered hat a handful of deep lullabies and shaky melodies, Mike & Robin play at making fire and the night, the stars and the radiant vespers. And so, after many colorful spirits and just as many layers of onions, the two minstrels set up their wandering little theater: skewed and trembling, ten songs from the bottom of the bottom of the bottom (of the bottom of the bottom of the bottom) of the heart, here all for us.

In the photo a joyful party with muddy shoes. M., on the side, holds in his hand a Nepalese mask painted in bright colors. The ruddy imagination and cheeks reddened by the cold of children. The dog, at the bottom right, which I like to imagine answers to the name of Charlie. A guide for a timeless moment.

Thus, with that charming itinerant shaman style of adorning things with tinkling little bells, scarlet drapes, and small trinkets, with melodious and slightly off-key songs and pastel sounds that taste of ancient times and spices, the river of the world becomes, among a thousand elusive streams, music. And vice versa.

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“The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter”: just the title in not saying anything says everything, about that spark (that will never happen again) hidden among the crumpled leaves moistened by frost.

~ ~ ~ Seeded elsewhere, planted in the garden fair grow trees, grow trees ~ ~ ~

(this is the magic)

A tender cradle song, long ago relinquished, so long ago.

And a minotaur, buried in the black night of a labyrinth.

And dawns to the sound of harpsichords and harmonicas, scented with dahlia and snapdragon and distant discoveries gently caressed.

And William Blake is forever there, shaping his allegories.

Meanwhile on the table mute deities, places of longing, and tin boxes crammed with unnamed things.

Fluvial laments and forgotten sadnesses that sweep over the face, as only the wind can do.

And many other symbolic plots and weaves with a scent of ash and oblivion, abyssal and arcane, but never austere.

A spinet lets a cloud float over our heads.

A tickling and then

~ ~ frrrr ~ ~

silence.