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Can the Blind Lead the Blind?

from The Biblical Record [album] by John Harvey

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Description
The composition is a companion piece to the previous one. The second section of the piece incorporates melodic material drawn from ‘Blind, Blind, Blind’, which also provides an ostinato motif heard in the background of the first section.

The lyric harmonizes parallel verses taken from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. The idiomatic phrase ‘blind lead the blind’ expresses the ideas that those who are ignorant cannot be of any practical help to others who are similarly disadvantaged. The jaunty, nursery rhyme-like tune colludes in summoning an absurdly and unjustifiably confident air in keeping with the spirit of Christ’s pronouncement. The composition concludes with a further parallelism: his condemnation of the Pharisees as ‘blind guides’ (which is taken from elsewhere in the Bible).

The lyric interleaves the two principal scriptures. Corresponding sentences and phrases follow one another in sequence. Where the same phrase occurs in both, it is heard overlaid.

The backing track is made up of the spits and crackles of static and small scratches, as well as the sizzling ‘swoosh’ of the grooves at the beginning and end of the sides of those records from which the spoken texts were derived.

Lyric
Blind … Blind … Blind
Blind Blind … Blind

Blind Blind Blind [ostinato]

Let them alone

And he spake a parable unto them
they be blind leaders of the blind
Can the blind lead the blind?
And if the blind lead the blind
shall they not
both
both
fall into the ditch
fall into the ditch

Let them alone

And he spake a parable unto them
they be blind leaders of the blind
Can the blind lead the blind?
And if the blind lead the blind
shall they not
both
both
fall into the ditch
fall into the ditch

Let them alone



Blind Blind Blind Blind Blind … Blind … Blind Blind … Blind Blind Blind
Blind Blind Blind Blind Blind … Blind … Blind Blind … Blind Blind Blind

Blind Blind Blind … Blind Blind Blind … Blind Blind Blind
Blind Blind Blind Blind Blind … Blind … Blind Blind … Blind Blind Blind

Blind Blind Blind Blind Blind
Blind Blind Blind Blind Blind

Blind Blind Blind … Blind Blind Blind
Biblical Text
Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.

And he spake a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch?

Ye blind guides.


Biblical Reference
​Matthew 15.14, Luke 6.39, Matthew 23.24.

credits

from The Biblical Record [album], released July 19, 2019

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about

John Harvey Ceredigion, UK

I’m a practitioner and historian of sound art and visual art, and Emeritus Professor of Art at the School of Art, Aberystwyth University, UK. My research field is the sonic and visual culture of religion. I explore the sonic articulations of the Christian religion by engaging visual, textual, and audible sources, theological and cultural ideas, and systemic and audiovisualogical processes. ... more

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