According to Hindsight liner notes the title of The Golden Dawn is from drummer Richard Ploog, perhaps representing one of the contributions that can be credited only for Ploog. Liner notes also describe it as a slippery instrumental. That is partially true as it has usually slipped off my radar and I usually listen to it when I have left the album just playing after Life Speeds Up, which is easily the more interesting b-side of The Blurred Crusade-singles.
There is some whispering in the background but no source in the internet has found anything meaningful or comprehensible there although SK clearly suggests that there should be something. Maybe there is but I don´t have equipment to isolate that track and fade others. Perhaps it´s even done backwards with a satanic message in true vinyl era fashion. With some kind of lyrics this could have been given a bit more character. There is not enough meat to sustain interest. At 2:00 mark the song adds some more gears and again at 3:30 to build for the ending that falls flat on a meaningless guitar solo and whispering. I just hope all the time that there was something more but there isn´t.
1 comment:
Who wrote this one??? Come-on! "The Golden Dawn" is stellar. Pure elation of finding a forest buried in the center of a park in the middle of a crowded street filled with its sunken voices whispering tragedies in unison. The tension city vs. forest permeates the whole song for me. And how cool is the solemn vocoder answering to those plooged-out frenetic drums in extratight turns? Ah, it's brilliant. I remember reading in the old old old Shadow Cabinet site back in 97 about a letter Kilbey wrote to a fan with the key-verse to the mystery. It was written with red pen and there was the word "devil". I'm struggling to remember the verse with no success. Anyway, I ran to the stereo to listen to the song and the verse didn't match. It was probably one of his jokes dressed up as souvenirs. It's like Beckett's "Krapp's Last Tape" in which the final revelation of Krapp as he listen to that tape is fast-forwarded. “...clear to me at last that the dark I have always struggled to keep under is in reality my most...”
"The Golden Dawn" is a very emblematic enigma from The Church's catalogue and couldn't have a more suitable title since it refers to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn of which Aleister Crowley took part.
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