Don McClean got it absolutely spot on with “Vincent” – fantastic lyrics jotted down on a paper bag after reading a van Gogh bio and having an 'aha' moment. I wonder if it was Irving Stone’s
Lust for Life? Wouldn’t be at all surprised - it’s a great read. There is nothing quite like an inspired work of art, visual or otherwise.
With apologies for hijacking the thread - got to wondering how many popular songs had been written about visual artists and it turns out there are not a lot (focusing on the artist, that is, as opposed to incorporating a title of a painting or something like that).
Two that I could think of: firstly Brian and Michael’s “Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs” which is about L S Lowry. Lowry was uprooted from the leafy green suburb in which his family had lived (in England), and transplanted to an urban industrial landscape that he hated at first and then became obsessed with. He painted scenes of the city of Salford and surrounds, including the people, factories, smoke stacks, docks, etc., in what is referred to as a naïve style. In actual fact, he was a superb draftsman and purposely chose to portray his subjects as he did. He holds the record for most honours declined, having turned down a knighthood (twice), and several other titles that the ‘powers that be’ attempted to bestow upon him! He was a seemingly ordinary, rather grumpy old man who had no use for the trappings of commercial success once it finally showed up at his door. He wasn’t seeking it in any event – he just did what he did. Anyway – the song captures all of that and either Brian or Michael, I forget which, comes from Salford so the accent is right, the children’s voices singing ‘Alley Alley O’ refers to the Manchester shipping canal, and so on ….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF7JWfx0rjE
Secondly – since I’ve been on a bit of a roll recently – there’s Dan Fogelberg’s “Bones in the Sky” – a tribute to Georgia O’Keeffe. I like this - he had a real love of the wilderness and for advocates of it, such as the environmentalist Edward Abbey, and O’Keeffe, who was just as pioneering in her own way, even earlier on than Abbey, through the medium of her art which so clearly reflects her passion - especially for New Mexico. I quote …
"It's probably my favorite on the album. It's one of those songs that's very dear to me, … the grandeur of this old woman and how long her life had spanned and the commitment she had to her art and to the wild places and living her life dedicated to the spirit and to her art - in many ways that's how I relate to my own existence."