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Agnes Obel and The Narrative

Short Coverage
See, the blooming narrative!
[Source – Pixabay]

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Tell me now of the very soul that look alike, look alike

Do you know the stranglehold covering their eyes?

If I call on every soul in the land, on the moon

Tell me if I’ll ever know a blessing in disguise…

The curse ruled from the underground, down by the shore

And their hope grew with a hunger to live unlike before

And the curse ruled from the underground, down by the shore

And their hope grew with a hunger to live unlike before…

The Curse, by Agnes Obel

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Listen to the song The Curse by Agnes Obel before reading further –


Humanity as an unabridged version, dancing forwards, backwards, forwards, in joy, in pain, walking down the lane is moving too fast and swaying too slow, thought she and wrote it on the blackboard. The white words looked silly but good. She gave a date to this thought and it made a ‘gong’ sound that ricocheted for fun.

The curse is the boon, thought she, but only once in a while when seen thus.

Retracing becomes easier than stepping forth and so one forgets.

And in the search for meaning when they get tired, they choose to imbibe what they hear from others, what they find familiar.

The familiar good that is, not the familiar grim; nevertheless, it is an overwhelming experience, thought she.

Just so you know the underlying emotion here when in search, is that of love – love that doesn’t chase meaning… for it owns it. A simple smile, gesture, hello-hi wave, acknowledging the tata-goodbye, is love triumphing over time.

Time notices it and smiles, each time just so you know. And she followed this thought and it withered away, it withered peacefully.

Now you take this cool-cool mountain air to the riverside and let it gush, let it fall as droplets. Sit by the riverside, fall and rise as someone else who is thrilled to continue the search.

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So let the narrative grow

like a rhizome, spreading then like Time

Without boundaries, fast and slow.


Here’s the official video of the song The Curse

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“The Curse” is a song I wrote after I read the book Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. It’s a book about the mind, and there is a chapter in the book about narrative fallacies, and I thought that was really interesting – how we construct these narratives of our own lives, even though so many things, almost anything that happens, is the result of a lot of things outside of our own control and doesn’t have any meaning – it’s completely accidental. But our minds want to put meaning into everything and to make sense of them. We’re like these “meaning machines” – human beings.

I thought it was really beautiful and interesting, because in a way, he says it’s why we invented math, music, science, and poetry: this need for meaning. And religion, and so forth. But there is also the flip side, why we have all these wars and these hardcore ideas of national identity. That you can go out and kill other people. It’s a blessing and it’s a curse. I just thought it was interesting, and then I wrote this song about it. Some people couldn’t figure out if it was a blessing or a curse.

Agnes Obel (Singer, Songwriter, Pianist)

Read the amazing Agnes Obel’s full interview here – Song Facts

Listen to the other three soulful songs that inspired the blogger to write this short coverage –

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Familiar by Agnes Obel –

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Just So by Agnes Obel –

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Riverside by Agnes Obel –

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Moon, Moon, Moon, Moonlight

Cheers, dear moon!”
[Source – Pixabay]

In the search of a moon Haiku poem, I found how beautifully a 21st century poet addressed to his favourite classic poet –

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… lifting my cup, 

I asked the moon

to drink with me …

Li Po

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And if Li Po had

got the moon in his mitts

what would he have done with it?

Cid Corman

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Today, I decided, I will stay with these words and leave rest of the search for tomorrow.

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Moon was its usual self,

I was the one, lost and fuzzy,

Moonlight still showed the way.

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Walking A Gatha

Walking straight, walking on the mountain listening to The Times They Are A Changin’ I saw nothing, neither the trees nor the rocks, neither the shadow nor the light, and just kept walking ahead. Mountain talked, I didn’t hear, until I bent a little. It said, ‘you will reach your destination, you will, for sure’, and happily I smiled, crossed my hands behind my back and continued walking.

Swiftly I moved forward, there was no stopping me. Dashing ahead I crossed jungles after jungles, I played with the shadows and the light, I didn’t even wait for the wind. Like a curse, definitely a curse, a disaster hit me – I started panting. It never happened all this while, why now? Then I remembered faintly of what the mountain told me… I pleaded it to guide me again, the mountain listened. It said, ‘know patience, know the truth and its power’, I bowed down and stopped walking. I stopped for the first time in my travel; I learned the art of deep breathing. Ages passed there; then I left in search.

In search of what I was looking for. I was looking for what I was in search of.

Familiar with the pace of the trees canopying me, stopping and listening to the rocks and their untold gathas, attuned with the shadow and the light, I kept walking when I reached near a ferociously musical river. It carried along ocean’s depth and waves’ nimble notes… ‘will merge with the ocean, I do not wait for anyone’, replied the river to my question – can you please let me pass.

So I changed my path and followed the river. Who said you can’t? Change… change and move ahead.

Right where the river met the ocean, where it all seemed to end, where trees, rocks, shadow and light all disappeared, music stayed by my side and showed me a narrow, slippery way to cross the river. I stepped in, the water was cold, but shallow and so I could cross easily. It was shallow for a reason.

Shallowness exists for a reason.

With joy and cheer I continued along, I danced on the way, I slept peacefully and then walked leisurely. I sang, the tune echoed. My mind envisioned a valley of flowers and pink clouds when suddenly I tumbled down. I was hurt. My dream shattered and cold winds bruised me badly. It started hailing. I shouted angrily for snatching my peace. Who knows at whom?

The weather opposed me and pinned me down, I accepted defeat. I kept lying half dead for the time to change… when it did, I woke up and saw as the fog disappeared that there was a huge mountain standing in front of me. I couldn’t stop smiling, a new journey was going to begin. Climbing the mountain I listened again to Dylan’s The Times They Are A Changin’. I didn’t know it, but I was free.

I have always been free.

The times they are a changin’ by Bob Dylan – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7qQ6_RV4VQ