EVERLAND

   So why do I have a new blog name?  As a huge fan of Al Stewart (my favorite singer/songwriter) and an admirer of the fiction of Kurt Vonnegut, I wanted to go with The Sirens of Titan. As that title was already taken on blogger I used a spelling variation. It was to be an all-purpose musical blog primarily directed at a very limited audience.  Now that I’m going to focus primarily on progressive rock music I decided to change it.

  I had purchased Brave by Marillion back in 2005 and while impressed with its scope and emotional depth, was not as overblown as I had hoped.  Limited funds (the universal cry of all music nerds and especially progheads—dang double albums and bonus editions ;) ) kept me from buying more of their back catalog.  It wasn’t until Dr. Thomas Woods had Marillion vocalist Steve Hogarth on his podcast http://tomwoods.com/blog/marillions-steve-hogarth-on-the-past-and-the-future/    that I dipped back into Marillion.  I followed Dr. Woods’ suggestion to view the live version of Neverland and I was hooked.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWFuzjqJYpY

   I think my credit card was humming the amazon.com theme song within minutes of that YouTube video.  The performance was everything and more that Woods said it would be.  Now, several Marillion albums later (only “several”…dang limited funds) Hogarth and company are in heavy rotation and enshrined in the Beatific Tonalities Pantheon.

   The current blog title is a “take” on that song title Neverland with the added twist that the letter “n” is put in lower case in parenthesis.  A bit of a play also on J.M. Barrie’s Neverland (magical, mythological, fantasy lands seem to be very prog friendly in my mind) but also a bit of theological/teleological commentary on the inaugurated eschatology of “now/not yet.” We live in a broken world where all around us everything decays and dies…even our music.  Our attempt at lasting fulfillment in the here & now is a Lenten trek through a “Neverland.”  But beautiful and melodic music (prog) need not be some inane Hegelian game of Sisyphean pop culture.  Lovers of the transcendence that comes from the best of prog (Yes, Camel, Genesis, Spock’ Beard, Flower Kings, the Tangent, Big Big Train) and yes, Marillion’s Everland, believe, teach, and confess that in heaven (or whatever afterlife they may posit) we will be not only be in Everland, but that we will have found all the lost chords.