The Greek Myth that Influenced Two of my Songs (YouTube links)
By Vijaya Sundaram
Among all the Greek myths, the myth of Icarus and the story of Daedalus always captured me in a way I cannot fully explain.
The image of a young boy spinning up into the sky, exulting in his freedom from gravity, disobeying the voice of reason and caution (his father’s), and paying the price for it, always stayed with me. And I imagined that Icarus, foolish though he was, made it to the sun, whom he seemed to worship more than the moon (after whom he was named by his Cretan mother). Not only that, I imagined that he met the sun-beings who beckoned him to join them inside and beyond the sun. Thus, he, the moon-being, now ascends to a state of grace, despite his disobedience. From these ruminations, a song was born. I wrote this song, and composed the music for it back in 1994, and recorded it with the Indian version of the group Antigravity (Antigravity is the name of the band begun by my musician-composer-bassist-singer husband, Warren Senders. The American version was formed in the late 1970s, and the Indian one in 1985). Here is that song, which I titled Moon Being:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-oaNk3Tp6M
A long time ago (approximately over two decades), I read The Maze Maker by Michael Ayrton, and was haunted by his deeply moving story of Daedalus, told in the first person. I pictured the distraught father escaping from his Cretan captors, and flying with his son towards freedom over the blue Aegean, and imagining him as a bird over the water, staying the course, risking nothing more than the fact that he was flying. He didn’t fly too high, for fear of melting the wax that held his contraption together, nor did he fly too low, for fear of the sea weighing his feathered wings with moisture and dragging him into the depths. I titled the song that was born from this image Bird Over The Water (I wrote this one in 1990, and recorded it in 1994 with the Indian Antigravity.) Here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1KIAGcufVE&spfreload=10
Hope you enjoy my music, songs and singing!
Love,
Dreamer of Dreams