Peter Joseph Andrew Hammill es un músico multi instrumentista, poeta y compositor, ícono referencial y pionero del Rock progresivo de los años 70. Fue fundador y líder de la emblemática banda británica Van der Graaf Generator.
Pocas letras de rock pueden ser definidas como poesía sin demostrar, con ello, el absoluto desconocimiento de lo que es la poesía; algunas de esas pocas letras se deben a Peter Hammill. ¿Qué decir, por ejemplo, de la de Still life, tema editado en el disco homónimo de 1976? El título es traducido corrientemente como “naturaleza muerta”, pero también puede ser vertido al español, literalmente, como “vida quieta”; una ambigüedad del todo apropiada para una canción cuyo tema es la vida de un Inmortal.
Este inmortal, que recuerda tanto al del cuento homónimo de Jorge Luis Borges, está lleno de dudas (“¿en qué nos convertimos? ¿Qué hemos elegido ser?”), lleva una “estéril” vida de “aburrimiento e inercia”, en la que “la risa no se diferencia del llanto” y, “pasando el tiempo / el cual ya no tiene ningún significado”. El final de la historia es ominoso, y recuerda el mito helénico de Titono: “pero la cama nupcial está lista / la dote ha sido pagada / los desdentados y demacrados rasgos de la eternidad / ahora me dan la bienvenida entre las sábanas / para unirme a su cuerpo marchito – mi esposa / Suyo para siempre / suyo para siempre / en la vida quieta”
En Skin Peter Hammil introduce el tema Shell en cuya letra menciona a Borges
Fuente : Cine Braille
Shell
Turn a card, turn a page, the action
sure to start, second-stage reaction
to illogical thoughts on random lines
in a Borges dream we move toward
the writing of lives.
Leave it out, leave it in, no edits -
with a shout, with a grin I said
it was a certainty that I'd arrive
in an Escher sketch we walk around
the drawing of lines.
The character uncertainty
as he contemplates his lot
and tries to move with urgency
though he's rooted to the spot.
On the brink, on the edge, but lately
what I think, what I said escapes me
in a flash, a tiger burning bright
does the visionary trance obscure
the burgeoning night?
And she said "What are you doing?"
And he said "What do you think?"
Oh, no,
what on earth are we doing?
The characters procrastinate
on the threshold of the door;
there's something here that fascinates,
though the meaning's still unsure
and the plot so thick...
is it some kind of history?
Sketch the thumbnail to the quick.
Oh, even though it's full of contradiction,
though it's flawed in the design
this is no fiction, it's a lifeline.
Here we are, there we went, full circle
shooting stars, heaven-sent, turned turtle
on the beach are shells are left behind
life a library, like a memory
of our ghost-written lives.
Still Life
Citadel reverberates to a thousand voices, now
dumb:
What have we become?
What have we chosen to be?
Now, all history is reduced to the syllables of
our name-
nothing can ever be the same:
now the Immortals are here.
At the time it seemed a reasonable course
to harness all the force
of life without the threat of death,
but soon we found that boredom and inertia
are not negative, but all the law we know,
and dead are will and words like survival.
Arrival at immunity from all age, all fear and
all end...
why do I pretend?
Our essence is distilled
and all familiar taste is now drained,
and though purity is maintained
it leaves us sterile,
living through the millions of years,
a laugh as close as any tear;
living, if you claim that all
that entails is breathing, eating, defecating,
screwing, drinking,
spewing, sleeping, sinking ever down and down
and ultimately passing away time
which no longer has any meaning.
Take away the threat of death and all you're
left with is a round of make-believe.
Marshal every sullen breath and though you're
ultimately bored by endless ecstasy
it's still the ring by which you hope to be
engaged
to marry the girl who will give you forever-
it's crazy, and plainly
that simply is not enough.
What is the dullest and bluntest of pains,
such that my eyes never close without feeling it
there?
What abject despair demands an end
to all things of infinity?
If we have gained, how do we now meet the
cost?
What have we bargained, and what have we
lost?
What have we relinquished, never even knowing it
was there?
What thoughts now of holding fast the line,
defying death and time?
Everything we had is gone,
everything we laboured for and favoured more
than earthly things reveals the hollow ring
of false hope and false deliverance.
But now the nuptial bed is made,
the dowry has been paid:
the toothless, haggard features of eternity
now welcome me between the sheets
to couple with her withered body - my wife.
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