Grande Amore - Lyrics and Bob's Amazing Erotic Lilies in Golden Cups

Update:  I finally found the name of the songwriters who came up with the amazing song Grande Amore – Francesco Boccia and Ciro Esposito. 

Ahhh, and then life interferes with life sometimes …

After the EMG, my legs were twitching and jerking uncontrollably.  Went on for about five days.  All of a sudden, without warning:  [*JERK*!]  … the legs would go flying out in a weird direction.  I just stared at them, trying to make sense of it.  I thought perhaps my lower legs and feet were coming back to life.

Then the leg jerking stopped and they’re back to being dead again.  The regular muscle and tendon spasms have returned.  The physical therapist thinks less than one month before being back at work at full capacity is being too optimistic.  Next, my right foot inexplicably started turning in towards the left foot whenever I lifted it ... and the shuffling I had been able to do turned into a stumbling gait that scared the crap out of me.

Time to perhaps plan the rest of my life as a not too mobile disabled person?  Not quite sure how to do that.  I have always walked – have never been able NOT to walk.  Which is not to say I can’t stand on my feet and perambulate – I can – but I need a rolling walker in front of me and I shuffle at the pace of a snail – and now, I should say, stumble at the pace of a snail.  Not quite what I would call “walking.”

I worked on We Can Fly to keep myself distracted ... had fun with it actually.  First real bout of creativity I’ve had in a while.  Created as inspiration to get us  to New York City and the Cutting Room, despite mutual mobility issues – which now seems horrifyingly dubious given my recent stumbling issues.

Symbolism:  the four center “Wings of an Eagle” block.   Peacock:  Transforming the physical body into its potentiality.  Eagle: "Fly Higher."  Number 4:   endurance, mastery, building solid foundations, determination, hard work.  Grey fabric, black print fabric: nerve electrical impulses.  Red fabric:  intensity, passion, will power.  Green fabric:  spring, new growth, April.  Black/grey/white versus color:  “They clipped my wings, and I can't fly”, Gotta Get Away From It All , (Bob Cowsill, Bill Cowsill, Mary Dean); change in attitude from defeated to hopeful, awakening.  Asymmetrical borders:  partial disabilities.  Bluebirds:  cheerfulness, happiness, prosperity, good health, and the renewal of springtime.  “Bluebirds come up to guide us”, The Cowsills, We Can Fly, “Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly”, The Wizard of Oz. 

This is the center of it, minus the borders, batting, backing and quilting.  Right now it’s pinned to the wall, providing inspiration ... and waiting for some ... haven’t really decided what to do for borders yet.  Quotes are: 

Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly? (Frida Kahlo)
Birds have wings; they're free; they can fly where they want, when they want. (Roger Tory Peterson)
Love and desire are the spirit's wings to great deeds. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
I believe that if one always looked at the skies, one would end up with wings. (Gustave Flaubert)
There is nothing holier in this life of ours, than the first consciousness of love, the first fluttering of its silken wings.  (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
They clipped my wings, and I can't fly.  (“Gotta Get Away From It All” , Bob Cowsill, Bill Cowsill, Mary Dean)
Nothing to tie us, bluebirds come up to guide us, When you're beside me, we can fly. (The Cowsills, We Can Fly)
Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly… (The Wizard of Oz)
Poor baby, try to feel better, Nothing's bad as it may seem, Poor baby under the weather, Try to close your eyes and dream (The Cowsills, Poor Baby)
I have been one acquainted with the night.  I have walked out in rain — and back in rain.  I have outwalked the furthest city light.... (Robert Frost)

Next project:  Let Beautiful Beige Come Into Your Mind.  Now THIS one ... the original idle thought was to just use the title and create a soothing monochrome art quilt ... even had a sketch of what I wanted drawn up.  And then I read the lyrics.  I mean, really read the lyrics.  Said, “Holy (bleep)!”  And all these years I had thought the song was about something else entirely.

A violet in the field is growing,
You're afraid to touch not knowing
That its petals cannot burn you,
Don't you think it's time you learn to love?
Your window sill is lined with lilies
And other white assorted sillies,
Planted within golden cups,
But is there any diff'rence up above?

Nice, sunshiny Cowsill-esque song, no?  Not hardly.  You have a young woman, afraid of the realities of love.  She’s out in a field, out in the wilds of nature, afraid of touching a violet (the color violet relates to the fantasy world, and a need to escape from the practicalities of life, the daydreamer escaping from reality) out of fear she’ll be “burned” by it.  At home, she has lilies lined up in “golden cups” on her windowsill.  Has anyone looked at a lily lately?

Generally speaking, a lily is “sex on a stem”, and always has symbolized just that:  artists have always used the lily to capture the erotic shape of male and female genitalia found within the one shape.  And these lilies are planted in “golden cups” – something of real value, coveted.  Not a vase, or a planter.  A cup.  Not just any cup – which is another word for the item men use to protect those same certain valuables they carry around with them – but a “golden cup” ... in other worse of the same color as the flower’s representation of the same item, and also valuable and coveted.  The singer is asking, “What is the real difference between the love you seek in the daydreams of your imagination or in the symbols of love on your windowsill (i.e. your view of the world), and the real thing?”  You may see things as either good or bad:

Black is black and white is white,
You're so hung up on day and night,
Is it that important to you?
Can't you let the dark come shinin' through?
A searchin' hand says come and greet me,
Be a friend and don't defeat me,
You say that the day is lighter,
I say that the stars can be bright too.

Actually I did those verses in reverse, but “I say that the stars can be bright too.” – what you see as something dark and fearful, can actually bring you as much pleasure as sunlight.  Or something along those lines.

Anyway, I looked at the primary lyricist and thought, “Wow, no wonder I thought he was so (bleeping) hot!”  Have no idea when Bob Cowsill came up with those lyrics, but I just sat here with my mouth open.  The song first appeared on their We Can Fly album (MGM Records – 1968), so he had to be – what?  Had to be 18? 19? And somehow that kid came up with an astoundingly erotic and adult love song.  How did he do that?  He was just out of high school!  Inspirational, too – I’m re-thinking the entire Beautiful Beige art concept into something far more Georgia O’Keefe-ish than monochromatic.

My PC also came down with a huge virus.  Not quite sure how it happened – I’m always extremely careful about clicking on unknown links without checking and vetting sources first.  But the weirdest thing happened:  all of a sudden, without having clicked on anything,  I get an IM message from the Kinks Official Fan Club:  “We have accepted your request to join us.”  I said, “Huh?  I never requested to join any Kinks Official Fan Club …”

… and then my mouse cursor went wonky on me, as though someone else had ahold of it and was trying to click elsewhere … I disconnected the cable, shut down immediately and took the PC to Staples – it was still under a service contract … being without my PC for 3 days was a major pain in the … well, I’m sure everyone has been there at one time or another. Then it turns out whatever scrubbing they did had disabled my online access, so I had to drag it back in ... such fun.  It also disabled my video converter, but when I re-downloaded THAT, I ended up with a Bing search page, which I can’t get rid of to save my life, no matter how many times I change the Home Page in the control panel.

There are days when I just hate computers in general.

Hair.  After the last nightmare with a haircut, when I ended up looking like the butch-est looking creature since Gertrude Stein and completely devastated, I haven’t had it cut since – and it strikes me as amazing that I haven’t had it cut in almost three years and it isn’t down to my waist yet.  It’s about halfway down my back.  I do need it cut, but ... what to do.  Shag, layered?  I have no idea what my hair will tolerate at this point – I know it definitely doesn’t hold a curl.  I was even thinking of a French braid or twist if I could figure out how to pull that off.

Crippled and Creative, Il Volo's Grande Amore and Bob Cowsill-Inspired Art

FINALLY – Il Volo released a new cd – I might even call this a mini-cd, as it only has 7 songs on it – recorded to be released in conjunction with their triumph in San Remo.  I hear that the version released in Italy has even more songs on it – and, to my dismay – the version of this on Amazon is sold out already!!  How is that possible?

The centerpiece of the cd is, of course, Grande Amore, winner of the 2015 San Remo Festival – I would also tell you who wrote the song, except this Amazon Prime cd download doesn’t have liner notes with it!  I’ll update once I have the cd in hand, and my apologies to the songwriter for not crediting him or her where due.

I think the guys just found their signature song .... to replace their original signature song, which was "O Sole Mio" ... a classic, to be sure, but I think it just got supplanted by this one.  A soaring, passionate, soul-stirring, absolutely magnificent song – as sung by three of the world’s most magnificent voices.  I’ve been sitting here, listening to it over and over again, totally in love with the song, the lyrics, the incredible passion of the delivery, the performance, the recording ... all of it.  Those guys just nailed this song.  Completely.

This is going to be a global blockbuster ... everywhere except the U.S. of course, because we are the world’s most ridiculous, arrogant, self-absorbed bunch of musically illiterate yahoos on the entire planet, unable to hear a word not sung in English without having a nervous breakdown ... all I can say is, thank goodness for the internet.  No, really.  I’s a lot of things, but mostly, it enabled those of us who long ago realized that mainstream American music was heading straight for the proverbial toilet, to escape the horror of it, and surround ourselves with actual MUSIC that lifted us into the stratosphere, where music was at its finest.

And there they are, from the Billboard International chart (digital):  #1 already, a week after the performance in San Remo.  And I would imagine that it will go viral in all of Europe, South America, Mexico ... all over the place.

Except here.  Because we just love wallowing in our own self-righteous idiocy and narcissism, and love drowning in the hideous crap this country produces and, in their feeblemindedness, tries to call label “music”.  It isn’t.  Never was.  Never will be.

So, way to go, Il Volo ...!  Grande Amore is absolutely awesome, and the entire rest of the world knows it.

The entertaining part of it is watching them on You Tube confront in their own country the same hysteria we saw in South America in 2013 – the screaming girls, the huge crowds of people – and Italy was pretty much the last country to recognize them, really – Italy tends to celebrate everyone else EXCEPT for their own native sons.  But they finally broke the Italian trend, and are now superstars in their own country – which I think is entertaining to watch.  Suffice it to say they are having a lot of fun over there, right now.  And hopefully, for my own listening pleasure, let’s hope they release a full-sized recording one of these days.  Seven songs just isn’t enough.

Moving on ... I went for the “legal tasering” – my term for the EMG, possibly one of the most sadistic, painful medical tests they can inflict on anybody – and I was so not looking forward to it. 

By way of keeping myself entertained and distracted, I’d been designing and making a new textile art wall hanging  based on “We Can Fly” - #2 in my stolen “Women With Wings” series ... my way of processing this supposed “Causa Equina Syndrome” the neurologist thinks I have – and the walking issues I definitely have. 

I am assuming the rest of my patterns and partially made textile art pieces were in the North Andover storage room, and now reside in the Salisbury storage room ... so until I can dig those back out, I’ve been creating new ones.  I can think of no better way to distract myself than creative endeavors, at the moment.  I finally bound my older “The Guitarist In-Between ” ... based on the famous quote from Federico Fellini: 

“What is an artist? A provincial who finds himself somewhere between a physical reality and a metaphysical one…. It’s this in-between that I’m calling a province, this frontier country between the tangible world and the intangible one—the realm of the artist.”

Yes, guess who THAT is named for – or, actually, dedicated to, I should say.  I dedicated it after watching him play “Rescue”, because that moment was so awesome it was truly a depiction of the interpretive creative process, at its core – the ability to tap into the unfathomable and create beauty from the ethereal.  I started that thing back in the 1980’s; have been carrying it around, unfinished, since then.  I’m astonished I finally got it done.  Not sure what will happen to that after I’m gone, but he will be immortalized on it, at least:  on his own, musically and lyrically and now also ... quilt-istically?

Today – a full moon in Virgo.  I reached the point with this medical issue that I needed direction.  Decided to tap into my subconscious with the Thoth deck.  Imagine my surprise when the final two cards I drew were both “Magus” cards.  Said, “Huh?”  Looked it up.  Apparently, there are a few decks which have three Magus cards instead of one – mine was apparently one of them.  The additional two cards were rejects by Crowley; considered novelty items in the deck, not part of the deck itself.  Usually, the Magus card had stood for Mr. Signpost – not sure what the two of them in succession meant, in this context.  I now associate him with both sigils and direction, so wondered if that’s where the reading was going.  I wasn’t sure what sigils would be useful, however.

And on to the sonnet cycle.  Experienced a huge burst of inspiration on that as well and went from stanza 3 to stanza 7 in a matter of days.  Not sure what all is happening with me – crippled and yet creatively fulfilled, at the same time?  What is that all about?

 I leave you with “The Time Has Come”, with Paul Cowsill singing lead for a change of pace.  Also:  Waddy Wachtel, John Cowsill of the Beach Boys on drums, Barry Cowsill in the hat and blue shirt on guitar, in one of his last appearances, and Susan Cowsill singing harmony vocals.