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Foreign Window



"And if you get it right this time, you won't have to come back again and if you get it right this time there's no need to explain."

What a promise that is. The instrumentation is at once delicate, precise and transcendent; witness the horns that seem to announce the opening of the gates of the Palace, the balm of the gathered choir, Platania's guitar which pierces and embroiders; all provide the air on which Van's voice soars.


Beyond personal resonance there are so many questions. What is the Palace of The Lord? If not the obvious, perhaps a performance or work space, a state of mind or being? Who are the masters and what were the prayers they instilled? Are these the poets and their poems from the 'place you carried your books?" What was the Kingdom that "had been found?" Does this demonstrate the closeness and depth of the relationship between Van and Dylan? Formed when Van was giving Dylan "protection from the loneliness of the crowd." Does the use of the term "defects" indicate an understanding of the process of recovery? If so, what from? 

The wonderful version with Van and Dylan with Lord Byron "learning to love despair."


I saw you from a foreign window
Bearing down the suffering road
You were carrying your burden
To the palace of the Lord
To the palace of the Lord

I spied you from a foreign window
When the lilacs were in bloom

And the sun shone through your window pane
To the place you kept your books
You were reading on your sofa
You were singing every prayer
That the masters had instilled in you
Since Lord Byron loved despair
In the palace of the Lord
In the palace of the Lord

And if you get it right this time
You don't have to come back again
And if you get it right this time
There's no need to explain

I saw you from a foreign
Bearing down the suffering road
You were carrying your burden
You were singing about Rimbaud
I was going down to Geneva
When the Kingdom had been found
I was giving you protection
From the loneliness of the crowd
In the palace of the Lord
In the palace of the Lord

They were giving you religion
Breaking bread and drinking wine
And you laid out on the green hills
Just like when you were a child
I saw you from a foreign window
You were trying to find your way back home
You were carrying your defects
Sleeping on a pallet on the floor
In the palace of the Lord
In the palace of the Lord
In the palace of the Lord
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