"...and the spectacle of a scarecrow in a field late on a winter afternoon has cost him more than one sleepless night."
M.R. James, "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad"
A blogging friend put yesterday a song of Pink Floyd on her blog. Being in a psychedelic mood and since any reason is good to listen to Pink Floyd, I decided to put here a song from their earliest album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. It was back when they still had Syd Barrett as the leader. Sure, it's no Dark Side of the Moon, but it was a promising debut nevertheless. I decided to put The Scarecrow here,for many reasons. The wikipedia entry says that the song has existentialist themes, which is true of maybe any good Pink Floyd song, and you know how into existentialism I am. Scarecrows are also autumnal creatures, that I associate with Halloween. There is something just unsettling and threatening about them, these still, ghostly watchers. Of course, there is also the Batman villain of the same name that popularises the scarecrow as a malevolent entity. His scenes in Batman Begins are among my favourite (have a look here and here).
Anyway, the scarecrow of Pink Floyd is not a dangerous fellow, he is actually a sympathetic figure. Nevertheless, even the rare video clip I will show has something a bit spooky, even if the background is summery. Maybe it is the look of the scarecrow itself, maybe it is the strange (meant to be drug induced?) trance of Roger Water and Nick Mason at the end of the clip. Maybe it is because English summers can have autumnal undertones, maybe because the scarecrow looks mummified and skeletal. Anyway,enjoy the music and shine on.
Oh how I love me a good scarecrow! This was a great post Guillaume. We still need to put our scarecrow up before Halloween night as the Trick or Treaters found him to be rather scary and that gives me much delight! :o)
ReplyDeletePS...I think I confused you in my post yesterday of the image I drew. It was actually not supposed to be the 'Bride', but rather it is what prompted me to do a separate image of the Bride. I realized my writing was confusing. So I today I posted an explanation and examples so you can see what I meant....sorry about that!
OK, I don't normally reply in English, but, for the sake of your readers, I was just reminded of the scarecrow "puppet" decoration we had on the wall of our room when we were kids. That thing gave me nightmares. I wonder what our parents did with it. We still have the surgeon one downstairs I think.
ReplyDeleteVery cool I've heard of that song before. I tried looking for it for my blog playlist. Thanks for letting me know. Love a creepy scarecrow!
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