Different Trains

Different Trains was originally released with Electric Counterpoint which at the time was my favourite piece of the two. However, over the years the beautiful melodies of Different Trains together with poignancy and driving rhythms have worked their way up to be rather special. Different Trains is being used in a programme about the music of Auschwitz. Steve Reich was on In Tune and seemed so touched that his music is being played at Auschwitz. Anyway, watch the programme if you can cope. Different Trains is powerful and beautiful and righteous. Listen to it.

All this makes me remember something I was thinking about last night. The poem I put up yesterday was about something pretty horrific and yet the act of writing it seemed to differ emotionally only slightly from when writing a poem about summer solstices past or flowers and trees and skies. There is of course the outrage and anger but poetry all boils down to a form of entertainment. So much poetry is about things gone wrong, the negative aspects of life. Maybe art should be separated from entertainment. So much of TV and other popular culture these days seems to be about pure entertainment, with no challenges. When most people's lives have so little real danger about them, then shouldn't they look to challenging and serious stuff for answers? Freud said something about wars being needed to remove certain desires from society but do we really need wars every few years just to stop the kids smashing up bus shelters?

Sometimes I wonder why I bother with all this. Self-doubt is always the best form of doubt. Doubting someone else always has the possibility that you are wrong. With self-doubt you are starting from a position of knowledge - as Adrian Mole would say.