Posted under Music
Blind Guardian isn’t of my usual music genres but appears very professional nonetheless. Wikipedia has this to say about the band:
Blind Guardian lyrics, written by vocalist Hansi Kürsch, are inspired by the fiction of authors such as J. R. R. Tolkien, Stephen King, and Michael Moorcock, as well as traditional legends and epics. Over the years, a running theme has developed associating the band members with traveling bards.
Lyrics:
High in the sky Where eagles fly
Morgray the dark Enters the throneOpen wide the gate, friend
The king will come
Blow the horn and praise
The highest Lord
Who’ll bring the dawn
He’s the new god
In the palace of steel
Persuade the fate of everyone
The chaos can begin
Let it in
(Lead: Andr)
Bridge: (sung by Kai Hansen)
So many centuries
So many Gods
We were the prisoners of our own fantasty
But now we are marching Against these Gods
I’m the wizard, I will change it all
(Lead: Andr/Marcus)
Ref.:
Valhalla – Deliverance
Why’ve you ever forgotten me(Solo: Andr)
Ref.
Magic is in me
I’m the lost magic man
Never found what I was looking for
Now I found it but it’s lostThe fortress burns
Broken my heart
I leave this world
All Gods are gone
Bridge: (sung by Kai Hansen)
So many centuries
So many Gods
We were the prisoners of our own fantasty
But then we had nothing Who’ll lead our life
No, no, we can’t live Without Gods.
This song is about man’s need of religious or at least ancestral traditional guidance – a simple but powerful shot in defense of the West in the ongoing Culture War.
Weaver on 14 Apr 2008 at 5:43 am #
The magician and the palace of steel are a representation of rationalism, of progressives building a society without gods, traditions, or other irrationality.
Magicians were symbolic by C.S. Lewis of moderns playing with great powers they don’t understand, and often causing harm as a result of their ignorance and willingness to play with powers that ought be reserved for God.
The genre is admittedly unusual, but this is one of the most anti-modern songs I’ve seen in awhile. It’s extremely rare to find a popular band that is traditionalist and anti-modern. We need more bands like this I think (their other songs are similar to this one, though this is the best I’ve found yet, browsing youtube.)
Weaver on 14 Apr 2008 at 5:51 am #
I realise this song is about Norse mythology by a German band and in a genre stereotypical of Hollywood Nazis, but this song is anti-Nazi. This is the ultimate anti-nazi song.
The palace of steel was a mistake, and their great magician leader was also a mistake, akin to perhaps a fuhrer or other powerful executive in charge of a modern state.
So, he could very well be condemning Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Lenin, Roosevelt – any of the managerial state executive leaders.
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The great division of today is not between globalists who act in the world’s interests and nationalists who resist globalism out of intolerance for foreigners but between rooted traditionalists on the one hand and moderns who cast aside all particular ties and traditions in favor of “progress,” that is in favor of the palace of steel and of the killing of the old gods: creative destruction. Lacking all sense of center, they pursue change and “progress,” void of any meaning or real purpose.
TBJ on 14 Apr 2008 at 1:26 pm #
Heh…I’ve come across stuff like this before…There’s this photographer from Texas who did a whole essay on these kinds of musicians, and something in Slate not too long ago.
There’s something really funny to me about a bunch of guys with electric guitars writing in a completely modern style about old things. I trust the irony’s not lost on you guys?
TBJ
James on 14 Apr 2008 at 3:55 pm #
You should also take a listen to Grave Digger’s “Rheingold” Also a German metal band doing music based on Germanic mythology and going it very well. Lots of European power metal bands these days are not afraid to find inspiration in classical mythology and Ancient and European history. English band Iron Maiden got me interested in history when I was a teenager.
Weaver on 14 Apr 2008 at 4:07 pm #
James,
wow, and I had thought metal progressive, individualistic, and destructive.
Thanks, I’ll be sure to look into those.
Weaver on 14 Apr 2008 at 4:48 pm #
I like the lyrics and energy of Rheingold, but the instruments must be an acquired taste.
I can listen to The Ride of the Valkyries from Wagner’s Die Walküre and get a sense of power without the ugliness of Grave Digger’s Rheingold, and I think it’s that sense of power and excitement that makes metal attractive. Still, I’m glad bands like Grave Digger have a following.
Wouldn’t it be great if one of them attempted to do more than sing about Wagner and actually wrote a complex, theatrical drama of their own?
Weaver on 14 Apr 2008 at 4:55 pm #
Indeed
What’s fascinating too is the high quality entertainment and content offered by Wagner, C.S. Lewis, Moorcock, and Tolkien are influencing present-day cultural elites.
So, while the trash (e.g. that which was merely trendy or entertaining but void of substance) of yesterday fades away and is forgotten, the best lives on to influence later generations
Even if Wagner isn’t listened to as widely as some pop artists, he’s listened to by those who matter. And through them he influences others.
—
I guess that’s not surprising… but it does show the importance of elites and that someone can be influential without being popular, provided he influences the influential or at least is remembered for a long time…
Andrew T. on 14 Apr 2008 at 7:09 pm #
Weaver, nothing much to do with this topic, but here is an article I think you would like: http://barelyablog.com/?p=603
roho on 15 Apr 2008 at 12:02 pm #
……..I’ll take the “Rolling Stones”.
Dostoevsky on 15 Apr 2008 at 1:37 pm #
“There’s something really funny to me about a bunch of guys with electric guitars writing in a completely modern style about old things. I trust the irony’s not lost on you guys?”
An Orthodox friend of mine is really interested in the nature of irony; one of his main points –with which I’m inclined to agree– is that the highest form of irony affirms rather than negates.
That is in contrast to how modern Americans usually think of irony, as a sort of mockingly negative or skeptical phenomenon such as what one finds in “Seinfeld” or Alanis Morisette’s song “Ironic”. Such cynical approaches to irony suggests that to find irony in something is to uncover a weakness.
My friend’s view of “affirming irony”, on the other hand, suggests that there are higher forms of irony, and that these higher forms indicate not a hidden weakness but a hidden strength.
The message of negating irony is something along the lines of, “Life sucks,” while affirmative irony says something along the lines of, “Life is not only good, but preposterously or even *absurdly* good, when you look at it closely.”
Via that more affirming view of irony, the use of new and modern techniques to express old ideas & sentiments is a way of ensuring that tradition remains alive, instead of becoming petrified.
T.S. Eliot’s poetry, for example, is extremely contemporary in style and method.
One might also consider the adoption of the chivalric culture of knighthood by fighter pilots, particularly during the First World War.
Andrew T. on 08 Jun 2008 at 3:13 am #
Weaver,
If you like Blind Guardian, you’d probably like Iced Earth. In 2004 that band released an album called “The Glorious Burden”, a patriotic concept album based around various events in American history. The music videos for that album’s tracks “Declaration Day” and “When the Eagle Cries” are here ( http://youtube.com/watch?v=tAWrlwzfFzk ) and here ( http://youtube.com/watch?v=-o6xrSyhVhc ), respectively.
I don’t like most heavy metal, but I have one other favored band in the power metal genre, and that’s DragonForce. You probably wouldn’t like them, though, because the band exists to be face-meltingly fast, lyrically epic and inspiring, and profoundly uplifting and catchy, and yes, it is highly individualistic. Although the theme of camaraderie is ever-present in the band’s lyrics. Here is the music video for their most recent single, “Operation Ground and Pound”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA6DOVx85wI