Ok I have listened to
Meadow (thanks Timis) - and I must say it has nothing of the energy of
The Hilll- everything just seems safe, emotionless. Not to mention the songs all mesh into eachother, all one 'type'.
Perhaps its that with
The Hill Buckner didnt have to worry about lyrics but simply putting those lyrics to music (which given the brilliance of the
Spoon River Anthology is a plus).
Anyhow, I am burning
The Hill to my computer as we (I) speak and if anyone would like to DL it, I will upload it-
just let me know. But you have to promise to familiarize yourself with
Edgar Lee Master's Spoon River Anthology before you listen - hell at least read this:
Quote:
Ernest Earnest, "Spoon River Revisited." Western Humanities Review 21 (1967): 59-65. p. 63
Of course what made Spoon River Anthology immediately popular was the shock of recognition. Here for the first time in America was the whole of a society which people recognized - not only that part of it reflected in writers of the genteel tradition. Like Chaucer's pilgrims, the 244 characters who speak their epitaphs represent almost every walk of life--from Daisy Frazer, the town prostitute, to Hortense Robbins, who had travelled everywhere, rented a house in Paris and entertained nobility; or from Chase Henry, the town drunkard, to Perry Zoll, the prominent scientist, or William R Herndon, the law partner of Abraham Lincoln. The variety is far too great for even a partial list. There are scoundrels, lechers, idealists, scientists, politicians, village doctors, atheists and believers, frustrated women and fulfilled women. The individual epitaphs take on added meaning because of often complex interrelationships among the characters. Spoon River is a community, a microcosm, not a collection of individuals.
