“Thought constitutes man’s greatness”
Blaise Pascal: 17th century philosopher and mathematician.
I stumbled across pascal from my reading of quotation books.
Reading quotations is a good way to trigger ideas for songs. Pascal writes about how man is a reed…
A seemingly weak thing in nature
and yet
he is great thru his capacity to think
and it is this capacity
which gives him a valid place in an infinite universe
so that there is a counterbalance to extreme alienation.
The capacity to think
softens the blow of the outside vastness
by offering us a vast universe inside also!
a taste of some of his insights.
“Reason never wholly overcomes imagination, while the contrary is quite common”.
Voila!
explains how: a hamburger chain can take over the world!
“Atheists should say things that are perfectly clear
Now it is not perfectly clear that the soul is material”
Bingo!
No one can prove the soul to be material!
Pascal draws attention to the hidden nature of God ” “this is the
very name which he gives himself in scripture “Deus absconditus”
(hidden God) “He will only be perceived by those who seek him with all
their whole heart”
Love the urgency with which he implores us to think about our fate
“The immortality of the soul is something of such vital importance to
us,affecting us so deeply,that one must have lost all feeling not to
care about knowing the facts of the matter”
Such thoughts as these gave me the inspiration to write “Pascal’s Song” at a time when my marriage was over and the family was broken and my only hope was in “the beyond” . Such a vast and imponderable condition and it was explored to the max.
Positively lived and breathed alienation for years and that is how “High Risk” was born. No pictures on the cover (good policy) and a bunch of songs about the vastness within and the vastness without.
There is a third verse that never got sung on this track……the lyrics go like this
“The universe could crush us
And leave us for dead
Yet chooses to love us
And protect us instead
With a love so deep
And a love so wide
A kind of love
That can’t be defined”
Hope you have a nice day and thank you for taking an interest! Your thoughts please! Go Well
Luke
Just read your outline regarding Pascal’s song. Really like the verse that was left out. Perhaps it was left out to be part of a new, yet to be written song. When we plant a seed, if watered it grows.
We’ll see you at one of your gigs when you get back to NZ. Be well, be happy, feel every thing. I heard a great quote by kiwi artist Francis Hodgkins “until you get down to black, and everything is black, you can’t reach colour. I know you’ve been there. I feel this is such an amazing quote, as at some defining moment you realise that you are beyond the black and see your world with new eyes.