A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers

Introduction

This is for Annie Kapur's "Sing Us the Song of the Century" Challenge, which you can find here:

I have always loved the music of Van Der Graaf Generator and knew the actual device from which they took their name from school physics lessons.

One unusual thing about the band was that they were a "rock" band but had no guitars. They used bass pedals, keyboards, drums, saxophones and voice.

A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers

This is a group of pieces stitched together and this is the listed form:

"A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" – 23:04

"Eyewitness" (2:25)

"Pictures/Lighthouse" (Hammill, Banton) (3:10)

"Eyewitness" (0:54)

"S.H.M." (1:57)

"Presence of the Night" (3:51)

"Kosmos Tours" (Evans) (1:17)

"(Custard's) Last Stand" (2:48)

"The Clot Thickens" (Hammill, Banton, Evans, Jackson) (2:51)

"Land's End (Sineline)" (Jackson) (2:01)

"We Go Now" (Jackson, Banton) (1:51)

Peter Hammill's voice is always quite threatening, and the music is very dark and ponderous. The very first organ notes make you feel that this is not a place where you will find fun.

It is music for great, dark, ruined cathedrals, and gives a feeling of monstrous greatness.

It is very impressive, and is my go-to song/piece for the band, although "Pawn Hearts" is possibly just about bettered by "Godbluff", but that is just my opinion.

I have this in several formats, and I play it regularly.

Peter Hammill, interviewed by Sounds, said: "It's just the story of the lighthouse keeper, that's it on its basic level. And there's the narrative about his guilt and his complexes about seeing people die and letting people die, and not being able to help. In the end – well, it doesn't really have an end, it's really up to you to decide. He either kills himself, or he rationalises it all and can live in peace... Then on the psychic/religious level it's about him coming to terms with himself, and at the end there is either him losing it all completely to insanity, or transcendence; it's either way at the end... And then it's also about the individual coming to terms with society – that's the third level..."

AllMusic calls the song "monumental", but believes it is "not as concise as it might've been". Paul Stump, in his 1997 History of Progressive Rock, described "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" as the culmination of that period of Van der Graaf Generator. He analyzed that "When tone-clusters are not used, the harmonic language of the piece is perverse, especially in the tart and unsettling chordal sequence of the finale's hollow grandiosity, which sounds as if it is being played by a ghostly silver band. Such two-fisted vehemence was unique in rock at the time, let alone in Progressive - it was the stuff cults were made of."

This may not be to your taste, but everything from the cover artwork to the music makes this one of my favourite listens.

Thank you for reading and please try and give it a listen.

Addendum:

This got a lot of traction in a Facebook music group here:

Love these lines that were quoted from the piece by Jean-Philippe Otton

Still waiting for my saviour

Storms tear me limb from limb

My fingers feel like seaweed

I'm so far out I'm too far in