Perhaps it's vain to write about well-known masterpieces, white or any color. What can I say about the White Album or "Dear Prudence" that someone better known, closer to the process of creation, including John Lennon himself, hasn't said better. I know a thing or two about words, but when it comes to music, I can't play "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on the piano, and in fourth grade, my music teacher begged me not to play that on the recorder during a concert we put on for our parents. "Just pretend" he advised and then proceeded to give me a demonstration in dishonesty.
Perhaps I've been trying to fake it ever since. My mind sees beauty I can't put into practice. Sometimes the images are visual. Sometimes the images are auditory. But they always add up to an effect--at least in my mind. That's what this blog was about.
I just saw white, heard white, even smelled it, tasted it. At first white sits silent on the tongue. But after a while there is a slight grit and undertone, a speck of pollution, or as George Harrison put it, the "naughty notes," something slightly amiss or off-chord.
To my knowledge there has never been a perfectly white billboard with the inside photo of the White Album on it, but there should be. Except, like the original covers of the White Album, it shouldn't be quite white. Almost, but not there. Some raised letters stained from rain water would be good.
That is what makes "Dear Prudence" so perfect. It's not song itself, although that I'm sure would be incredible by itself, but it's the song underneath the song, the soot beneath the surface that creates a deep, haunting connection. It's what Mark Rothko was trying to do with paint.
I'd like to do that with words someday--images below the images, rhythm below the rhythm, rhyme below the rhyme. It's in my mind but I can't quite get it on paper.
Always the kid who wants to play The 1812 Overture on the Recorder but can't even get out "Mary Had a Little Lamb."
And so I go on pretending.
Text © Steve Brown, 2015
