Written by Mike Batt of Wombles fame, 'Bright Eyes' concerns a different set of underground/overground creatures altogether, namely rabbits. First, I should point out that though this is from the soundtrack of 'Watership Down', I've never actually seen the film. And that's because I'm the sort of person who can happily sit through any amount of Italian splatter or Japanese torture porn without batting an eyelid, yet show me some talking, cartoon animals suffering any kind of misfortune or harm and I crumble. Tom and Jerry violence yes, but rabbits killed and hounded from their dwellings then persecuted to death by man and beast for 90 minutes is not my idea of entertainment - just the promo video for this upset me in 1979 so I've stayed away from the film ever since.*Does that fact spoil my appreciation (or otherwise) of the song? I think not - even when divorced from it's original setting it remains a gloomy prospect with Garfunkel's angelic vocal carrying a hint of the afterlife and a conviction of dread and impending doom in this one that's applicable to any living entity about to go gently into that good night. "How can the light that burned so brightly suddenly burn so pale?" - you don't need to have any knowledge or love of 'Watership Down' to appreciate the sentiment behind the song and in that respect its hovering on the cusp of life and death lyric is a companion piece to 'Seasons In The Sun'.
Which means it's something that will draw the usual 'soppy', 'mawkish' criticisms from the usual people, but to my mind 'Bright Eyes' is an unsettling, mildly disturbing ("Following the river of death downstream" - Art's voice makes dying sound welcome, much like the tone of Blue Oyster Cult's '(Don't Fear) The Reaper') song with a genuine power that needs that big deep breath hook of the chorus to warm up the chill. Befitting perhaps for a song that played at number one the week Margaret Thatcher first won power in the UK.
* Which is more than I've seen of it's spiritual sequel 'The Plague Dogs'. Just looking at the picture on the poster of that is enough to set me off.
No comments:
Post a Comment