Tag Archives: Hesse

Music and Literature: Leon Russell and Herman Hesse

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“This day will never come again and anyone who fails to eat and drink and taste and smell it will never have it offered to him again in all eternity. The sun will never shine as it does today…But you must play your part and sing a song, one of your best.”
—Herman Hesse/“Klingsor’s Last Summer”.

Right now it’s about 6:30 a.m. The day is fresh, the sky is pink, and it’s so quiet that I can hear a Downy Woodpecker poking holes in the eucalyptus tree. Other birds are singing and flying back and forth across the garden. A few crows call to each other. It’s peaceful. Serene. Meditative.

Leon Russell understood exactly what Hesse was talking about, especially sing a song, one of your best.

“Life is a song, and love is the music.” – Leon Russell

Leon’s last recording of his iconic A Song For You from the album A Distant Shore, was released posthumously in 2017.

Leon alwaysalways managed to convey a lifetime of authentic heartfelt emotion in every word and note, as he played the piano like no one ever will again. This version is beautiful; reflective, melancholy.

“A Song For You” by Leon Russell

I love you in a place
Where there’s no space and time
And when my life is over
Remember when we were together
We were alone, and
I was singing this song for you —

Hermann Karl Hesse was a German-Swiss poet and novelist, and winner of the 1946 Nobel Prize in Literature. His interest in Eastern religious, spiritual, and philosophical traditions, combined with his involvement with Jungian analysis, helped shape his literary work.

Nearly fifty years earlier, this was Leon on the Homewood Sessions with “A Song For You”…

In December 1970 Leon Russell recorded the Homewood Sessions at the Vine Street Theatre in Hollywood, broadcast as an ‘unscripted and unrehearsed’ one-hour TV special on KCET TV and later re-broadcast several times on the Public Broadcasting System. They actually shot six hours but only broadcast one. Claimed to be the first national broadcast of a stereo rock and roll performance, this would have required an FM simulcast, since American television was not stereo in 1970s.

ChildLIKE / ChildSOUL: Thoughts by Hermann Hesse

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There’s a huge difference between being childlike and childISH. I’ve been (wrongly) accused of being childish or of not “growing up” (whatever THAT means) when the truth is that I’ve retained the quality of childlike wonder and joy regarding the world we inhabit — especially when it comes to simple things like a butterfly or a seashell or whales or stargazing or a spectacular beach sunset. At the end of the day, these things are what’s important, at least for me.

Hermann Hesse, poet and author of “Siddhartha”, wrote about this same character trait:

“All children, as long as they still live in the mystery, are continuously occupied in their souls with the only thing that is important, which is themselves and their enigmatic relationship with the world around them.

Seekers and wise people return to these preoccupations as they mature.

Most people, however, forget and leave forever this inner world of the truly significant very early in their lives. Like lost souls they wander about for their entire lives in the multicolored maze of worries, wishes, and goals, none of which dwells in their innermost being and none of which leads them to their innermost core and home.”- Hermann Hesse

We should never ever lose the part of us that points up to the sky and says, “Look at the moon!”

Here’s another point of view; not so sweet, but wild and ferocious…

Art curated on Pinterest. Credit to the owner.

Small Delights | Kleine Freuden

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“Accustom yourself every morning to look for a moment at the sky and suddenly you will be aware of the air around you, the scent of morning freshness that is bestowed on you between sleep and labor.

You will find every day that the gable of every house has its own particular look, its own special lighting.

Pay it some heed…you will have for the rest of the day a remnant of satisfaction and a touch of coexistence with nature.

Gradually and without effort the eye trains itself to transmit many small delights.” –Hermann Hesse

The 1946 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the German author Hermann Hesse.
Photos by Enchanted Seashells