And Did Those Feet In Ancient Time by William Blake

by · March 28, 2014

Jaybird

Jaybird is Birdmojo on Xbox Live and Jaybirdmojo on Playstation's network. He's been playing consoles since the Atari 2600 and it was Zork that taught him how to touch-type. If you've got a song for Wednesday, a commercial for Saturday, a recommendation for Tuesday, an essay for Monday, or, heck, just a handful a questions, fire off an email to AskJaybird-at-gmail.com

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18 Responses

  1. Jaybird says:
    March 28, 2014 at 8:27 pm

    Continuing education: The Lamb and The Tyger really need to be read together in the same sitting, The Clod and The Pebble shows how deeply Milton was internalized by Blake, and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell will leave you gasping.Report

  2. Mike Schilling says:
    March 28, 2014 at 8:51 pm

    And it’s perfect for Monty Python.

    Report

  3. NewDealer says:
    March 28, 2014 at 9:03 pm

    In the summer of 2000, the Metropolitan Museum did a wonderful exhibit of Blake’s drawings and designs.

    “Dark Satanic Mills” probably refers to the Albion Flour Mills, one of the first Industrial factories in England and the world. Probably the harbringer of the Industrial revolution. Blake was a pastoralist utopian at heart and he would have distrusted the sheet nature of the mill and what it was able to do. Since the poem is allegedly about Jesus visiting England, he wonders how such a holy place could be so close to such an evil thing. How did England descend from pastoral and green glory to something dank, dark, industrial and soul-crushing. This is not a poem as an ode to progress or markets.

    If you did research, the Chariots of Fire refer to how Elijah entered heaven in the Old Testament. The narrator of the poem is being asked to be taken to Heaven or he is asking for a Chariot of Fire to help him destroy the Dark Satanic Mills of the Industrial Revolution.

    I interpret the poem as an ode and urging to return to a rural and simple life.Report

  4. NewDealer says:
    March 28, 2014 at 9:03 pm

    I always liked the Billy Bragg version

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXEqFMFFsQo&feature=kpReport

  5. Glyph says:
    March 28, 2014 at 9:21 pm

    But did Blake have a vision that he’d inspire a couple orchestral psychedelic jazz albums in the 60’s, which would go on to be sampled like mad in 90’s hip-hop & electronic music?

    Report

  6. bosco says:
    March 29, 2014 at 4:55 pm

    “Piper” is a song of “Bosco”. The lyrics are extracted from two William Blake’s poems (“Introduction” and “The Shepherd” from his book “Songs of Innocence and experience”). The audio is from one of the concerts they did in a tour around Ibiza. The video is made with footage from that tour.

    Report

  7. bosco says:
    March 29, 2014 at 4:56 pm

    here the video!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2MTaKsR7FUReport

  8. Mike Schilling says:
    March 30, 2014 at 10:31 pm

    Also, there’s the Kinks’ 20th Century Man:

    This is the twentieth century,
    But too much aggravation
    It’s the age of insanity,
    What has become of the green pleasant fields of Jerusalem?    Report

  9. Jaybird says:
    March 31, 2014 at 5:27 pm

    There’s a movement to make Jerusalem the National Anthem of England. Now, I mean, you can say that that is the equivalent of saying “there’s a movement to make ‘We Will Rock You’ the National Anthem of the USA” which is to say that just because the sentence is true doesn’t mean that it’s interesting but we’re not talking about a group of crazies out in the middle of nowhere.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/9400486/David-Cameron-backs-Jerusalem-as-English-national-anthem.html

    There’s a group of crazies out in the middle of London.Report

    • Mike Schilling in reply to Jaybird says:
      March 31, 2014 at 6:04 pm

      There was a vote for Australian national anthem in 1977, and Waltzing Matilda came in second with 28%. That would have been . ǝɯosǝʍɐ ǝɔɐdsReport

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