Hello everyone. I thought I would start this year’s blog posts with a memento mori reflection on death and life. Since it is impossible to divorce death from life, we can use reflective energy to focus on how we want to live.
The beauty that Brandon Lee speaks with is eloquent, timeless and utterly peaceful. I am sure most of you know that Brandon was tragically killed while filming The Crow in 1993. This video clip was shot a little while before he died.
{I hope to do a post on The Crow and possibly Brandon Lee in the future}.
Let’s reflect on life and death with the same peace and gratitude that Brandon exudes.
Brandon Lee…A Beautiful Soul That Lived With Electric Vitality
I thank you so much for reading this humble blog.
I am eternally grateful.
Peace & Compassionate Love…
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRtqMv_dubA
“Because we do not know when we will die,
we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well
and yet everything happens only a certain number of times and a very small number, really.
How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood?
An afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it. Perhaps four, five times more. Perhaps not even that.
How many more times will you watch the full moon rise?
Perhaps twenty and yet it all seems limitless.”
-From the book The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
This quote is on Brandon’s Tombstone.
Brandon is buried next to his father Bruce Lee in the Lake View Cemetary in Seattle, Washington.
Here is a closer look…
Brandon loved this quote so much that he had chosen it for his wedding invitations.
He was to be married to his soul mate Eliza Hutton one week after he finished filming The Crow on April 17th, 1993. Brandon tragically died on March 31st, 1993.
The Crow is dedicated to Brandon and Eliza.
Brandon & Eliza…Soul Mates Never Die…
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Please enjoy Street Spirit by Radiohead…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPX3u0XJzKM
radiohead – street spirit (fade out)
Street Spirit (Fade Out)
This machine will not communicate These thoughts and the strain I am under Be a world child, form a circle Before we all go under And fade out again and fade out again
Cracked eggs, dead birds Scream as they fight for life I can feel death, can see it’s beady eyes All these things into position All these things we’ll one day swallow whole And fade out again and fade out again
Immerse your soul in love Immerse your soul in love.”
SONG INFORMATION
Released: March 1995 Found on: The Bends & Street Spirit single. Acoustic version found on Fake Plastic Trees CD2.
This song was written in 1993, around the same time as “My Iron Lung.” “Creep” is Radiohead’s American hit, this is the British equivalent. Noted by singer-songwriter and guitarist Thom Yorke as “one of [the band’s] saddest songs” and describing it as “the dark tunnel without the light at the end,” “Street Spirit” was released as the band’s ninth single and reached number five on the UK Singles Chart, the highest chart position the band achieved until “Paranoid Android” from OK Computer, which reached number three in 1997.
Yorke has suggested that the song was inspired by the 1991 novel The Famished Road, written by Ben Okri, and that its music was inspired by R.E.M. The track is built around a soft melody in A minor with an arpeggio (broken chord) guitar part.
Thom: “Street Spirit is our purest song, but I didn’t write it. It wrote itself. We were just its messengers; its biological catalysts. Its core is a complete mystery to me, and, you know, I wouldn’t ever try to write something that hopeless. All of our saddest songs have somewhere in them at least a glimmer of resolve. Street Spirit has no resolve. It is the dark tunnel without the light at the end. It represents all tragic emotion that is so hurtful that the sound of that melody is its only definition. We all have a way of dealing with that song. It’s called detachment. Especially me; I detach my emotional radar from that song, or I couldn’t play it. I’d crack. I’d break down on stage. That’s why its lyrics are just a bunch of mini-stories or visual images as opposed to a cohesive explanation of its meaning. I used images set to the music that I thought would convey the emotional entirety of the lyric and music working together. That’s what’s meant by ‘all these things you’ll one day swallow whole’. I meant the emotional entirety, because I didn’t have it in me to articulate the emotion. I’d crack…
Our fans are braver than I to let that song penetrate them, or maybe they don’t realise what they’re listening to. They don’t realise that Street Spirit is about staring the fucking devil right in the eyes, and knowing, no matter what the hell you do, he’ll get the last laugh. And it’s real, and true. The devil really will get the last laugh in all cases without exception, and if I let myself think about that too long, I’d crack.
I can’t believe we have fans that can deal emotionally with that song. That’s why I’m convinced that they don’t know what it’s about. It’s why we play it towards the end of our sets. It drains me, and it shakes me, and hurts like hell every time I play it, looking out at thousands of people cheering and smiling, oblivious to the tragedy of its meaning, like when you’re going to have your dog put down and it’s wagging its tail on the way there. That’s what they all look like, and it breaks my heart. I wish that song hadn’t picked us as its catalysts, and so I don’t claim it. It asks too much. I didn’t write that song.”
-Copied & Pasted from http://www.greenplastic.com/radiohead-lyrics/the-bends/street-spirit-fade-out/
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For more information…
Brandon Lee…http://www.brandonleemovement.com/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000488/
The Sheltering Sky book by Paul Bowles…
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/243598.The_Sheltering_Sky
The Crow Film…http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109506/?ref_=nv_sr_1
The Crow Graphic Novel…http://thecrowcomics.wordpress.com/
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/97486.The_Crow
James O’Barr {The Crow Creator}…http://jamesobarr.typepad.com/
Radiohead…http://www.radiohead.com/
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What do you think about Brandon’s favourite quote?
What are your reflections?
I would love to read them.
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Brandon Wishes You An Open Mind & An Open Heart…
Peace & Namaste…
MY SOUL IS ON ICE... 
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