I’ve recorded a clip singing over top of the song “Moving the River” by Pre Fab Sprout.
The song’s lyrics both address and seem to come from a burnt-out child talking to their parents. The song begins:
You surely are a truly gifted kid
But you're only good as
The last great thing you did
And where have you been since then
Did the schedule get you down?
If it's uphill all the way
You should be used to it by now
You must know me
Father it's your son
And I know that you are proud
Of everything I've done
But it's the wonders I perform
Pulling rabbits out of hats
When sometimes I'd prefer
Simply to wear them
I just made a 22 ft long fiber piece in 2 weeks. Since childhood, I have outperformed and surprised myself with my ability to make truly impossible deadlines. I know that I can do anything, and I am so tired. Mundane daily tasks are at times inconceivable for me to achieve - but enormous challenges on a short turnaround are not. Even if I don’t know how I’m doing it - I’m moving the river. I think I’d prefer sometimes to simply wear the hat, rather than pulling rabbits out.
This song may be inspired by the 12 labors of Heracles. The goddess Hera, who had been tricked into breastfeeding him, spent the beginning of his life creating monsters to challenge and kill him with. She hated him as a representation of all of Zeus’s infidelities, even changing his name to hers did not sate her will to have him destroyed. He found ways to slay each of these monsters, most memorably the 9-headed Hydra, who grew 2 heads for everyone that was removed.
Another of his labors was to clean the Augean stables in a single day. Heracles was given the near-impossible task of cleaning the stables of the poisoned, diseased feces of 3,000 cattle. He diverted two rivers through the stable to wash it clean.
Movin the river
Bucket by spoon
And do you think that they'll like me
When they learn what I do?
My boyfriend is reading a book about the creation of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. During this time the city attempted to reverse the flow of the Chicago River. It carried pollution, and sewage into Lake Michigan, the city’s water source, causing widespread illness. To solve this problem the river’s flow was reversed with the use of a canal - the river changed back after a flood. In 1900 the river’s flow was reversed in the long term by a series of canal locks, flowing into the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.
“In 2005, researchers at the University of Illinois created a three-dimensional, hydrodynamic simulation of the Chicago River, which suggested that density currents are the cause of an observed bi-directional wintertime flow in the river. At the surface, the river flows east to west, away from Lake Michigan, as expected. But deep below, near the riverbed, water seasonally travels west to east, toward the lake.”
Are your parents proud of you? Can a river be moved without consequence?
Movin the river
Money for jam
But it takes such an effort to stay where I am...
Share this post